Last Paper of the Semester

I can't tell if it's a good thing I can churn out a 2000 word paper in 24 hours, when writing a paper of that length used to be my worst enemy in highschool.

Does it mean that I've gotten more efficient when it comes to writing scholastic papers, or that I'm more efficient in writing a bunch of hokey-pokey?

Routine

....I actually have one! I know, crazy! Today's post is all about "that hum-drum" life, because I'm too lazy to finish the Slovakia post right now.

For the weekdays, general routine:

I set my alarm for 6:45, and snooze it about five times before I actually get up around 7:25. Then I take a shower, and either eat a quick breakfast and stop in at church real quick before class, or I stop in at church first and then eat breakfast. I had an even better schedule when they had 7:30 Mass for a couple weeks in September! But alas, alack, they have that no longer, to the woe and misery of many people.

After lunch, I don’t have a set plan for what to do until 5:30 supper – I either do school, go to the Spar, or piddle. After supper, I either do school, go to the Spar, or, piddle. At 5:30, they have Rosary in the church, so I usually go to that.

Anyways, I have two classes each day – one at 8:40 which ends at 10:10, then another one at 10:20-11:50.
In all of these classes, we’re supposed to get a little break during the class itself, but only Dr. Hass in Western Civilization II actually gives us a decent break. He doesn't give us on in Medieval World because that’s his specialty and he loves talking about it. Cassidy I think just forgets to give us breaks, and MacNamara technically gives us a break, but it is a three minute break that is strictly enforced, so there’s not really a whole lot you can do with it. These classes are divided into A days (usually Monday and Wednesday) and B days (usually Tuesday and Thursday), so I’ll just go through the days of the week to give you the general outline.

Monday: morning routine. History of Civilization II class with Dr. Hass first – we technically have a ten minute break between the first and second class, but he usually goes over time, so I have just enough time to get to Philosophy of the Human Person class. I’m okay that he goes over, because I don’t do anything during the little break anyways aside from sit in class and wait for it to begin. 

After Philosophy class, I go back to the room and piddle for half hour until lunch begins at 12:30.

Tuesday: morning routine. Medieval World class with Dr. Hass, then Christian Marriage with Professor Cassidy. I have these classes with Krista, which was why I liked them most at the beginning of the semester – I could actually talk to someone between breaks. But now I actually like my A day classes themselves better than B days, plus there are a couple people I can talk to anyways.
After class, I go to noon Mass and try to sit in the back. Fr. Shell said if Mass is so distracting for me, then I should just close my eyes during Mass, so I sit in the back so no one thinks I’m ignoring them. After Mass, it’s the Mass rush to the Mensa for lunch and it’s super crowded and depending on what mood I’m in, it can either be tiring to have to sit with other people, or just kind of like “hm, whatever.”

Wednesday: morning routine. A day classes. Lunch. At 2, I have Holy Hour.

Thursday: morning routine. B day classes. In Medieval World, half the class comes at the normal time, and the other half comes later. I come at the usual time, and we have “discussion”, which is where we put all our chairs in a circle, ask Dr. Hass questions, and he answers them. We don’t actually really discuss anything. I wish we could use this plan with philosophy, because we have so many people in it and I’d rather discuss it more. Oh well, ce la vie! Enjoy your crown! Mass. Lunch.
At 2, I go to the Newtons for Ministry to Moms until 3:30. I don’t really have a routine of what I do with them, as it depends on what kids are at home. Mrs. Newton is trying to have me teach Allie (youngest) and Hannah May (second youngest) Latin, but it's kind of a laugh so far - the girls get really distracted by the little mouse that "teaches" Latin in the book Mrs. Newton gave me to use. 

The rest of the weekend is totally up for grabs!

PSA

I'm gonna be in Kosice, Slovakia on a mission trip from tomorrow morning to next Saturday night.
I'm worried about having enough to do there (this was rather a last minute mission trip set up by Dr. Healy since so many people wanted to do the Romania mission trip) and honestly, I'm also worried about my "team".

It's only three other people, but we all had dinner together this evening, along with the other Slovakia team and Romania teams, and man oh man, I don't know if it's just a mood or what, but I just got really tired of everyone really fast.

Maybe it's because I literally am so tired.

Anyways, you say prayers for me, I say prayers for you! It's a win-win situation! (though I'll probably get more win out it...)

Where I go a little cray-cray with the Rosary

I mentioned awhile back about how I was praying the Rosary on weekdays with a couple girls I met. Well, a couple weeks back, I saw a bunch of posters pinned up around campus about Rosary at 5:30 in the Kartuase church, with the intention of praying for the persecuted Christians in Syria - an issue that lies a little closer to home here than it does in America. The girls and I decided to just go to the 5:30 Rosary instead, since it was more "official" or whatever, and there would be more people. 

Different people lead the Rosary every day, starting the beginning prayers, leading the first decade, and then finishing up. Once they finish the first decade, there is a pause for someone else in the church to pick up the next decade. 

It's kinda funny, because sometimes there is a long pause before someone will just give in to the "peer pressure" and just lead the next decade. Of course, given the opportunity to be distracted by something, I run with it and have had fun chuckling to myself over who will give in first. I myself have never led a decade because...I dunno, "public speaking" or whatever just makes me really nervous, and that church is VERY echoey. 

