My Report

Already got my report yesterday (after I was too late at uni).

I'd say for a first year I did quite well.

First foreign language (English) - Average 1,85

Grammar and Vocabs - 2

Translation German to English - 2

Translation English to German - 1

Oral language proficiency - 2

Commercial Correspondence - 2

Extemporaneous Translation - 2

Economics English - 2

German - Average 3,00

German Grammar - 3

Economics German - 3

Second foreign language (Spanish) - Average 4,00

Grammar and Vocabs - 4

So my total average is 2,3, and I'm in English 1,15 better than in German?! Embarassing.

Last Day of Uni

... and it didn't start very well.

According to the schedule we were supposed to first have a 2-hour presentation about surviving year two and to then get our reports at 10:15am.

I decided to skip the presentation and to take a later train so I'd still be on time for the reports. Haha! The train was 15 minutes late and the teachers decided to hand out the reports 30 minutes earlier. I ran but got there 60 seconds before everyone left. So one minute in which everyone from FAK I and FAK II stared at a red-faced, sweating and panting me. And of course I had to walk to the front to the headmistress and the deputy headmistress to get my report. Awkward.

Afterwards - since a 2-hour way to uni for one minute of awkwardness is a bit too much - I decided to stay and help a few of my classmates with the stock take of the uni library. I don't want to pretend here that I only stayed there to help them because I'm that nice. I wanted to borrow a few books for the holidays because I've read all the books I own at least 3 times.

So we (I + 6 others) first divided into 3 groups, one group had to check the DVDs, one had to check the English books (novels and stuff), and the last group had to check the other books (German, Spanish, French, etc.) I was in the last group - meh. But it turned out that our laptop didn't work so I got to join the book-group.

At around 1:00pm (we had finally reached the letter 'H') the headmasters told us to take a break - and invited us and a few other students who did a lot for the school in the last year to get some pizza. So we went to the Italian restaurant around the corner and everyone was allowed to order something to drink and a pizza or pasta - but we were NOT ALLOWED to order a salad. According to my deputy headmistress the salad there tastes like crap. So I ordered a coke and pasta with spinach (great pasta!), and after we were all done with that my headmistress asked us if anyone wanted anything more to drink or maybe some ice cream? We were full... But it was really nice of them to buy us all food!

Afterwards we got back to checking the books and DVDs. We were only 5 people left and we checked and checked and checked... and the headmistresses kept coming back to ask us whether they could help us with anything or whether they should get us some cake or Cola or something. But no - we were busy. At least 5 times the 'big boss' told us to go home because our holidays had already started and the books could still be checked next year... But again - we were busy and doing really well at that time already!... Germans...

At some point my headmistress gave up and gave each of us an envelope. As it later turned out she had given everyone of us € 30,- for helping.

When we were finally done after almost 6 hours I borrowed 8 books and 3 DVDs.

The King's Speech (already watched before, great film)

Maleficent (also already watched)

The Corpse Bride

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Ghost Stories

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Pride and Prejudice

Sherlock Holmes

To Kill a Mockingbird

The day turned out to be better (and longer) than expected.

Tomorrow is the end-of-term BBQ at my university and my plans have changed a couple of times within the last few hours,  right now I have no idea how it's supposed to work out.

Plan A: I go to class till 1pm, then go home, take the 5pm train back to the city where my university is, walk to uni and bring them the salad and the bottle of Robbie Bubble.

Plan B: I skip the last lesson, buy the pink pegasus, take the train back home, the 5pm train back to uni, etc...

Plan C: Go to class till 1pm, go home, take the 4:40pm train back to uni and buy the pegasus on my way there, etc...

Plan D: Go to class till 1pm, then stay in town. Leave the salad and stuff at my mate's place and collect it later.

Plan D is not exactly the best. Getting up at 5am, then probably not being back in town till past midnight, I'll fall asleep on the grill. But at least I'll be able to get my horse with wings.

Spelt Husk & Millet Pillows

I'm sorry, I'm slow.

