About killing presentations, pregaming, Nemo and busses

I killed my presentation! Just yesterday I did. Remember - the one about the roots of metaphor? I really killed it. (an expression I learned)

But before I could kill it I had to go through every single emotion on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is 'absoluteley devastated to the point of wanting to drop the class' and 10 'absoluteley devastated to the point of wanting to drop the class'.

So what happened? I did pull through with my reading and preparing and worked my ass off. Everybody in class, including the professor, was amazed at how well I understood the texts (for those who are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor) and told me I did a very good job at explaining the topic. In the beginning of the presentation I was nervous as hell but I soon realised, there was no need, since I really did understand the topic and so I got more confident while speaking and in the end I was even able to talk freely without sticking to my notes.

Also the discussion after and during my presentation was very lively. Here students are required to take actively part in the discussion because it's part of their final grade. So everybody is pretty eager to say something and to get their point across. And I can tell you: this is so much more fun than sitting in a seminar where no one wants to say something. Of course sometimes what is being said doesn't move the discussion any further, but most of the time my fellow students had very good ideas and questions, that I will be able to use in my paper. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, a three hour class leaves a lot of room for elaborate discussions – there is no need to cut them off because there's enough time.

Although I only have three classes I have a lot of reading and preparing to do. So I basically spent the last couple of days studying. Well – that's what I'm here for, right?!

But of course there are these small (sometimes big moments), when I realise that I am actually far away from what I call home. Just like I was waiting for the bus the other day on Main Street, where fast food restaurants are ligned up next to each other like beads on a pearl necklace. We got McDonald's, Subway, Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts and Burger King in walking distance. So I was waiting for the bus, looking at these food chains, and all these big cars were driving on this broad street and suddenly it hit me: ok, this is the States and I'm here.

That is a picture of Laurel Avenue: 

  

I have to tell you about the bussystem: there are two bus systems in Binghamton, one is the public transportation of the county and the other bussystem is run by students of BU. They are called the blue busses, since they are blue. This picture shows the two kinds of blue busses they have. 

The one in the front is the newer model and the one in the back the older model they have. If you want to get off the new bus you have to pull down a yellow line that goes from the front of the bus to the back. Just like in this picture:

 

But if you want to get off the old bus you have to let the driver (which is always a student) know that you want to get off at the next stop. How? By screaming 'Next Stop, please!'. Very weird in the beginning but after that it's kind of fun.

Also fun is having a snow fight with the boys from next door at 3am until the neighbours are yelling: 'Stop it! We're trying to sleep!' This happended last friday after Nemo hid the city under a big layer of snow. This picture shows our street – Laurel Avenue – right before the snow fight and is taken from our front porch. (Thanks to Riva for this very beautiful picture)

 The other pictures show the morning after. But other than the masses of snow nothing much happened here in Binghamton. (The last one shows our backyard)

 Our weekends are filled with houseparties where students don't really do much except playing beer pong and getting drunk: This is the place I was at yesterday.

I learned that what we call 'vorglühen' is called 'pregaming' - maybe because you prepare for playing beer pong? Who knows?! But when we are pregaming it looks like this (and sounds like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hiUuL5uTKc ):

 Left to right: Me, Katharina, Chris (also called Linda) and Spencer (both of the guys live next doors), the other ones are Patty (as seen here in the black shirt)

 and HC (handsome Chris):

 Pregaming sometimes also looks like this:

 Or this (this is Riva, me, Katharina and Sina in our basement):

 but most of the time we actually look like this:

 And with these riant faces I will leave you to your own devices. 

Ah, just one more thing: How do you know you actually made it to the States? For me it was the Paris Hilton dream I had last night. o_0 (Although I do have other really nice dreams, including outdoor-parties in Leipzig, since I finally - after four weeks - got over my jetlag.) 

Good night, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite!