I decided in the afternoon to update my blog in the evening and although I'm feeling quite tired it seems I'm doing it anyway. It's been quite rainy here, a couple of hours ago I finally went to photograph the neigbourhood with all the wonderful DDR ramschackle houses in the area and it started to rain and thunder really hard.
Before that I was finally for the first time in the Spinnerei, al old fabric area here around the corner, which nowadays hosts all kinds of artist's studios and other creative things. We have Natalia's argentinian mother living in the house for four weeks and she is having an exhibition in Spinnerei. Natalia is a tango teacher and for the first time I also saw her dance a little bit in the opening of the exhibition today. I heard that this weekend there was a big party in Spinnerei as it has its 125th birthday. Damn, missed it! There are so many interesting things going on in this city the whole time, you could get stressed only by trying to go to all of them... Last week there was the yearly Bach-Festival in the city and I went to two concerts, both quite modern in style though and not only music from Bach. Yes, JS Bach used to live in Leipzig and that's why they have this festival every year.
At the moment there are quite many people in the kitchen eating and talking in Spanish. Natalia's mum can only speak Spanish, she seems to be a lovely lady, but we really have some communication problems.. There is a lot of Spanish in the house as Crisu also speaks Spanish, there's a Argentinian lady living in the first floor and Natalia's Argentinian friend Sadja practically lives here - although at the moment she is sleeping somewhere als because the mother has taken her bed. Well, maybe my Spanish will improve... And I get to know Argentinian culture, for example eating dinner around midnight!
Otherwise I'm just busy preparing presentations for the university - two a week...- and wondering about the actual size of the world. I have had some very interesting encounters here. Like meeting a lady called Maire at my salsa lesson, who had no idea her name is of Finnish origin. Or that my salsa teacher knows my Finnish salsa teacher. Or the German African studies student I met at a party who had lived many years in Finland and could still speak some Finnish.
But the most amazing of all the encounters have been suddenly meeting Hanna Küstner at a African sociolinguistics lecture. She worked in the same orphanage as me in Kenya, there were two German girls who came reagularly to New Life Home and with who I spent quite a lot of time. We lost contact during the years, but suddenly I meet Hanna here in Leipzig. Amazing! The other girl, Johanna, is married and living in Nürnber with his little son and husband, I try to visit her also. The world is really small... And Hanna lives just around the corner also here in Plagwitz!
I kind of feel sorry that I'm leaving in six weeks as now I'm finally starting getting to know my fellow students. The atmosphere at the Institute of African Studies is not the best at the moment, though. Last week things got really bad as it was finally decided who is going to be the new professor after mr Wolff retires. There has been a HUGE debate already for a year or so about the direction of the African Studies in Leipzig. African studies in Leipzig have been specialized more in social studies than linguistics, which are the main area in almost all other African Studies institutes in Germany. The other two professors are not linguists, and now the new professor is also an ethnologist. That means that the African linguistics in Leipzig are really in danger. They are also firing some people, who have been responsible for teaching literature and linguistics. It's unsure even how the institute will be able to provide the obligatory linguistics cources that are needed for bachelor..
The atmosphere is really tensed, the staff is really divided into two camps - linguistics and those in favor of a social approach. There have apparently been even meetings to discuss the future of the institute where the linguistics teachers weren't invited at all. And the linguistics professor mr Wolff didn't attend the big African Studies conference couple of weeks ago, which was a clear expression of opinion, as the conference themes were not related to languages and it was more organized by the economics and history professors. It was a really big conference and I think it was really weird that one of the professors didn't attend it although it was in the home town of the university...
Otherwise there have been also big demonstrations at the university against the Bologna process and the new university laws which make studying more difficult and strict, and the university structure less democratic. I haven't been following the debate closely, but for example one floor of the university's new seminar building has been occupied for more than one months now with rebelling students and all kind of actions and happenings have been organized. Last week was the big strike week at the university with really big demonstrations in the city.
