ritas kleine welt

how shall i put it?!? mmmh.... how about: I GRADUATED FROM THE UNIVERSITY WITH A MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND AM TOO BLOODY EXCITED TO CALM DOWN!!!!! whatcha think; is it too much for a start?!?

right. this evening i'll have a spontaneous round of celebration in the MB with sabine and stephan. can't get drunk too much since i am expected back at work all prim and proper tomorrow morning and one doesn't work quite well with a hangover. but tonight the world shall be mine!

today i sat the last exam. oral exam in literature and cultural studies for german as a forgeign language. and i passed. just like that my uni career as a lowly student is over. tomorrow i shall have an encounter with the job centre and start drawing up schedules for the seminars that i have to teach coming this autumn. now the really exciting time at uni is about to start.

though i won't start celebrating really before the final two results (thesis paper and written exam) have come back. tempting fate and stuff. it wouldn't feel right.

and to everyone who supported me through the past five years, may they be aware of it or not, i thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!

::is off to enjoy a nice bottle of beaujolais::

just got back from a revision round with corina. the end of my university carreer as a student is drawing nigh. meaning: tomorrow i will sit my last exam. and after that that was it. five years of english and german studies gone. over. finito. and starting on tuesday it is one long week of sorting out paperwork, drawing up seminar schedules and calling here, there and everywhere to find out who is going to pay for what and in which manner. till then, have a look at a very odd but strangely awesome house right opposite corina's flat.

the first day after the exam from hell. and it does feel like life has me back -- although i spent a great portion of the afternoon in the library with revision. but everyone, meaning corina and maria, were in a good mood. corina because we spent the morning with an extensive brunch. and maria because she spent a sizable amout of time in the english department. speaking of which, i was there for about five minutes today, but that's all one needs to feel uplifted. i so can't wait to start working for the people who are made of awesome!

::points to icon:: this is how i feel. after four hours of writing, cramps in my right hand, sweating and just general cognitive activity i can now officially declare: the exam from hell is over!!! i was fortunate enough to be able to answer all the required amount of questions and i even had some time left over at the end to double-check some of them. like crossing out words, writing down an alternative answer, crossing out that again and writing down the first version. also i noticed that after four hours of uninterupted writing i tend to mix up "d" and "b". gnf! it actually took me three times to spell the word "Symbol" correctly.

afterwards we all just poured out of the room and onto the street. and then i met with my future boss and doktorvater to go over a few details for the classes that i'll be teaching starting this autumn.

tomorrow the final round of revision will kick off. just 12 more days before i'm done with it all. and after that is over i am going to enjoy two entire weeks of doing nothing at all and just enjoying the sun for a bit.

for anyone who missed it two days ago, you may now have another shot.

what is the following picture trying to tell you?

a) linguistics stinks

b) revision stinks

c) rita needs a bloke.

underline the correct answer.

what is the following picture trying to tell you?

a) linguistics stinks

b) revision stinks

c) rita needs a bloke.

underline the correct answer.

woke up this morning in a rather inconventional way: s. was muttering under her breath, i heard a dull oomph-oomph-oomph seeping through my window, a door baning outside, the oomph-oomph-oomph getting quieter (but by no means stopping) and s. re-entering the flat -- still muttering under her breath. ten seconds later, queue our door bell. the bloke from upstairs who had woken us so rudely with his bush-drum-type of music at 7 o'clock stood in our door -- barefoot, mind you! -- asking whether it was really that loud. no wonder his girl-friend dumped him. quite apart from the fact that her new man looks like a cut-out from GQ.

edit: video of the thunderstorm below the cut now.

well, at least i hope the title means "i have my nose in a book" -- but all you welsh speakers out there may correct my language at any time of course.

anywho. just five weeks to go till the written linguistics exam and i am a bundle of nerves. although i have spent the past weeks revising at least two to three hours, if not more, each day, it doesn't feel like it made any impact at all. and to top it off, revision can sort of condition you to fall asleep ten minutes after you've picked up a book and read a bit. every day i constantly have to fight the urge to lay down. today, however, i lost and slept for about one hour.

exams stink!

ps. no news on the job front yet. i am still waiting for a phone call.

this was a short day somehow. because i had gone to bed so very late last night, i only woke up this morning when it wasn't morning any longer, but bordering on noon already. to make a long story short, i watched the most beatiful documentation on charles chaplin, did some revision on comparative linguistics and watched yet another documentation, but this time on shakespeare. mmmh. it didn't quite come up to par. however, that is just my judgemental streak speaking up because chaplin has had a place in my heart ever since i watched the first silent film at an age of five or six. the little tramp has such a heart-warming air about him, there's no way one cannot like him.

and speaking of places in my heart: from the people i have admired since my childhood, i have had the honour of shaking hands with two of them within the past 8 months. which basically can be equalled to a quota of a 100%, because the other ones i would have to dig up due to their having passed already before i was even born.

so, all in all, not the most exciting of days, but very rewarding for this fangirl's heart.

right. i am in this HUGE motivational hole. although there should be so many things i should do instead of hanging at home and doing nothing. if i had to examine my behaviour, there are many parallels to when i had to take the intermediate exam in german as a foreign language two years ago. however, back then, i still managed to perform up to par. mainly because there were still english seminars that kept me going and that lured me out of my hole of a flat.

if i don't manage to get a grip on myself by this afternoon, thinngs might seriously get out of hand. nargh! i do know that i am lazy, but somehow i just can't get myself perked up enough to do much about it. i hate being like that because i just cannot stop moaning about how much there ist actually to do, although i don't do anything against reducing the work load. i can't stand this behaviour and i can't stand myself right now!

so, did i mention that i met alan and arlene alda?!? s. was actually quite observant in timing the exact moment that the universe aligned in perfect unison: when poldi scored the first goal for germany, i shook hands with the man whom i was severely adoring when i was twelve years old. how often is it that you get to almost literally bump into the idol of your childhood and not have all your dreams shattered in one instant. i can only repeat what i have said on the MASH-board before: he is a terribly sweet man. and everyone who's trying to make him out as a complete berk and stuck-up egoist better answer to me!