Anyhow, the point is that I enjoy other people being nervous when they feel "pressured" to lead, though I didn't dare do it myself.

So last night, I got in a couple minutes early (*polishes halo*) and was kneeling in a pew, when suddenly I felt someone leaning in to my pew to tell me something. I turn, and my philosophy teacher asks me if I'll lead the Rosary. 

To him: "Um, sure."

To myself: "AGGHHHHHH!!! PUBLIC SPEAKING!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Then he told me to wait a couple minutes to give people a chance to trickle in. 

Of course more people came that evening that any other previous evening.

Go figure.

Anyways, I could've used that time to calm down and give myself a pep talk ("C'mon Clare, you can do this! Your entire life has been preparing you for this moment! Just think of all those decades you've led at random churches and at home! You were BORN for this!") but mostly I just freaked out. 

Like, how was I supposed to word the intention at the beginning? Most people said something along the lines of "We offer this Rosary up for the persecuted Christians in Syria", but what if they had changed the intention on me? What if we were now praying for seminarians, or persecuted Oliphants in Kalamazoo?! 

What if I said it too fast (I talk extra fast when I'm panicked)?!

WHAT IF THE WHOLE WORLD CAME CRASHING DOWN BECAUSE I DIDN'T GET THE WORDING EXACTLY. RIGHT.

So those few minutes went really fast in my panic, but also really slowly, because I was unsure about how many minutes I was supposed to wait. 

A "few" minutes?! 

How much is a FEW minutes?! 

1? 

2?! 

3 minutes and 24 seconds?! 

AGHHHHHH.

When I decided that if I waited any longer, my teacher and everyone else would start throwing tomatoes at me, I just skipped the prayer intention all together and dove right into the Creed. 

Aside from the panic about the prayer intention, things actually went pretty well - I managed to lead slowly, but not too slowly, and distinctly, but not too distinctly - it was juuuuuusstttt right. 

Most people who lead end with the Hail Holy Queen, the "Let us pray: O God, whose..." and then invoke a couple saints. I, however, decided to get a little cray-cray and "added" the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the pope at the end (to gain the indulgences)

As I was doing so, I was laughing rather maniacally to myself, thinking 'Professor MacNamara is probably thinking "Oh no, this one's gone haywire - she's adding extra prayers!! TAKE HER DOWN! GO GO GO!"' and then he and a bunch of other secret prayer agents that popped out of nowhere would jump over the pew and take me down while everyone else in the church panicked at my adding the extra prayers. 

That didn't happen, fortunately, but anyways, I felt like a blog post was due and this is one of the more "significant"  (i.e. something that I can add extra embellishment to to make more interesting) events that have occurred recently, so, there you are! 

Random Notes: Volume I, Issue 3

I lost my headphones.
Which means no more Stillwater Hobos (at least until a replacement can be found)
Agony.

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Luckily, I have found consolation; chocolate.
Krista and I (with an emphasis on I) may or may not have devoured one box of delicious Croatian chocolate dipped biscuits (that Monika introduced us to) in less than 24 hours.
Also, I may or may not have consumed one large bag of M&M's (it can with 10% more!) and a triple sized bar of Milka within a rather teeny time frame.

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Also, I discovered that a WHOLE SEASON of Korra happened and I didn't even know it! I can tell you I remedied that problem prett-ee quickly!
Unfortunately, it's only the first day of midterms week, and in my first fervor, I left only a couple episodes of season two to distract myself with.

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I've succeeded in getting Europeans to think I'm European, and getting Franciscan girls to think I'm Franciscan.
Well, I am technically Franciscan, but the fact that I'm now considered to be dressing unhomeschoolerish enough is pretty hilarious to me.
Little do the Europeans or the Franciscan's know....

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I've meet all the students and the directors for the LCI program. One of the directors however, looked reaaaalllly familiar to me, and I finally remembered her face from being one of Sister Maria's volleyball teammates her freshman year!
When I was walking back from the town today, I saw her (Teresa) and we talked a little bit about it. She was super nice and said we should get coffee, which would be fun, but very adult-ish and I doubt it'll happen because the LCI people seem to always be running around like headless chickens with all the events they're involved in.

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This post of Krista's is simply golden.

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

...just another blog post! I like to keep everyone on their toes about when I'll post. ;)

The morning got off to a nice start with 7:30 Mass by the bishops. A lot of bishops and priests came in a couple weeks back for a short LCI program to help them learn better English, and they've been offering Mass at 7:30 consistently, which has been AWESOME. However, now they're all going back to their parishes, which makes this morning probably the last Mass of theirs I'll have attended.
Major bummer.
After Mass, I talked with Mrs. Newton, because I was scheduled to do Ministry to Mom's today, but I was (still am) getting over the sore throat thing and didn't want to infect the girls. Mrs. Newton was really funny, and told me I was still quite welcome to come (she seemed especially eager), because the girls being around sick people "toughens them up".

We had our Medieval History small group discussion session today, which was interesting enough. I wrote a letter to Polly Wolly the first half of it, and asked lots and lots of super intelligent questions during the second half!

Then we had Christian Marriage, and John, I didn't play any games on the computer! Instead, when I got bored because someone got Cassidy off topic, I tried drawing him. Because he wouldn't stay still, I drew my reflection from the laptop screen, which sounds rather egotistical, but it was actually kinda interesting - I've never tried drawing my most loverly face before.