My last six weeks in Leipzig are quite booked with all kind of nice things to do, and school stuff. Laura from Helsinki ist coming here 18th to 21st July and around 30th July Carin drives here from Amsterdam. After spending a couple of days here we will go to Prag, and after a couple of days there drive to Amsterdam. I want to go there to meet friends before I come up north. I think I'll book a flight from Amsterdam to Helsinki on 9th of August. I hope to see friends in Amsterdam and the beautiful canals and maybe my host sister Rosa who is pregnant - I'm thus also going to be a host-aunt this year and not only biological aunt.. ;)
Now I've been sitting too long and my back needs a break and some stretching. I really feel the weather in my poor bones have been aching quite a lot. Everybody hopes that the real summer comes soon - sitä odotellessa, Gute Nacht!
sunnuntai 21. kesäkuuta 2009
keskiviikko 3. kesäkuuta 2009
Introduction to Iida's weekly program
It's already June and it feels a bit like my time in Leipzig is coming to an end. It's still about exactly two months now til I'm back in Finland - and as time goes fast, I'm making lists of things I still want to do here and urging people who want to visit me to book their weekends now.
The summer semester at the university is from the beginning of April til the end of July. As a Finn I find it a bit crazy to go to school in the summer time, but no-can-do. Half of the semester it thus gone already and I realized I haven't reported about my studies here at all. So here it comes: a description of Iida's week at the university.
Mondays I only have one lesson, 17-18.30 in the evening, and it is the most useless of my courses. It's a German conversation cource organized by the institute that organized also our orientation coursein March. I thought I want to concentrate on my German at least a bit and took the advanced level conversation cource where we all on our turn have to give a little lecture and lead the conversation after that. I took it, although I had to pay 25 euros for it - for the Erasmus students it's for free, but for me with a bilateral exchange contract it costs. I was really pissed off about that, but decided to do it anyway.
And it was a mistake. This is the dilemma of paying for your studies: if you are not satisfied, do they give your money back? I decided I don't even try to get my money back, as it most likely wouldn't be possible and I'm scared of the Gertman bureaucracy. There were too many people registered for this cource so they created a new group and gave it to a teacher with no experiance with this level cources. Well, she talks most of the time, although it is supposed to be a conversation cource, and keeps repeating self-evident stuff about how to make a talk in front of the class. Until now I have learned maybe 3 new German words and well, I get 3 ECT points for the cource so I guess it's worth it? I will have my own lecture in a couple of weeks and will talk about African Studies as a subject at the university.
Tuesday it gets a bit more interesting. First I have the first part of the lecture module called Afrian economics. This Tuesday's seminar is called "Africa in Globalisation" and there we concentrate in themes like agriculture, brain drain, remittances, Africa-China relationships and other relevant themes for the African economic performance. That's quite interesting. The second seminar on African economics on Wednesday, called Africa's challenges, is a bit more demanding. There we talk about quite theoretical economics stuff - I'm happy that the most people at the cource, like me, have very limited understanding of economc theories. Well, now I'm familiar with concepts like Dutch Disease and Resource cource and I have learned A LOT. These economic seminars are in English as they are also attended by international global studies students. The German students complain about this a lot, as it's really hard to understand the economic vocabularity in a foreign language. Well, for me even more fun.. After an explanation in Englisch AND in Germany i mostly get the point.
For these seminars I have to - or am allowed to, for free - attend a huge conference on African studies which is taking place here in Leipzig this weekend. It has been a huge topic the whole spring and tomorrow it's finally happening. I'm quite excited, there are very many interesting lectures and I'm going to spend there at least most of my Friday and Saturday.
But back to Tuesday. After economics I jump to African language history. This seminar is really tiny with only 4 participants. In the first lecture we were only two, Manuel and me, an I'm kind of happy in the end we are at least four... The African Studies department in Leipzig is famous for concentrating more on social studies and economics so not so many people are interested in the linguistic issues.
There are couple of people who are attending almost all the seminars I am and as the groups are small, I get to know people. In general the atmosphere at the African Studies department is really friendly and relaxed.
