Fulbrighting in Germany!: Many Adventures with Miya

Monday this past week was jammed packed. I saw Rachel off for her train ride back to Erfurt after the birthday weekend extravaganza, and I began furiously adding last minute touches to my Powerpoint presentation for my Energy Policy class at the university. I was presenting on EU solar energy policy, specifically the DESERTEC project, with two other girls from my class - and giving the presentation in german! I was nervous, but we had been working on the concept for the past two months, so I felt pretty comfortable with the material and explaining all auf Deutsch. But nonetheless, I had a script written out in case I got too nervous. I finished up all the details and practiced several times, and ate a quick lunch at home. Then I was off to the university by 2pm, for a dress rehearsal of sorts with my group.

I am going to back up in time at this point, and give a short background on this project and my experiences leading up to the Monday presentation.

My group can be described as a little dysfunctional, with one girl who was super on top of her work, one who was the complete opposite, and me with lots of knowledge on the subject in English - making it a hard transition into the german language infused with my very noticiable American accent. The first girl never missed a class, and she and I both met several times throughout the semester to develop the concept and design the final product. We knew we had a third group member, but we never saw her in class, nor had she responded to any emails about getting together to work on the material throughout the semester. We informed our TA, and again, she did not respond to his emails either. We figured she had dropped the course or something, and our TA gave us the green light to proceed without her. We finished the Powerpoint early, because of my Budapest trip, so our project was complete when we came to class the Monday before all was due.

So now we are one week before the due date of the presentation - and that's when the drama unfolded.

My partner and I walked into class, and we now usually sat together. I was grateful to have made a few friends from the university in this course, and I really enjoy my Monday schedule at the university. I try to arrive 15 minutes early to the course, looking forward to my small talk in german every week before class begins. So it was a typical Monday.

Our TA arrived early to class as well, and told my partner and I that our third group member had responded to him and was able to work on the project. My partner was consumed with anger, and started launching into some fast german that was telling of how the project was already done mixed with disbelief that someone would respond this late before the due date. The girl walked into class, and now the three of us were caught in a sort of awkward triangle toward the front of the classroom with the TA. My partner was really mad and carrying the conversation, the new girl was very non-chalaunt, and acting as if she had done nothing wrong, and I was just revelling in how this even happened in the first place, adding a few comments here and there in between the super fast german exchanges (and feeling extremely uncomfortable with this drama unfolding in front of the entire classroom). I should also mention that we are all foreign students, 2 Russians and an American, functioning in our various accents as we speak german to each other and the TA. We were asked to stay after class to work everything out, and we resumed our seats for the lecture and presentation scheduled for the next 2 hours.

During class, my partner and I thought of a compromise that could allow the third girl to add to our concept by fleshing out two examples of the project in practice in California and Egypt. She could add these slides to the end of the presentation, and if she didn't come through, it wouldn't matter because our project would stand alone without any extra material. We talked again at the end of class, and the professor basically said we needed to work it out and still stay within the 20 minute time constraint. The time limit comment upset my partner, because we were already at 20 minutes. And I was thinking this was a different response than I had expected from the professor. But I mentioned the examples the new partner could add, and gave her a short outline on what she needed to put together. We left the classroom, knowing we had more work ahead of us to try and coordinate with a new group member. I was slightly unhappy about that fact, as I had so much going on before my birthday and the project was done.

A few more emails went out, and the girl still didn't respond that week. It was absolutely crazy! So we didn't end up meeting that week. The new girl finally did respond with her slides to my original partner on Friday, and I was already off in Budapest. We agreed to meet and hour and a half before we gave the project on Monday, and I still had no idea what was going to happen with this third group member.

So now we are back. I arrived to the political science building on time and saw my original group member waving. We waited an extra 10 minutes, then began rehearsing. 30 minutes late, our third group member waltzed in as I was in the middle of practicing my talk. She sat down, then delivered her portion following me. We added a conclusion, talked about the project, and then decided to go for it, leaving our dramatic baggage of completing the project at the door. We were all nervous, but I thought the presentation was really good - and somehow came together in the 11th hour.

We set up the laptop, loaded the presentation, and then waited for the introduction from our professor. Soon enough we were delivering the Powerpoint to the class. When it was my turn, I began to speak freely on the first slide. As I looked out over 30 intent faces starring me down, I began to get a little nervous. From that point, I went mostly from my script. Which worked out fine, and I am so glad I gave my presentation in german! I even answered a few questions at the end. And my professor met with me after class to discuss my Fulbright work. So the 2 hours flew by - and I survived my Referat (presentation)!

I had a little bit of down time back at home, and then my friend Miya (Fulbrighter from Marburg studying currently in Heidelberg) arrived into Berlin to stay with me for the week. So things have been pretty much non-stop!!!

Miya had some research at the museums here in Berlin for her art history dissertation. So she was off most of the days researching or site seeing, which was great for me to get a few things done on my own project and run much needed errands. Miya and I really had a great time, and it was so fun having a roommate for dinner and hanging out. We watched movies (Beauty and the Beast and Sex in the City Movie, of course), enjoyed a fiesta dinner in my apartment, saw a few museums, went shopping downtown, ate out dinner a few times at fabulous places (the Italian cafe, Brecht's house, and Hamburger night), and had a big reunion with Fulbright friends at Scotch and Sofa (a small bar with tons of couches and cozy chairs, small tables, candlelight and 1960s wallpaper).

It was fun having many adventures with Miya! And the weekend was spent mostly in sweatpants, hanging out, resting, and getting ready for a busy work week. Time to get it into gear with the last week of classes for the fall semester, a shift in my project focus, and getting ready for Kenny's arrival come next Saturday!

A few pictures from the adventures:

Jose, Miya, and I toured Bertolt Brecht's (director) apartment in former East Berlin. The tour guide was so sweet, and I kept up with all of the german and learned a lot about Brecht's entertaining and last few years of his life in the apartment. And Jose made reservations for their restaurant for Friday night - I had an amazing meatloaf recipe from Helene's cookbook in the midst of taper candles, stage lights, wooden tables, and black-and-white photographs of Brecht and company.