I regret to inform you that despite my great drawing skills, I was not able to catch all the refined and elegant features my face possesses.

Once class was over, I piddled around till the Mensa opened (half hour later), ate lunch, then went back to the room and, you guessed it, NAPPED!

After my short but lovely nap, I walked over to the Newton's. Mrs. Newton was pretty much running out the door when I arrived, and managed to give me some rushed instructions on what to do with Allie (the youngest), as all the other girls were gone and she had somewhere to go.

I spent the next hour and a half reading to Allie - I'm really surprised I didn't lose my voice.
Some of those stories we read were kinda strange - one was about a soldier cuts off the head of an apparently harmless old witch so he can get her tinder box, and eventually uses this tinderbox to buy himself a lot of stuff, fake friends and eventually the prettiest princess ever. And apparently that's totally fine in this magical world.

Anyways, after dragging Allie off the couch to play outside with the next girl who came in for MM's, I sent some letters, and began working on my philosophy paper.

Ugh.

Writing papers is agony enough as it's torture having to organize my jumbled thoughts and put them on paper. But writing about philosophy? Way worse. My thoughts are ten times more jumbled when it comes to philosophy, so we'll see how this comes along.
I have so many papers to write this semester. It's so sad. I miss my Comm. classes where I just made stuff.

Then I had a dinner by myself, because Krista didn't need supper, and I'm sick and don't feel very peopley.

When I finished eating, I started having a mini panic attack about my first midterm, choosing my history paper topics, and my philosophy paper, so I stopped in at the church to calm down.

I don't know if this is a regular thing they do (if it is, I wish I had learned about it earlier!), but the bishops and priests were having Rosary and then Benediction. I only got in for the tail end of it, but it was really nice.

After that, I decided to begin the inevitable, and study for my history midterm. I went to this spot (I'll add a picture later) near the Bibliotek.
It's my favorite studying spot so far because it's not too far away from the room so that it takes too long to get to, but it's also not too close to people. As Goldilocks would say, "it's jussstttt right!"

After that nice study session, I went to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer.
At first, I was the only person in there, but by the time I had pulled out a shirt, smelled it, and remarked "ew, this does NOT smell good", another person had entered and started their laundry. I look over, and there was my philosophy teacher, smiling;
"Hi Clare."
I just have impeccable timing.

Anyways, I asked him what he was doing in the dorm laundry room, to which he responded he doesn't have a maid to do his laundry, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he doesn't have a washing machine in his apartment or wherever he lives. That seems kinda weird since he's a professor, but still, it was funny seeing him NOT in a suit.
His version of dressing comfortable was a nice t-shirt, nice pants and nice shoes.
Sheesh, Europeans - they can't even relax without being fashionable.

I put the clothes through another cycle with lots of nice smelling stuff and when I checked on the load fifteen minutes ago, it smelled deeeeelightful!
Tomorrow, assuming I'm not sick, I go on the Mariazell hike. It's about seven hours of hiking, all which I will walk in flip flops because, yep, I forgot sneakers.

It's either going to be a really painful day or a really fun day.

Random Pictures: Volume I, Issue I

Guess what I have? A sore throat! Hahahahahahahaha, didn't see that one coming, did ya?! Yeah, me either!

a farm/house near the Kartuase

Numnum! Authentic Austrian food!

Sass Master

Arianna is the girl on my left

Presenting Gaming, Austria!

Krista took this when I wasn't looking, so now she must suffer the consequences

Relaxing Weekend

Krista has been getting on my case for not writing a blog post in a while, so here I am!
I can't really remember a lot of the little things that have happened recently, and I definitely can't recall (or recollect them...) in a cohesive manner, so I won't try.

Yesterday Krista and I spent almost two hours in the Bibliotek with the swanky grand piano. Rosie, you would LOVE this piano. It was so relaxing to listen to that beautiful instrument played by a beautiful person. ;)

Friday and Saturday this week have been very nice, despite not going "anywhere"- most of the students are gone, so the few students that are here are more relaxed and open to having small chats.

Today was an eventfulish day.

The Gaming campus hosted a symposium today, so in the morning, I watched the three youngest Newtons so that Mrs. Newton could attend one of talks.
It was super fun - Allie (the youngest) has the most adorable stammer, but man, she can get addicted to messing with my phone fast! All of the girls particularly love the videos with Pip and Bro in them, but Allie really gets into it, so I probably won't bring my phone over anymore.
I'll detail the Newton's later, but for this post's purpose, I spent about three hours playing with them, and then we went to the noon Byzantine Mass.

That was quite interesting - I liked it, but I like "my" Latin Mass better. ;)

Afterwards, I walked/talked/ate with Kristin, who had come over with some other ITI students for the symposium. It was SO nice to see her - it was actually only the third time we've met up ever (and that includes the thirty second subway meeting), but it was so natural to just pick up where we had left off. We've made some sketchy plans for meeting up in the future, but it's definitely happening.

After lunch at the Keller (the restaurant that's part of the Kartuase), we went to another of the symposium talks, given by Dr. Newton. I really like Dr. Newton, but I didn't know much of the context of what he was talking about, plus I missed half the talk, but everyone else thought it was quite an inspiring talk.

After that, they had a small coffee break, and when it was time for the last talk, I left to go study while Kristin stayed for the talk.

I ended up sleeping.

