Knock knock

Forgot to mention a funny habit: instead of clapping their hands when showing appreciation for a lecture, presentation etc., people knock on the table with their fists :)

“First” impressions of studying in Berlin

Oooh, I feel very tempted to wonder how time flies so fast, but I somehow have the feeling I’ve done that in some most posts already. So I’ll try to restrain myself and just state that the winter semester is over by next week (one exam remaining), which means that I’ve lived here for almost half a year. I.. I... uh... must... sorry. Just can’t hold it back. Wtf, where’d 6 months go?!

There, it’s out. Now I can proceed to something I intended to do some months ago already. I had planned on writing a post about first impressions of studying in Germany, but now I guess I can with a good conscience leave that ”first” out already.

Naturally, I have only my studies in Helsinki to compare with, and judging on conversations with other Finns, experiences vary quite a lot. I find studying here A LOT easier than in Finland. I really haven’t been doing much more than just slacking for the past months (save these past two weeks, but that’s still quite a nice ratio), whereas at home, I’m used to slaving my ass off. Of course, it’s partly just a matter of attitude: I really have allowed myself to be lazy as hell, which surely has done me good... but maybe I could get just a teeny-weeny grip by the time it’s time to return home in July (which will be in just a jiffy! Sorry. Just had to.).

It seems that book exams just don’t exist here, for which I am very grateful – I hate them, from the bottom of my heart. Most courses seem to be seminars for 20–30 people, with lots and lots of discussion. Depending on the ECTS score, they also include holding presentations, writing a Hausarbeit (an 15–25-page essay) and/or writing a protocol of one lecture. This is something completely unheard of in Helsinki. We mainly have anonymous mass lectures where no other voice than the lecturer’s is heard, or then these damn book exams. Never ever have I held a presentation at the university before, and seminars in which you actually engage in a discussion with other living people are definitely a rare treat.

I find the way of teaching here waaay better than that in Finland. I, at least, learn much better through discussion and writing than just reading hundreds and again hundreds of pages, of which you slightly panicked try to remember enough of to make it through the exam, and then forget 99% by the following week. I have to admit, though, that the German system makes it also very easy to slack it through the courses without doing really much anything. In principle, students are usually required to prepare for lectures by reading given articles etc., and of course you get a lot more out of the courses if you do that and are able to take part in the conversation. However, no one really checks whether you’ve read anything or not (I, as a rule, have not), nor does anyone force you to open your mouth. So being the lazy bastard I’ve turned into, I’ve mainly just been sitting there once a week without saying much and just listening to others (or, more likely, been daydreaming and surfing on Facebook), and for that I’ll score 3 ECTS. Kthxbai!

Luckily, most students seem to be very highly motivated here and take their studies seriously. They clearly do the preparatory work required, discussion is pretty much always very active, and the habit of holding presentations clearly shows. People are really relaxed with public performances, hold really coherent and clear presentations and are also quite good at conducting the following conversation. I stand in awe!

I’ve been wondering where this difference in attitudes stems from. In Finland, it’s not that unusual that people have an “oh whatevs, I just need to pass this course” attitude and accordingly don’t put that much effort to it. I believe the reason to lie partly in the demotivating teaching methods, partly in that most students work while studying and thus aren’t full-time engaged (time- or motivation-wise) with their studies.

Students do work part-time in Germany, too, but it doesn’t seem to be that common. Actually, parents are obliged by law to finance their children’s first degree, or until the children are 28 years old. Yes, you read right – welcome to a Western country in the 21st century. Germany does have study grants (BAföG), but due to this obligation, they’re tied to the parents’ incomes. Afaik, the income levels are quite high (and of course it’s only the gross incomes that count, debts etc. are disregarded) and thus not that many are entitled to a full BAföG. An option then would be to work part-time. Too bad the unemployment rate in Berlin is about 20% and even way higher for young people, and that own incomes affect the BAföG...

