Time for me to go to Couch

I’m convinced that germans have smaller mouths than americans. I dunno if I’m being paranoid or what, but I think it’s true! Well, except for my roommate, but she smiles a LOT, so she’s excused.

I feel like I’m tired ALL the time now! It’s crazy! I get tat customary drowsiness around 10:00 in the morning, then again around 2 PM, and because I walk around all day to everywhere, I am exhausted starting at 6 or 7 again. I mean, it COULD have something to do with the fact that I’m sleeping on the couch and not a real bed...

I just got done skyping mom and Aunt Amy for about an hour-and-a-half. Mostly because aunt Amy loves to talk. Plus they were drinking coffee. :D My roommate (Maria) seems fascinated with the fact that I can video call for free. Yesterday, she remarked about it being free, and just now, she asked if I had happily ge-talked for free. :D (NOTE: in german, one of the ways to designate a verb in the past tense is to pair it with a form of “has” or “is” and then tack on a “ge” to the front of the verb. Hence the “getalked”) By the way, it’s really fun to converse with Maria. I throw the same emphasises (emphases?) while talking in german as I do with english, and I don’t really know if that’s the proper way to do it, but that’s the way I do it!! I’m hoping that by doing that, she’ll get some idea as to my personality. It’s gotta happen that way, since I can’t say all too much auf Deutsch, and I can’t really tell how much english she can understand. Listening to germans speak, I wonder if they speak faster than americans. Or do I just get that impression because I can’t follow more than three words at a time? Well, I’ve also seen an american movie since being here, with dubbed over German, and it seemed like they were talking really really fast. Maybe Germans have more words per sentence? Meh. Research is ongoing...

In Köln, my classmates and I would have to actively remember that we were surrounded by german-speaking people. In the states, we could carry on a surreptitious conversation by speaking in German, but here, no such conversation is really sneaky! I remember once we started talking about the tie one guy was wearing, who was standing directly behind us on the subway. Then I remembered that odds are, he would probably be able to understand what we were saying. oops

Maria refers to her father as Vati. It’s really cute. :) Speaking of her parents, I get to meet them this weekend! They’re going to come here and bring another old couch for our living room, and Maria said she’d ask her dad about installing a bulb socket for the open-ended wires that are hanging from the ceiling in the middle of my bedroom. So excited at the idea of not having to use the stupid “art display lights” anymore! Explanation: there is one light switch near the door to my bedroom which I assume controls the hanging wires (see previous sentences), and there are two switches on the purple wall in my room (see pictures on facebook), which control two stupid little directional light things, which would be fine, except they KEEP SWITCHING OFF ON ME!!! If you’re a light bulb, your ONLY job is to light up when I want you on, and to stay off when the switch is open. You FAIL, lightbulb!!!

My favorite snack so far is a fresh Brotchen (breadroll) with nutella.

ANYWAYS! Work. Workworkwork. Two days down, many many more to go. Apparently my first job will be working on a deviced to control the oil flow through an orifice to the bearing in a machine. Lots of fluid dynamics stuff. Why didn’t I pay attention in class?!? Also, why didn’t I actually buy my books last quarter? I rented (and had to return) the one I could’ve used for this job! Garrrr.... My boss is awfully nice. He spoke english to me yesterday and today, and understands that I won’t have everybody’s name memorized 10 minutes after I meet them. He also tried to get HR to tack on an extra Zuschuss (allowance?) for my rent, but of course HR misinterpreted him, and instead of adding an extra amount to my pay in the contract, they subtracted some and then said that the amount they subtracted was then added on as this “Zuschuss.” And of course, I knew this was wrong, so I tried to tell the HR girl that I thought the base salary was X, not Y (X > Y) and she told me No, it’s Y, and if you add Z to Y, it equals X. I still thought this was wrong, but she was so sure of herself, and I don’t know any fightin’ words in German, so I thought “whatever” and went ahead and signed it. After lunch, I told my boss what had transpired, and he was kind of upset! So maybe they’ll write up another contract tomorrow, and if not, I’ll be getting precisely what I thought I’d be getting, so egal. (egal = whatever) And when I asked if I could use the work printer to print off a copy of my rent contract so me and Maria could sign it and I could try to register with Nürnberg in the morning, he was all for it! I was just going to print off one copy, but he printed off three!!! Goodness. One for me, one for Maria, and one so I could write on it in english to translate the terms of the agreement. Then he spent the next hour or so going over it with me. He was really dedicated. It surprises me how much he cares about me getting settled.

I’m tired. hahahaha