Once the last talk finished, most of the attendees went over to the Kartuase church for Vespers, which was nice.

I took Kristin to the upstairs chapel (I'll have to detail that later to) when we finished , and we sung rounds and church songs until Kristin had to leave. The acoustics made everything sound so dang nice, and Kristin can harmonize really well.

I walked down to a little pizza/kebap restaurant afterwards, and ate a yummy kebap (I'll detail this as well in a food post) with Christine, Jessica and another girl I just met there.

The symposium was also hosting a concert after the talks/dinner (for the fancy people), so we walked to the Bibliotek (where it was being held) and apparently we got the schedule wrong, because the musicians didn't start officially playing until an hour after we arrived. We had to receptionize until they started (I made up the word; the students that arrived early were sitting in the chairs listening to the musicians practice, when some fancy people came in and the lady in charge said "The reception is first!" - I don't know why they had it before the music, but whatever)

But play those musicians did!
There was a pianist and a violinist, and they were SO GOOD.

The pianist was a smaller, quieter man that didn't know much English, but he was super sweet and nice when I asked him about one of the pieces (he didn't quite understand and gave me the wrong piece, but THIS was the first piece)
The violinist was a younger man, and very dramatic with the violin so that it was almost funny (okay, it WAS funny) but in a good way, because he was so good.

When the concert finished, Christine, Jessica, Jenny, Iryna and I went to the chapel and prayed the Rosary. Iryna doesn't know the Our Father in English, so she said her decade in her language (Bosnian/Russian) while we replied in English. It was really pretty.

After that, I eventually bumbled my way back to the room - Ethel and Myrtle are SUPER tired tonight, so with that, adieu! 

First Free Weekend

And Krista and I are going...NOWHERE.

Whoopeeee!!!

There were a couple factors motivating this decision

1. Unsurety about traveling with just the two of us on our first weekend
2. Unsurety about what/where we're even going
3. The ITI students (Kristin!) are coming in on Saturday for the JPII symposium thing that's going on this weekend.
4. A boatload of school work. 

And yes, also, a bit of laziness on my part, but I was already planning on staying back a weekend or two anyways (a lot of students recommended this)

Random Notes: Volume I, Issue I

The birds here are really annoying.
This is their "song"

BLAH.

BLAH.

BLAH.

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There are rather creepy cameras in my Medieval World classroom.
The cameras are for broadcasting other classes to main campus,
But sometimes during Medieval World class, although it's not supposed to broadcasted, the cameras start swirling around.
The first time I noticed was particularly creepy, because the first time I saw one of them moving out of the corner of my eye, I turned my head to double check and the camera immediately stopped moving.
It did that a couple times, before I got a good look.
I imagine that there were some techies on main campus who saw me getting a little disturbed, and decided to play with my mind.
Hopefully they had fun.

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European toilets are weird.
It's kinda cool that you can regulate how much water you use by first pushing one side of the button down for the water to start, and then pushing the other side down when things look...cleaned up.
But seriously, the placement of the hole in the toilet is just weird - it's on the opposite side of an American toilet.
Think about that carefully, and you'll eventually understand why that can be reallllllly nasty.

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I'm getting really good at planning social things with people.
Like, uncannily good.

Yesterday, as a girl I've talked to a couple times in Philosophy of the Human Person class was walking out of the lobby entrance, I stopped her as I was going in and asked her if she'd want to play some volleyball if I got some people together, to which she heartily consented to.

Man, I was so smooth - it was slicker than snot.

Day Five

We didn't have any classes today, but I still had to get up early (i.e. 7:20) for breakfast, and then a three hour meeting after that. I don't remember most of the meeting right now - the last half hour I was dozing on and off.

I was so tired that I didn't go to Mass, and even slept through lunch. I had to get up eventually though, because there was yet another meeting. This meeting was about two hours long, and I've forgotten most of it too, mostly because there have been a bajillion meetings this week.

After the meeting, I talked with Jamie and her friend for bit - another person who promptly forgot my name after introduction, which is completely fine, but didn't think it worth the effort to ask me again when I left...*sigh* this seems to be a continuing trend.

Then I talked with one of the faculty, Marosh (I'm not sure if that's how his name is spelled, but that's how it sounds) about trying to visit Kristin. I didn't quite understand him, but basically I got the idea that it would be much simpler for us to meet for a weekend in Vienna since we'd have to go through there anyways.

After that, I eventually found a little path into the field behind the Kartause, and climbed up a ways to find a little bench off to the side of a gravel road running through the mountain, and I finished reading my philosophy homework up there. Reading Plato in a beautiful hill in Austria - sound dreamy, right? Honestly, I think my good ol' Pennsylvania is just as beautiful, but at least I was almost completely alone up there. I don't know, living with 200+ other people has made me feel penned up and I'm not looking forward to three more months of this feeling, so please pray for me.

Right now I'm actually trying to figure out where I left my keycard - you guys should place bets on how many times I'll lose the dang thing this semester.

After the walk, I went to the Mensa and ate some yummy toast by myself. I didn't know where Krista was, and honestly, going to the Mensa is becoming a chore and a headache. I really don't like being able to eat when I want, and being confined in super close quarters. Plus I'm already tired of the whole meeting people, eating with them, and then after that meal, the people promptly forgetting or ignoring me. Wahwahwah, I know I'm a baby, but there you have it.