Last week we had a project week at uni where we had to work with FAK II on a website. The website was about pillows with herbs and other hocus-pocus stuff in them, and our assignment was to translate it from German to English.

Probably the most boring topic possible. (Even the teachers hated it - and they only had to hang around at school in case we wanted to know anything.)


Day 1, Monday:
We had 7 lessons in total and only two of them were for the project (resulting in many students (including me) to skip the last 3 lessons).
The teachers told us what kind of website it was, handed out the printed texts and divided us into groups. Then we had to read the texts and start marking all technical terms.

Day 2, Tuesday:
Tuesday we had another 2 hours for looking for the vocabularies and putting them in the 'perfect Excel list'. Not much to say about that.

Day 3, Wednesday:
Wednesday we had 4(!) hours for the project (after having the last 2 Spanish lessons of the year). And at least since then even the last person understood that a translation project with 50 translators is almost impossible. But we somehow managed to finish the vocab list despite the very bad puns and the older students thinking that they were so much better than we are (FU!)

At this point I would lie to share the two worst puns with you:

#2: the students were discussing about the product names and had decided earlier that they would simply call those special herbal mixtures 'for women', 'for better sleep' and... well... 'for joints'.
Now, the phrase already sounded a bit weird in German, but a 'special herbal mixture for joints' which has 'a very calming effect' sounds just forbidden... though on the other hand it might boost selling...

#1: it didn't really take a long time till this one came up:
The website is also selling Raps-Kissen. So we all looked up Raps in English - and we all found rape and rapeseed. So... Rape pillows... And of course 'Raps ist ein Energiespender' becomes 'rape is an energy booster'... Uhm...


Day 4, Thursday:
6 hours for the project. First we were divided into 3 groups (at least 10 students were missing), and then each group got a part of the main text to translate. My group did quite well, the only problem was that the teachers kept coming by to 'correct' our sentences. The other three hours we were busy correcting the texts with the other two groups. First was our part - and we really needed the whole 3 hours to correct the first page of it because - as it turned out - the teachers had completely screwed up our sentences and the solutions we had first were the right ones. We were not very happy.

Day 5, Friday: Open end
Oh dear, open end... we were all sure we would still be sitting on the text on Saturday, because the main text was 5 pages and then there were 10 more pages for the links... and we did not only have to translate everything but then also to discuss it with the whole group (we were approx. 25 students left). And when discussing one page takes 3 hours... oh dear! But - we were done at 11:15am. The client had forgotten to include the link pages in his order, therefore we didn't have to translate them. Doesn't really make sense to only translate the main page of a website but who cares - weekend! Afterwards the others went for a (free) ice  cream but I just went home... too many spelt husks that week...

Today we had a professional literature translator from Munich at our school. "Professional"

This woman looked... bad..., she could barely go 30 minutes without smoking or drinking coffee, and the fact that she only earned ~ 1,000€ a month... minus taxes...

Then she acted as if becoming a literature translator would be an honour. You have no free time, earn nothing and the authors and publishers treat you like shit? Sounds brilliant.

In the afternoon we then had a 3 hour-course with her where we read some of our translations from the text we had been given before and just compare it with hers and stuff like that. And really - for someone who mentions in every other sentence how great her translations are this was nothing. Complete bullshit.

Apart from 2 or 3 students (but they're really bad in translating) our solutions sounded way better than hers. But she acted as if they were not good at all. And then she read her solution - and she read exactly what she had told us just seconds before was "the worst" solution.

?!!!!

Instead of doing my homework for next week I've started doing the homework for... well... July? Starting from the back because maybe maybe I've found a job till then AND the weather could be nice... better be prepared.

Got my English to German translation I had to do during the Easter holidays back today.

Was certain that my mark this time would be much worse than my last two exams (both times I got a 1). Besides, I had translated the text in the middle of the night...

But no, look at that: not only a 1, but a 1,00. Anyone wants to employ me?