The solution remaining are study loans or scholarships, of which there are several different types to choose from (that is, apply for). The effective interest rate can be as high as 9% (mostly around 6%) and repayment must start according to the agreement – no matter if you’re still studying, unemployed, sick or for some other reason have low or non-existent incomes. At best, you’ll end up having huge solvency issues. Scholarships and many loans do not allow changing school or field of study, or taking a break in studies, but do require good notes and graduating in time.

All this taken into account, it maybe is not that surprising that most students (i.e., people who finally end up studying) are very motivated to carry out their studies in time and with good notes – and that only around 20% of Germans have a university-level degree (OECD average around 35%, Finland around 45%), most of them coming from better-off families...

Settling down

Aaahhh, it’s mid-October and I’ve finally moved to my Kreuzberg-flat :) It’s cosy, wonderful view, great location and it’s warm with central heating! G’bye 15°C bathroom, won’t miss you.

The moving itself was somewhat arduous, phew. I didn’t want to spend my money on a taxi, since I was in any case going twice to the Kreuzberg-flat; on Thursday to pick up the keys etc., and then on Friday I could really move in. So I figured I might just as well drag along my belongings. So on Thursday, I loaded my bike with two 29″ bike wheels, two large(ish) bags and my spare bed, aka a gigantic airbed, and with my backpack fully packed I begun my journey through Berlin leading my wheeled load. Of course I didn’t walk or ride the whole 10 km, but used the S- and U-Bahns. Luckily all three stations (S-Schönhauser Allee, S/U-Gesundbrunnen and U-Kottbusser Tor) had lifts, so I didn’t have to drag the whole lot down or up stairs, that would have been a torturous experience. Though I have to admit, I almost thought about it anyway, because waiting for the lifts was very frustrating :D Patience is definitely not one of my strengths, at least not when I’m trying to get things done or get from a place to another, then I(’d) want everything to be quick and efficient!

I received quite a good deal of puzzled looks with my moving load, haha. I’d like to think they were looks of awe and admiration, but probably they were just feeling sorry for me or at least thought I was losing my mind. Very many helpful hands were offered :) But well, comparing to that I would have dragged all that stuff just with my two hands, I would have needed a second round. So I’m actually a bit proud of my bike-moving-idea! And the effort surely paid off, now I’m in my new flat and won’t have to move anywhere until May <3

Mid-October also means that the six-week German course has come to an end. I can’t quite understand how time flies so incredibly fast?! “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” The language course really has been very, very helpful, although it has required a whole lot of work. Well, maybe these two things are related... :) But in any case, it’s really encouraging to notice I’ve actually made some progress, especially with my spoken German and vocabulary. It still is a far cry from fluent, and especially when I’m tired I still tend to freeze. But at least I am better understood than six weeks ago, and also I understand better; I can follow TV programmes or films and understand pretty much everything. But I still suck :D But I believe it does me good to really suck at something, and still have to try to cope and get better. It’s quite humbling.

A weird thing related to the process of language learning is that my French has totally degraded. It's really weird, German and French are somehow in the same category in my brain, which is strange since my French is a lot stronger than my German. Or was, at least. Now when I try to speak French, I really have no guarantees whatsoever that I'll actually speak French?! I use German words and even sentences without even noticing (or at least noticing it when I've already blurted it out, and it thus is already too late), and when trying to think of the correct French words, all I can think of are German. Wtf...

Mid-October also means that next week, the academic year starts. I’ve got quite interesting courses ahead: a seminar in social/labour market/economic policy, a couple of courses in environmental policy, a course about politics of memory (i.e., political history), and then a German course. I’ll actually be able to get quite a good deal credited in Helsinki, so also my master degree studies are advancing here :)

I guess everyone recognises the slightly frustrated longing for a change from time to time, a boredom with everything being always the same. But I must say, more than the acute change with all the new things, I like more the phase thereafter, when things aren’t all new and strange to the point of intimidation. It’s exciting but very tiring, and I do, however, need some sort of routine and familiarity in order to feel... well, I guess “safe” or “comfortable” are somewhat the right words. It’s quite a perfect balance: life is not (yet?) in a boring rut, but has a freshness along with a nice familiarity to it :) A long story short: life’s good <3

Sleep deprived in Berlin

Phew, as I mentioned when presenting myself, I have the tendency to always have a crammed calendar. I don’t quite understand how, but the feeling is ever present also here in Berlin, despite the fact that I have a lot less work to do.