I started reading more homework (Three to Get Married - you were right, Katie!) - I've only read a little bit, so I'm not quite sure what I think about it yet.

The girls from yesterday and I were planning on meeting up at seven tonight (the Kartuase is having a showing of The Sound of Music - it's actually going on right now), but only one girl showed up, because the other girls were really busy preparing the music for Mass in Salzburg tomorrow. That was fine by me, since those particular girls sing really well and use very appropriate songs for Mass.

So Jenny and I prayed the Rosary while we walked a bit in the fields I walked in earlier today, I came back and ate cereal while studying.

One thing Austria does trump the US in - their milk is DELICIOUS! I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but I think their version of the fattier US 2% is 3.5%, and it is sooooo gooooood. I ate Choco Flakes with the milk, and they kinda look like one half of a peanut shell.
Other foods I'm trying out are Zartbitter (a chocolate covered gingerbread that looks like a chocolate covered pretzel), some weird granola bars, Milka bars, and an Austrian sort of trail mix.

Random facts:

• the mosquitoes are every bit annoying here at they are in Toledo. My right ankle is swollen right now from two bugbites I have there. Also, the bracken here is EVERYWHERE and it's super annoying nd pokey.
• I figured out the basic tune to Backwards In Time by the Avett Brothers, and now I'm working on some tabs I found, including The Piano Man.
• these are some partial quotes from Three to Get Married that I'm feeling really apply to this semester so far; "for it is the nature of man to be sad when he is pulled outside himself, or exteriorized without getting any nearer his goal.", "He who has no purpose in life is unhappy", and "To love what is below the human, is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human, is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine, is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity."

Day Four

Today was an improvement on yesterday.

I didn't think it would be, as I woke up a little late and took a late shower, thus making Monika miss her shower so she could get to breakfast in time. Not very considerate of me, especially considering Monika is an LCI student.

The Mensa doesn't offer many options when it comes to breakfast, and those options don't vary from day to day. I'll probably be rotating between granola and a ham & cheese sandwich for the entire semester. Yay. At least I have Choco Flakes to munch on in my room.

My first class for B days is Medieval World, which was pretty interesting. Lots of talk about emperors and Constantine - neat stuff. Plus the teacher is gonna break up the class, with lecture on Tuesday, and completely class discussion on the assigned readings for Thursday. It sounds chill and fun. Plus Krista's in that class, so I don't have to awkwardly sit by myself during the small breaks - we get to sit awkwardly together! Yay!

Next class was Christian Marriage, which has fifty girls and nine boys (Krista counted)
Our teacher has hilarious facial constructions, and when I understand a joke he makes, it's usually pretty funny. Thing is, I don't actually know what he's talking about most of the time, because he's Scottish, and has a VERY thick accent (Rosie, he sounds like Stoick from How to Train Your Dragon - they say "hiccup" the same way!) Also, I'm wondering how he's going to spend three hours a week for sixteen weeks talking about Christian Marriage - we already got the basics and a bit more covered today. More interesting will be watching Krista alternately sass and squirm three hours a week, for sixteen weeks.
We'll see how long she lasts.

The assigned reading is the book by Archbishop Fulton Sheen It Takes Three, so I am looking forward to that. The paper and tests don't look very intimidating, which I can't say of my other classes. Also, Professor Cassidy challenged us to memorize the Instruction on the Day of Marriage from the 1962 Rituale Romanum. If we memorize and recite it perfectly in class, we don't have to write the paper or take any of the tests! That would be sweet, and if it were any other class, I'd totally memorize it, but this class looks like it'll be the same amount of work either way - writing the short paper and taking a few tests, or memorizing a good page and a half of instruction, so I'm not sure if I'll do it. I already have a ton of reading for my other classes.

After classes finished (I finish right before noon Mass every day), pretty much the entire campus went to noon Mass as the bishop of Gaming was saying Mass. The bishop seemed really nice, but honestly, I slept through his sermon because I was already sleepy and couldn't do any more interpreting thick accents at that point. The music, even for Franciscan, was off today, people were clapping for the bishop (he seemed kind of embarrassed), and then we all crammed in the apse of the church to take a picture with the bishop. So, I was glad to get out.

There was a long line for lunch because of the "Mass rush", and it was packed in the Mensa. Krista and I eventually ended up finding two open chairs, and just sat in the middle of this table. The girls on one end were nice and we talked to them a bit, then left when we finished.

We came back to our room, left for the Spar, and I returned with more snacks and milk (yay! 3.5% fat - I'm looking forward to this!) whereas Krista came back with chocolate bars for her family, and then a bottle of wine and plastic cups for herself. Yep, she's acclimating herself into this Europe thing quite well.

Then I piddled for an hour while Krista worked out, and when she came back, we set off for a jog.
Don't worry - I'm still a big bum, but I wanted to use my pretty sketch book, so I figured I'd jog with her till I found a good spot for sketching.

