Bad Hair Day, Take2

Any sarcastic or slightly funny feeling I might have had left about the situtation yesterday is gone now. And those of you I yelled at know that wasn't much (Sorry again, guys!!). I just talked to the lady at the office of the registrar in Essen. She cannot find any document suggesting my leave of absence. Of course she doesn't say that. She says, there is none, meaning I haven't filed one. So obviously somebody was too incapable to file away a piece of paper, which, quite frankly, is probably all it says in their job description anyhow. You only have to be able to file stuff away and know where the documents are, right? Uggggh.....why is there so much incompetence in this world? And why always in administration? Those of you who know me, also know how much luck I have had with paper work of any kind in the past 4 months, e.g NOT MUCH!
She didn't seem to be surprised that I transfered money; UDE must receive donations over 12 Euros quite often. That, in turn, doesn't surprise me at all. Must be all they spend on student services all year. Yeah, I know, now I am getting spiteful.
We'll see how it turns out. She said she'd check and look for my request, and I'm getting ready to mail off everything she needs in case I need to file another request. And, of course, I'll have to pay an additional fee because I'm late.
Who invented administration, anyways?

PS: My hair looks fantastic again....coincidence??

Bad hair day? You wish...

Today isn't a good day. I thought it would be, given that my hair looked fantastic this morning and why wouldn't the day turn out just fine if it was a good hair day, anyway? But my hair betrayed me. It didn't turn out to be a good day after all. (Now that I think about it, why would my hair-do have the power to foresee the quality of my day? If it really could, I would be able to make a whole lot of money with that! "See Jessi and her fabulous hair!!" But that's another story entirely...)
Anyways, it wasn't a good day: My German university expelled me today. Because apparently I didn't pay my tuition. Well, of course I didn't! I am not even there, much less attending any classes! I'm in Texas for two semesters. Me not paying the tuition shouldn't really come as such a surprise for them, because I have filled out a bunch of papers. You would think that that should do the trick. I even paid them 12,-€ for administration (e.g. paid them to print out the papers in the first place...).
I bet you, a couple hundred years ago it was enough to just go to the administration office and be like: "Hey guys" (okay, probably a little more formal and dowdy) "Guess what? I am going abroad for a while. See you later." And administration would answer: "Okay, dude" (see above) "Have fun, see you next year." How else could Goethe have studied all that crazy stuff all around Europe? But no, today you sign your life away, trying to get a little fun elsewhere. You have to assure that you won't finish your degree overseas, you won't do this, you won't do that, you won't do squad, either - and most important of all: you will represent your university at all times and inadequate behavior will not be tolerated.
Well, guess what! I won't be representing the University of Duisburg-Essen adequately anymore! What a dump.
A couple of months ago, UT hosted an International Study Abroad Fair on campus, trying to promote studying abroad for American students. I asked the University of Duisburg-Essen to send me some promotion material, so I could advertise UDE. They sent me two brochures. TWO! There I was, standing behind a table telling people what a great place UDE is (liar, liar, pants on fire...) but, hey, sorry, I couldn't give them any material, because UDE only sent me two booklets and they were out already. How embarassing is that? Do they seriously not even try to make a name for themselves in the academic world? And "world" here is to take very literally!
Their masters program in literature and media studies sucks, and is not at all as advertised on their homepage. Organization is a drag and you actually have to organize classes you're really interested in yourself (like photography-classes. After they tell you that photography is necessary for every journalist nowadays because newspapers won't pay for a separate photographer. So you'll have to take the pictures for your article yourself most of the time. Thus, they must see the necessity and teaching us how to take pictures for newspapers! Yet, they don't teach us.). If you're really out of luck you even have to pay for classes (like a workshop in the Adobe Photoshop program! What the **** am I paying tuition for?? Oh, wait, I forgot! I DIDN'T PAY MY TUITION!)
And now they don't even keep up with their freaking (pardon my French) paperwork. Ugh....soo angry!

Longhorns defeat Knights 35:3

Yeah, now I've had my college football experience. Last Saturday was THE day. And it was a good one! I still haven't figured out all the rules there are to this game, but it really was a spectacle. UT played the University of Central Florida and ripped 'em off. I really don't know much about the game, but either the knights just sucked (likely) or UT is awesome. Well, I don't doubt that, anyway. I had a blast.
I experienced all teh chants and songs and moves and traditions. And let me tell you: It's jus like on TV, with the cheerleaders and the band playing and the dance team rockin' and all ("Wackel mit die Hufte, denn wenn Du wackelst mit die Hufte mache das schön geschmeidig und sexy!!" :) ). It was just great. And even though the weather was cloudy and dreary in the morning - I actually felt reminded of a regular summer morning in Seattle - it became sunny and warm and I got myself a sunburn on the nose. Now I have something to remember the game by. Until my skin peels off.