I point my blaming finger at the German course, which starts at an unholy hour in the morning (at least when one has to take into account the time it takes to get to the FU situated in the middle of nowhere, also known as Dahlem), and thus makes me adapt to a completely crooked rhythm of life. Or well, tries to make me, as I am unable to. Of course, the nice little schoolgirl I am, I do get up at an abnormal time in the morning, and even go to bed unnaturally early to avoid being ready the next morning to give up three-quarters of my kingdom and my left leg just to be allowed to sleep. But it just doesn’t make any difference whether I have a good 8-hour sleep every goddamn night or not.

No. I’m not adapting, I won’t be adapting, and I doubt I ever will be able to adapt, if "adapt" is understood as an odd habit being assimilated into/as the norm. I’m. just. not. a. morning. person. To my defence, I’m not the kind of non-morning person who’ll always be grumpy, bitchy and/or mute until the day is way passed noon. I am able to communicate in a civilised manner, get stuff done and so, but I’m just TIRED. Know what I mean?

I wouldn’t be so worked up with having to flip my rhythm of life, if it didn’t feel so frustratingly pointless. Our course starts at 9:30 and ends at 13:15 every day until mid-October. That’s all the regular programme I have! Why, for the loving mother of god and all that is holy, cannot the time of the whole course just be moved a few hours forward? Say, 12:30–16:15? And of course excursions with their own exceptional timetables.

Speaking of which, we had our first excursion today with the theme architecture. We didn’t have any lecture yesterday (which we found out around 10:30, make a wild guess who muttered a few words about the lost possibility of sleeping in...), and we were given no information on the excursion beforehand, relying entirely on Wednesday’s lesson. Great. Well, our teacher did show up in the afternoon, as there is a film shown at the FU every Wednesday afternoon (not anything mandatory, more like a film club), and she was the only one with the DVD. There she informed some students, who for their part informed others – Chinese whispers, the basic method of information in the 21st century. E-mail is so 1993. The rumours said Thursday 10 AM at U-Bahnhof Tiergarten, which doesn’t exist: there’s either the Bahnhof (station) for S-Bahns in Tiergarten in Western Berlin, or the Station for U-Bahn in Tierpark in the East. I asked whether it was the U- or the S-Bahnhof, got a reply “U”, and as I didn’t exactly know what the programme or route was, I assumed then it was U-Tierpark.

*BEEEEP* Wrong answer! It actually would have been quite interesting to hear about the architectural and infrastructural history in the West, as I am quite unfamiliar with it, but instead ended up spending the morning in U- and S-Bahns making my way through to West. (I don’t need to mention the lost sleep, do I?) I caught up with the others in the cafeteria in Akademie der Künste, where we spent an hour or so (at the cafeteria, I mean), then we travelled back East to Friedrichshain for the last hour or so :D Oh well, next time I know to double-check with our info-challenged teacher instead of making my own assumptions.

Hm... I actually was going to write about the bureaucracy of Berlin and its universities, and not froth about morning wake-ups like a madwoman, but I guess I’ll have to get to that in the next post. Hopefully by then I’ll have some flat news, too! Keep your fingers crossed :)

Spreche nicht Deutsch

It's Thursday and the first week at Freie Universität has almost reached its end. The actual courses won't start until mid-October (thank goodness, I haven't yet had the slightest glimpse of any course programmes, I guess I should do something about that here in the near future), but I'm participating in an intensive course in German, which will last until the beginning of the semester.