We ended up climbing a little ways up the mountain that the rowhouses (the teachers houses) sit on, but it was super muddy, we didn't actually jog. I found a dryish place to sit, and spent the next hour or so sketching a big blob into my beautiful watercolor book. It's kinda sad actually, but practice makes perfect, so hopefully I'll have at least one sketch that resembles my object by the time the semester is over. Krista explored around a bit, and then found a decent place to jog. I joined up with her later at the Mensa for supper.

phone pictures - don't judge

The Mensa wasn't super crowded, but there weren't a lot of empty tables either. Krista ended up running into a friend of hers, and so we sat at his table with his friends. They were all really funny, and it was the most "normal" I've seen a group of Franciscan students (that had more than one male in the group) act. Half of the table left a while after they finished eating, and I thought we were eventually going to skeedaddle too, but Krista's friend ended up talking to her for another hour or so about her leaving Franciscan. He was super nice and thoughtful - Krista should appreciate the friends she has that she doesn't hang out with as much more. *cough* Krista *cough* ;)

Came back to the room, "finished" my watercolor blob, studied for a bit, then I went out to pray the Rosary at the Kartause.

As I was crossing the courtyard to the church, my paths crossed with another girl. We ended up talking a wee bit, and I asked if she would like to pray the Rosary with me, and she did! That was really nice, because when I pray the Rosary by myself, I end up getting super distracted and take way more time than I should.

When we finished, I asked if she wouldn't mind singing the Salve with me. She asked me to hum the tune so she could remember if she knew all the words; while I was humming it, a girl I met a couple days ago walked out from the chapel and overheard me. She's a music major, and she seemed super nice - she and her friends sang for the Mass at Gaming two days ago, and not only did they have beautiful voices, they also sang some really pretty songs too (read: Latin songs)

So anyways, she asked me if we were going to sing the Salve, and ended up singing it with us. It was really nice and sounded AWESOME in the church, despite the fact I had a scratchy throat and Jenny (the girl who prayed with me) didn't know all the words. Jessica (music major) had a really good voice to cover for us, plus the acoustics (or whatever you call it) in that church is amazing.

Afterwards, we talked a bit outside, and we're going to try to make it a regular thing to meet at nine for Rosary at the church. I'm really glad to have more people praying with me, plus, Jessica's music major friends will probably be coming, which will make the Salve sound even better!

Now I'm back, and guess what? I might get to bed on time if I finish this right now, so peace!

Day Three

Today wasn't a great day.

I woke up in time for breakfast, but I ate by myself because it was too early to be "courageous" and ask to sit with a group.

I had history class (my first class on A days, which are typically Monday and Wednesday), and I like the teacher so far. I think he'll really help me appreciate Europe, as he's already helped me appreciate Gaming itself more. However, we had a five minute in-class break to "stretch" (I hate these little breaks in long talks - I just want to get it over with) and I talked to the girl sitting next to me, that the super friendly girl in front of me introduced me to right before class began. I'm not sure why, but the conversation with the girl sitting next to me kinda upset me for the rest of the day. She wasn't snobby or anything, but didn't seem authentic in the conversation and seemed to be looking around for other people to talk to.

Blow one to my inflated ego.

We got out of class about ten minutes early, and I was pretty discouraged going back to the room. It's funny/weird how one little thing like that can make me such a baby. Anyways, I thought I had about half hour before my next class, so I piddled around, then eventually left ten minutes early so I could find my class and be in it early.

It was strangely quiet in the halls as I walked to class, and I saw some other classes in session as I walked by. I didn't panic right away - I found my classroom, opened the thick door, and found myself staring at a professor paused in the middle of his lecture, staring back at me. I closed the door pretty confused - maybe that class was getting out really late? Then I double checked my book, and sure enough, I was twenty minutes late to class.
Drat.

Since it's a big offense to miss class (though I wouldn't have missed it anyways), I opened the door again and walked into class, found a chair as quickly as I could, with as much elegance as I could muster (which wasn't much)

Blow two to my inflated ego.

The class was philosophy, and they were already in the middle of the discussion, so I had no clue what the heck was going on. I reached into my bag to pull out a pencil and realized that I had forgotten it again, so I had to ask the guy sitting a chair to the side of me if he had a pen or pencil I could borrow.

Blow three to my inflated ego.

The guy was really nice, and gave me the pen he was using, saying he didn't need it because he was "really good at remembering." So I took the pen, but I saw him use his friend's pen several times in class to write down a few things. Oops.

The professor is Irish, very nice and quiet, very handsome, and also, unmarried. I almost felt bad for him.

Since I had missed the first twenty minutes of class, I was pretty confused, but whatever I made out was pretty interesting. I'm worried that I'm too much a scatter brain for philosophy, and not good at understanding abstract things, but I'm still looking forward to it. I hope it will help my dimwittedness.

The guy that let me borrow his pen kept sniffling his nose during class, so against my better judgement, I finally reached into my bag and offered him my wad of toilet paper. I thought he would be disgusted, but he politely took one piece to wipe his nose. His nose sounded SUPER stuffy (it started making my nose feel stuffy, and I just wanted him to blow it all out, dang it man!), but he didn't use the rest. It was pretty comical, but my deflated ego couldn't help deflating a little more.

At one point during class, Professor McNamara had to wipe the board, but he didn't have an eraser. He asked if anyone had any tissues he could use, so the guy offered the toilet paper. As he was giving it to the professor, he looked at me and said "It has two uses!", so I wouldn't feel bad. I couldn't help laughing to myself though, because that toilet paper definitely had more than two uses.

After class, I went to Mass with Krista, and let's just say I can't wait to figure out how to visit Kristin so I can get some sort of refreshment on Sundays now and then.

