On Monday, I went to the Bürgeramt in Neukölln, which is basically the city registration center. There are several in each of Berlin's sixteen districts, and the nearest one in my district just happens to be about four blocks down the street. I am now official registered as a Berlin resident.
Then on Tuesday, I had my first appointment at Humboldt University (HU) to matriculate as a non-degree-completing student. I met up with Brandon there around 10 AM, and boy, that was the most challenging, confusing, and rather disorganized method of matriculating.
We arrived with a crowd of other international students, among whom there was a small handful of other Fulbrighters. No one seemed to have a great idea of what we were supposed to do, since there was no official line. People just stood in areas where you could assume they were probably in line, but at the same time, they could have just been standing in the middle of the lobby.
I made my way up only to be told I had to go to another room first to get a waiver in place of the private medical insurance letter I was already carrying. The letter I had was a letter that was an official document stating that I was taking a private insurance instead of the state insurance. Apparently, I still needed an official waiver letter from HU instead.
So off we went to this other room, where we filled out a form. The guys there said we were to keep the original and that we had to give a copy of it to the people in the other room for matriculation. Ok, easy enough.
Except when I finally made it to the other room (which I have to admit was much faster than what most people experienced), the lady there said she needed the original and that I was to keep the copy. Uh...that was not what Brandon and I heard. Whatever though. I was in no mood to argue and, frankly, I could have cared less which copy she wanted. I just wanted to get my semester ticket and get out of there.
After turning in all the papers, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was entitled to 100 Euros as a kind of welcome gift. Sweet. I also found out I paid 50 Euros more than I should've for my semester ticket. That's what I get, I guess, for not reading carefully.
I decided to wait for Brandon since we were both hungry and wanted to get food. The problem was that we had to wait for him to officially matriculate and pick up his semester ticket. It took an hour or more to get to his number. Ridiculous. Everyone was probably thinking the same thing: why couldn't they have just mailed us all this stuff?
Anyway, we made a few new friends. We met a girl from Paris who spoke English, French, and German. I chatted with her a bit in French, and even though she said she was impressed, we switched over to German and English since my French is entirely rusty. Haha.
Also met another Fulbrighter who is researching education in Berlin. Her focus though is on Islamic education in Berlin public schools. We definitely have areas of mutual interest though, so we're going to chat more as we both try and figure out how best to get all our research prepped properly, etc.
Today, we had our international student orientation, which turned out to be another long session that I didn't find particularly useful. The entire hour and a half program was in German, which was not a problem. The problem was that I do not plan on taking any classes, so none of the information really applied to me. I did find out how I can sign up for sports though.
I came home after that and skipped the campus tour since I've already seen HU before and really wanted to eat something. I went to the grocery store around the corner from my house and then came back to eat some delicious chicken noodle soup with bread and apple juice.
The past week has been pretty quiet as I've mostly stayed home and worked on various things. I have read more student essays for scholarships in the past week than I had all year. At least, that's how it feels. Apparently, there was a major scholarship deadline this week, so my Scholarship Junkies inbox was constantly full with new essays to read.
Although I am in Germany, I am still finding ways to stay in touch with things happening back in the states. On Tuesday, a friend and former co-worker asked me to speak to her middle school class in Tacoma via Google Chat. It was pretty fun speaking to this group of 21 or so 8th graders about everything about Germany. They asked me some of these questions about life in Germany:
• What kind of clothes do they wear?
• What kind of music do they listen to?
• What kind of shoes does my roommate wear?
• Do they have "silly bands" in Germany? (I think that's what they called them...I felt rather old not knowing what they were)
• How is the weather?
I shared a bit with them about the research project I was doing and why I thought it was important. One of the teachers asked me what advice I would give the 8th graders as they enter high school and work toward post-high school life.
As I usually try to do during my scholarship presentations, I tried to give them a bit of inspiration and context for the opportunities they had ahead of them. So I shared about the schools I have visited in Germany already and the sometimes limited opportunities that some kids in Germany have (or at least more limited in Germany in comparison with the US).
That night, Ronny also had a bit of a dinner party, so I got to meet some of his friends. They were all really nice. We spoke mostly in German, which was great 'cause I could follow along (most of it, at least). I mainly just sat and listened.
Anyway, I meet with my professor tomorrow to discuss the next steps for my research project and will probably get started in the next week or two. If I have any fun adventures from my school visits to share, I'll let you know.
Sam
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