We met on Monday morning at 8 AM, something I think should be prohibited by international law on the grounds of human rights and world peace, and first there was this basic "Welcome to the FU, we hope you'll enjoy your stay here and in Berlin" yadda yadda yadda. After that, all the participants were to take a placement test, according to which the actual groups were formed starting Tuesday.

I "scored" the CEFR level B2, which was the highest level among the participants, but I really feel I belong in an A2 group or something. Everyone in my group speaks at least a gazillion times better German than I do, I feel really tongue-tied and can't seem to get it round anything I'm trying to say. My head just goes completely blank from all the pathetic vocabulary I've managed to gather in my tiny head, not to mention my complete inability to pronounce anything properly. Or at least so it feels, and I'm really having trouble imagining that I could ever manage this language fluently, Swedish-speaker or not. (For those readers who don't know, Swedish is my mother tongue. Apparently it should be very helpful in the learning of German, Germanic languages as they both are. So it does in theory, but I'm proving practice to be something completely different.)

Oh well... We have a proverb in Finnish saying "Siberia will teach" (meaning one will eventually learn the hard way), I guess Berlin will be my Siberia. [Does this make me the 21st-century Zakrevsky, who called Finland "his Siberia", and, thus, Berlin the 21st-century Grand Duchy of Finland?! Oh goodness, that was such a crappy history nerd joke that everyone should just ignore it, and it shouldn't even be published – but let it be my punishment as public humiliation.] Enough of this whine now, it's almost past my bedtime and tomorrow it's Friday, meaning parteey!

Introduction

Oops, I just realised I haven't introduced myself or explained what on earth it is I'm doing in Berlin. So let's get that sorted out.

I'm Sophy, 26 years old, from Helsinki, Finland. I study political history as main subject at the University of Helsinki and social policy and gender studies as additional subjects.

I always seem to book my calendar completely full with school and/or work, but in my theoretical spare time I enjoy the usual palette: cycling, cooking, reading, films, music in all sorts of genres. I don't mean "all sorts of genres" as in "I like ALL sorts of music, like, from Rihanna to Amy Winehouse", but really many sorts of things make me tick. In music, from lazy ambient to violent d&b, with the exceptions of reggae and rap. Meta exceptions: dub and (some) Swedish rap and reggae. Right now the hottest thing on earth for me (at least on the party front) is disco, but I'll settle for pretty much anything as long as the vibes are good.

In literature I must state that surrealism > everything else. Gabriel García Márquez, Mikhail Bulgakov, Daniil Kharms... ah <3 I also like John Irving, Milan Kundera, George Orwell, Dostoevsky, Väinö Linna, and Peter Høeg, among others. I guess my list of favourite films/directors could be quite easily deducted from the presentation above :) The list includes Jan Svankmajer, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, the Coen bros, Monty Python, Lars von Trier, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Roy Anderson etc. etc.

So now to the part "what on earth am I doing in Berlin?".

I first visited Berlin in 2003 when I was interrailing in Central Europe. Naturally I didn't know the city very well (= at all), but nevertheless it conquered my heart. Since then I've been to Berlin several times, for 2–4 weeks at a time, and visit by visit it became clearer to me that I wanted to live in Berlin. If not forever, at least for a period long enough to really call living somewhere. The most practical way would of course be through an exchange programme or internship, and so I applied for various programmes and to my bitter disappointment wasn't admitted to any of them.

Until in 2010! I applied for East Central European, Balkan and Baltic Studies's (ECEBB) (a programme at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki) one-year exchange programme at the Freie Universität Berlin, and was chosen as their exchange student! As you might expect, I accepted with fierce enthusiasm (I must have set a new world record in exlamation mark usage when I announced my admittance on Facebook), and here I am now! Here at the FU, I'll be studying at the Osteuropa-Institut, although I guess time will tell what – and how much – I really will be studying :) "Life", "in excess"...? Grade: A+?