Krista and I then went to the Mensa, where we got our food, then awkwardly stood amidst a rush of people, trying to figure out where and who were we going to eat with it.
Somehow or another, I ended up sitting at a table with Monika, her two LCI friends (Iryna and Veronika), and three other girls. I didn't feel particularly warm and fuzzy towards the other girls, though they were nice enough, and I tried to make some conversation with them.

The LCI students, however, particularly Iryna, were super funny and were asking all about meals. They thought the idea of a PB&J sandwich was weird, and loved the idea of Thanksgiving dinner. I walked back to my room with Irnya, and she gave me one of her composition books when I mentioned I needed to buy some at Gertrudes. She was super sweet and funny, and was so happy when we parted, that she shook my hand! It was the funniest thing how she was so excited, and put her hand out to shake mine to show how excited she was.

When Krista got back to the room, we set out to Gertrude's to get the books. We found it was closed for another hour (the Gaming shops close for two or three hours in the middle of the day for lunch), so we piddled around. We found the bakery, got some sweet pastry thing there that even Krista liked (and she doesn't like doughnuts! scandal, I know!), and waited in the rain for that hour. Once we got our books, Krista had to hurry to class, so I read some of my history homework, than my deflated ego decided to reward its patheticness with an hour nap.

After Krista's class, we went to dinner, and I had pork and these weird noodle things that were really good and tasted (but didn't look like) Grandma Long's noodles. Because Krista had a good day socializing but felt done with talking to people, and because I was still feeling sorry for myself, we ate by ourselves.

Dinner done, I spent the next couple hours reading history and a bit of Plato in the tea kitchen while listening to some Gregorian chant to make me feel more at home (plus Fr. Shell said it's good to listen to). While I was in the kitchen, the super friendly girl from my history class walked in to wash some dishes. We started talking a little bit about classes, then ended up talking for about twenty-five minutes about random things. It was really nice and the girl was very welcoming - she kinda reminded me of Emily.

I'm trying to "discipline myself" and get in to some sort of schedule that Fr. Shell says I need (ya feel me, John? ;)) so I'm trying to make it a regular thing where on school nights at nine, I go to the Kartrause and pray the Rosary.

It usually takes me a long time to pray the Rosary by myself, because my mind rambles all over the place, but when I was almost done, I heard some people singing the Salve Regina in the back of the church. I quickly finished, then walked out to talk to them once they had finished.
They seem like a nice couple, and when I asked that if they also make their Rosary/Salve Regina time a regular thing, if I could join them, they were really nice and said yes (but they're not sure if they're always going to do it at that time/that place)

So I come back to the room, my ego still pretty deflated, but feeling better for having heard them sing. I'm trying to get over my self pity and offer it to God, but I'm a big baby, so keep praying for me please!

Now I'm going to try to get to sleep on time, so I can be all bright eyed and chirpy tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Day Two

I almost missed breakfast again today, but I just made it in time! For breakfast, all the Mensa has is Greek yogurt (unsweetened, not refrigerated = nasty), some granola, some rolls, and a cheese and meat tray. The roll with a slice of meat and cheese was actually pretty tasty, but I foresee myself quickly becoming tired of it after a couple weeks.

After that, we had really long meeting in the Kartause's library, met the faculty, and people told us about a lot of stuff, the majority of which I've already forgotten.

After this meeting, Mr. Pipp (the director of Student Life in Gaming - very funny, reminds me of John) took us on a short walk around Gaming. Gaming is known for its banks and hair salons - I think Mr. Pipp said it had four banks and five hair salons, which is rather ridiculous for a town of its size.
Some of the little shops looked promising - there was a pizza/kebab shop run by a Turkish man and his sons (Mr. Pipp highly recommended the kebabs), a toy/office supply store, and a bakery. I really like bakeries, and this one sells some kind of deep fried pastry on a stick, which sound DELICIOUS! I'm predicting this treat will be a big highlight of my stay in Gaming.

After the tour, we had lunch. Pork, carrots, noodles, and a meat sauce for the noodles - everything was strangely super bitter, so I ended up eating a bowl of granola for lunch. It was also pretty tasty, but I'm not sure if I used milk or half and half with it, because they keep the glass kegs with the dairy next to the coffee machine, and they don't label them. Because of this, I ended up drinking half and half instead of milk last night at supper, but I like half and half, so it all worked out!

When I finished my super yummy granola and milk/half and half bowl, I came back to the room and slept solidly for an hour, so that I almost missed the next meeting (noticing a trend here?)
This meeting was all about housing rules and was long and Krista was freaking out during its two hour duration because she STILL hasn't gotten her suitcase from the airport yet. After the meeting, Krista immediately jumped up to talk to Mr. Pipp about the suitcase, while I got in one of six groups led by RA's for a tour of the campus itself.
The tour was helped orient me (though I've already forgotten all the room's official names), but it was longer than it needed to be because we had to wait on other groups to go through.

When we finally finished, I went back to the room to check on Krista. She got her suitcase thing figured out, but didn't have any respectable clothes to wear to eat supper with me, and our LCI roommate (who's actually Bosnian, not Slovenian) had to go to a meeting, so I was on my own. I almost chickened out and waited 45 minutes for Monika (the LCI roommate) to finish her meeting, but I decided to be brave and talk to some people on my own since my nose has FINALLY stopped dripping!

