It's been a strange week, strange in the sense that now that classes are done, I have a lot of free time, and I don't know what to do with it all. So far I've mostly been using it for sleeping in and hanging out with people in the StuSie complex- most of my evenings have been spent outside in the nice weather, be it out by the lake behind my apartment building, or making dinner with other students. We made a good dinner on wednesday at Lauren's apartment- Chicken with couscous and garlic bread. I've been hanging out with Lauren and Alex this week (mostly because a lot of student's left to travel with all this time off). Lauren's roommates have been welcoming too, in particular the two german ones. Its nice to practice so much german with them, I have to admit. They're both going to be teachers, so they don't mind helping us all with our skills. They speak outstanding english, too. They'll both make good english teachers someday, even if they don't fit the part of a "teacher" with their really long hair. Kind of cool in my opinion.

Tonight I'm writing this from my bed, sick. Kind of lame, I know. I felt it coming on yesterday, as I didn't sleep good and found myself waking up coughing a few times. Last night was even worse. I've been spending the majority of my day sleeping and trying to get better. So far it's worked okay, though I'm still really tired, and my cough hasn't really improved. I got an email from my mom saying that she wants to skype with me, so she can video chat. She picked a great weekend to check up on her son; I look pretty rugged. And this cold has brought me to a pretty big realization- there are no parents here to fuss over me, there is no girlfriend here to nag me and tell me to eat some soup. It's just me, taking care of myself. And while that might sound melodramatic or lonely, it's more of just a fact. Gotta learn to take care of yourself sometime; it's called growing up, I suppose.

Regardless, I'm doing okay. I've been doing a lot of stuff this week, besides cooking and enjoying the outdoors. I had my academic advising meeting on thursday, and I had to pick my schedule of classes. Classes start on the 18th- so I still have another week- but I'm nervous. I picked a lot of classes in the University, as opposed to the classes offered through the AYF program. I hope I can handle the load, but thats why scheduling is really flexible. The final drop date for classes is in December... and I have enough classes selected where I have too many credit hours, I'll have to drop some the first week. They just encourage you to go to classes the first week to make up your mind, because to be enrolled in many classes, you -have- to be there for the first day. So if you have any interest in a class at all, you have to attend the first day. They rarely allow you to jump in later, you're name simply isn't on the attendance list.

So outside of trying to figure out a foreign education system and staving off a cold, I'm doing just fine. The Michigan/Michigan State football game is this weekend, and it's kind of a bummer that I'll be missing it, since both teams are undefeated and ranked well. I'm not too worried, espn.com works just fine in Germany too. Lauren, another AYF student who lives in StuSie with me, goes to U of M, so we're having a lot of "discussions" about which team will come away Saturday with a win. I would love to see an MSU win tomorrow, even if I can't be in Michigan to enjoy the victory. It's still nice to see the Spartans do well. My goal for this week was to take lots of pictures of Freiburg and post them on this blog. Obviously, I've fallen behind. I still have yet to upload my Oktoberfest pictures to my blog. Yikes! Oh well, I have nothing to do tomorrow afternoon and on Sunday. The weather isn't going to be too bad, either.

"Humankind cannot stand very much reality."

-T.S. Eliot