Language history is sometimes a bit boring, but I learn a lot. It's also a part of a lecture module, the other part of this module is on Thursdays and it's about language contact in Africa. These lectures are both held by very friendly but a bit chaotic Herr Geider. I'm going to combine my German studies, knowledge of Dutch and Africa by writing a long essay in the end about the history of and influence of language contact on the only Germanic language in Africa, afrikaans.
Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I'm concentrating on German literature. Tuesdays T'm attending a semianr called historical stories/novels, where we read some long stories with a historical theme and analyze them. On Wednesday we analyze German nature poetry and that I find more interesting than the historical stories. Both of these seminars are full of young freshemen and are quite big so it's not easy to get to know people.
My Wednesday starts with a very interesting lecture on African sociolinguistics by the professor on African Studies, who is going to retire after this semester. Herr Wolff is married with a Finn and speaks Finnish, which is a quite hilarious coincidence. The Wednesday lecture called "Globalisation vs. Indigenisation? The language issue in Africa" is accompanied by the Thursday morning seminar on the same subject. On Thursday is also another lecture by Herr Wollf about the same subject. I'm really interested in these sociolinguistic issues in Africa and have finally found a forum to discuss the phenomena I encountered back in the days in Kenya. Sheng, the multilingual identity of people and the semilingual competence of people in Nairobi now have more explanations. And the more I study the area, the more I want to go back to Eastern Africa and really learn how to speak Swahili.
Thursday afternoon I still have one lecture I haven't mentioned yet. It's about contemporary African litarature and also other comtemporary art forms in Africa. And it's also extremely interesting! - Well, in general, everything I study here is extremely interesting and I'm able to combine many areas of interest. There could be even more interesting lectures, like in the area of cultural science or some Dutch or more German literature... But my days are quite full, as you can see. Tuesdays 11-15 and 17-19 and after that salsa lesson, wednesdays from 8.20-13 and 17-19, Thursdays without a break 9-17. Yes, I forgot: Wednesday morning, damn early, I have a lesson on German phonetics. This is quite a harmless little cource, I just have to go there for 45 minutes to pronounce German correctly and practice on my own once week in language lab. That's actually quite fun and I have learded a lot!
I have a presentation almost every week - or like next week, three a week. But that means I don't have any exams in the end - or only one. I have a couple of essays I have to write but I'll manage to work load. I'll get loads of ECTs for Kela and am quite happy about that, as it means I don't have to stress about that in the fall.
This blog entry is already about as long as my school days... Well, the days and the weeks pass fast as I have my hands full the whole time. Now I'm off to the gym - bis später!
The summer semester at the university is from the beginning of April til the end of July. As a Finn I find it a bit crazy to go to school in the summer time, but no-can-do. Half of the semester it thus gone already and I realized I haven't reported about my studies here at all. So here it comes: a description of Iida's week at the university.
Mondays I only have one lesson, 17-18.30 in the evening, and it is the most useless of my courses. It's a German conversation cource organized by the institute that organized also our orientation coursein March. I thought I want to concentrate on my German at least a bit and took the advanced level conversation cource where we all on our turn have to give a little lecture and lead the conversation after that. I took it, although I had to pay 25 euros for it - for the Erasmus students it's for free, but for me with a bilateral exchange contract it costs. I was really pissed off about that, but decided to do it anyway.
And it was a mistake. This is the dilemma of paying for your studies: if you are not satisfied, do they give your money back? I decided I don't even try to get my money back, as it most likely wouldn't be possible and I'm scared of the Gertman bureaucracy. There were too many people registered for this cource so they created a new group and gave it to a teacher with no experiance with this level cources. Well, she talks most of the time, although it is supposed to be a conversation cource, and keeps repeating self-evident stuff about how to make a talk in front of the class. Until now I have learned maybe 3 new German words and well, I get 3 ECT points for the cource so I guess it's worth it? I will have my own lecture in a couple of weeks and will talk about African Studies as a subject at the university.