So I got to the Mensa, and the main food line looked nasty, so again, I went for the roll with meat and cheese. After retrieving my small morsel of food, I looked about the crowded Mensa for the least intimidating place to sit. There were some really crowded tables, some super long tables with a couple scary girls sitting at one end, one table with only one person sitting at it, and one completely empty table. I almost went with the completely empty table, but remembered I was there to be brave, so I actually asked the loner if I could sit with him. He seemed kinda surprised, but said yes.

After I finished praying, he introduced himself and started talking to me about Gaming and asking me about my flight. He was really nice, had a good manner of speaking (at least compared to most of the other guys I've met so far) and he's apparently really good at soccer because his high school team went to Europe for a soccer tournament thingy, and won more than two games/matches (which he said was a first for an American team, since Europeans are so in to soccer). He was quite impressed when I told him about John wrestling for Wisconsin, and he said he liked wrestling too (he's from Ohio, and was talking about the place where they hold states, and how they have sixteen mats out and it's huge and amazing and I couldn't help thinking about Dad disparaging Ohio wrestling so I just played super ignorant and smiled and waved, boys!)
We were talking about wrestling for a bit when five or six people came and sat with us, including the guy's girlfriend, who is an RA and pretty nice (I had to laugh at myself, because now I understood the guy's slight confusion when I asked to sit at his table - what kind of hermit was I that I didn't know he had a girlfriend?! Craziness!)

The guy that sat next to me (he has an identical twin that was in my campus tour group the hour before) started talking about wrestling too and how it's so fun and fun to watch, to which I said it was nasty for girls to watch, and he had to agree with that. A girl, named Audrey, sat on the other side of me, and I mostly talked to her for the rest of the meal, since she had spent the week before in Ireland.
She was super nice, and I had a lot of fun talking to her. She told me how Cork, Ireland was really nice, but Dublin wasn't so much. However, she and her group were trying to figure out which pub to try one evening, and an old man was watching them. When he sad them heading into one pub, he called out "you don't want to go to that one, unless you want to get beat up tonight", and then he recommended a different pub. They followed his recommendation (it turned out to be a really good pub) and as he walked about, he called out "good choice!"
Basically, since the big crowd of people came over and sat at the table, I couldn't help snickering to myself about how I accidentally picked a popular people table, of all tables, when I was being such a chicken before.

So, that was a pretty fun/ny dinner, I felt extremely proud of my social "success" and now am rewarding myself by dedicating my last couple hours of today to being a recluse in the room with Krista, eating Milka, and reading a book on Krista's tablet.
Btw, here's Krista's blog.

Made it!

After some frustrations with United delaying my first flight to Chicago (O'Hare was a big mess with weather conditions - Krista got stuck for a long time there and I'm still waiting for her to arrive), a nice United man helped me transfer to Washington, and then I had a little wait there before the eight hour flight to Vienna. I had an interesting little event with leaving my bags unattended for fifteen minutes to get dinner, then coming back to find out that if I had gotten back two minutes later, the airport police would've come and confiscated my bags. *whew!* Another crisis averted! 

Everything went pretty smoothly, aside from the fact that my nose was drippy the ENTIRE time and I didn't always have access to tissues. An Austrian lady had the window seat, and I sat between her and an America guy. He thought I was Austrian at first and asked me if I spoke English. 

"Yes!"

"Oh, good, because I...how do you say it, no speake Englase?"

"Um, I don't know - I don't speak German."

Anyways, he seemed like a jolly fellow - made me think of how someone would describe a typical happy American businessman. 

I watched a movie, then tried sleeping, which was very sporadic, thanks to my drippy nose. 

When we started coming down into Vienna, my ears went kinda nuts so I couldn't hear anything well for a good while (my left ear hearing is still wonky). I've had to repeat myself a lot so far because I can't tell how loud I'm talking, so I just try to talk normally, which apparently isn't loud enough. 

The food on the plane tasted decent enough, but I definitely felt the aftereffects of it. Combined with that, and my drippy nose, I haven't ventured to talk to many people and I avoided the Mensa (cafe). 

I slept for half of the two hour drive to Gaming in a bus driven by a very handsome young Austrian who was teaching a girl and her boyfriend how to say "I love pickles" in German. 

For the parts of the drive I was awake, the landscape seemed very similar to something you would see in New Hampshire (I've never been there, but I imagine it'd be like that...plus I overheard another student saying the same thing) - hilly and pinetree-y. 

The campus isn't quite as secluded and up in the mountains as I thought it would be, but it's very pretty! I still have to find those "alive" hills yet, Dad. ;)

The room Krista and I are sharing with a Bosnian exchange student is really nice - it has a beautiful window sill, which we're not allowed to sit on! Why have such a pretty window sill if you're not supposed to sit on it? Hmph! Speaking of that rule, there's a TON of rules for living in the dorm - more so because the Kartruase is used as a hotel in the summer. I'm sure I'll feel the benefits of living in a dorm soon, but for right now, I'm missing those commuter privileges (not having/not knowing rules) 

I can't WAIT to go to sleep tonight! Also, I found the Dickens book and the St. Therese book I thought I had lost in my backpack (so clever of me to put them in the back!), so I'm feeling much better about this shindig now. Thanks for all the prayers! This first week is gonna be a tiring one, what with learning all the rules and going on all the excursions, so I'll definitely be needing them!