Tuesday it gets a bit more interesting. First I have the first part of the lecture module called Afrian economics. This Tuesday's seminar is called "Africa in Globalisation" and there we concentrate in themes like agriculture, brain drain, remittances, Africa-China relationships and other relevant themes for the African economic performance. That's quite interesting. The second seminar on African economics on Wednesday, called Africa's challenges, is a bit more demanding. There we talk about quite theoretical economics stuff - I'm happy that the most people at the cource, like me, have very limited understanding of economc theories. Well, now I'm familiar with concepts like Dutch Disease and Resource cource and I have learned A LOT. These economic seminars are in English as they are also attended by international global studies students. The German students complain about this a lot, as it's really hard to understand the economic vocabularity in a foreign language. Well, for me even more fun.. After an explanation in Englisch AND in Germany i mostly get the point.
For these seminars I have to - or am allowed to, for free - attend a huge conference on African studies which is taking place here in Leipzig this weekend. It has been a huge topic the whole spring and tomorrow it's finally happening. I'm quite excited, there are very many interesting lectures and I'm going to spend there at least most of my Friday and Saturday.
But back to Tuesday. After economics I jump to African language history. This seminar is really tiny with only 4 participants. In the first lecture we were only two, Manuel and me, an I'm kind of happy in the end we are at least four... The African Studies department in Leipzig is famous for concentrating more on social studies and economics so not so many people are interested in the linguistic issues.
There are couple of people who are attending almost all the seminars I am and as the groups are small, I get to know people. In general the atmosphere at the African Studies department is really friendly and relaxed.
Language history is sometimes a bit boring, but I learn a lot. It's also a part of a lecture module, the other part of this module is on Thursdays and it's about language contact in Africa. These lectures are both held by very friendly but a bit chaotic Herr Geider. I'm going to combine my German studies, knowledge of Dutch and Africa by writing a long essay in the end about the history of and influence of language contact on the only Germanic language in Africa, afrikaans.
Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I'm concentrating on German literature. Tuesdays T'm attending a semianr called historical stories/novels, where we read some long stories with a historical theme and analyze them. On Wednesday we analyze German nature poetry and that I find more interesting than the historical stories. Both of these seminars are full of young freshemen and are quite big so it's not easy to get to know people.
My Wednesday starts with a very interesting lecture on African sociolinguistics by the professor on African Studies, who is going to retire after this semester. Herr Wolff is married with a Finn and speaks Finnish, which is a quite hilarious coincidence. The Wednesday lecture called "Globalisation vs. Indigenisation? The language issue in Africa" is accompanied by the Thursday morning seminar on the same subject. On Thursday is also another lecture by Herr Wollf about the same subject. I'm really interested in these sociolinguistic issues in Africa and have finally found a forum to discuss the phenomena I encountered back in the days in Kenya. Sheng, the multilingual identity of people and the semilingual competence of people in Nairobi now have more explanations. And the more I study the area, the more I want to go back to Eastern Africa and really learn how to speak Swahili.
Thursday afternoon I still have one lecture I haven't mentioned yet. It's about contemporary African litarature and also other comtemporary art forms in Africa. And it's also extremely interesting! - Well, in general, everything I study here is extremely interesting and I'm able to combine many areas of interest. There could be even more interesting lectures, like in the area of cultural science or some Dutch or more German literature... But my days are quite full, as you can see. Tuesdays 11-15 and 17-19 and after that salsa lesson, wednesdays from 8.20-13 and 17-19, Thursdays without a break 9-17. Yes, I forgot: Wednesday morning, damn early, I have a lesson on German phonetics. This is quite a harmless little cource, I just have to go there for 45 minutes to pronounce German correctly and practice on my own once week in language lab. That's actually quite fun and I have learded a lot!
I have a presentation almost every week - or like next week, three a week. But that means I don't have any exams in the end - or only one. I have a couple of essays I have to write but I'll manage to work load. I'll get loads of ECTs for Kela and am quite happy about that, as it means I don't have to stress about that in the fall.
This blog entry is already about as long as my school days... Well, the days and the weeks pass fast as I have my hands full the whole time. Now I'm off to the gym - bis später!
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