Monday, April 30, 2007

A Day in the Life of a Muenchener Austauchstudent





















So there, officially I have been in Germany for one and half months and I have gotten my own room for a month or so.

Since I have nothing to do, I shall let you all into a peek of the life of my life in Munich.

Ok today is a Monday. So I wake up at about 645 am, knowing it will be a super long day, from 830am till 715pm before I could come back home... Sad case ehz... Monday most xiong day! That is damn good reason for Monday blues...

Nonetheless, I pulled myself out of my comfortable bed. Notice the expanding number of pictures on the wall? It's gonna increase as I do my travels or as I notice some nice postcards, it has already increased from Russell's card and Neuschwanstein postcard to Ludwigsburg and such.

Then I would turn on my workstation, start boiling water with the kettle, to start my day with a nice cup of nestle or milo. Check out the boxes at the sides and the one at the small cabinet for rough papers manz... Pretty proud of them, cos I thought them up myself :P Multifunctional boxes are. In case you are wondering, the box cut up into strips is my file dividers for my notes. Well, it will do until I could get sturdier materials when more notes come in.

That's my wardrobe if you are wondering; as I slide the door, you will get to see my stash: upper 2 for bags and personal articles, and bottom 2 are my food stash :P Notice the 3 boxes at the back of the 'Famous Amos' cookies? They are ALL maggie mees... Courtesy of my beloved mum from Singapore, in addition to the nestums, milos and tea. LOLX.

Ok, then I would make breakfast in the kitchen. This is my shared, Wohngemeinshaft kitchen. Cool ehz... A bit dirty, though the cleaners come in to clean once a week. So this is probably like not cleaned for days hehe... Check out the dustbin area... Can you imagine pizzas for lunch AND dinner EVERYDAY?! That's Martin for you. He is a German that doesn't eat anything for lunch and dinner except pizzas and beer probably. This is the result of his bingeing... Oh and Lin Tao's Minimart carriage... He's probably gonna host a party or something.

Then I would leave the house. Down the corridor, to the left is the bathroom where there are flaps of papers; right hand side, the one nearest to the main door is Martin's room, then nearer to mine live Martina and her boyfriend. They cohabiting, I think. Pretty normal here. If you have guessed it by now, I stay at the other end of the corridor nearer to the kitchen and dining area.

First lecture today is at LMU, Ludwigs-Maximillian University, which is not the uni I matriculated in. Nonetheless, I am able to take some of their modules, which are jointly offered by them and TUM. This is the Siegestor, 'Gate of Triumph', that stands on the road leading to the LMU. Looks like the Brandenburg Tor in Berlin and Arc de Triomphe in Paris, isn't it? Only much smaller. Very majestic though when you first see it.

Then this is the Faculty of Informatics and Mathematics in Garching, I have taken photos a few entries back. This is a close-up of the tubes, the ones that I thought was for fire-rescue. BUT, it is used by students normally to come down faster, I really mean it is a normal kind of 'transportation' for students. Cool huh? Well, I will do the school's intro another day.

While coming back, took a picture of this interesting advertisement: Chinese acupuncture by a German. Cool ehz? Haha. I can imagine Dad start to rattle off some proud chantings of how powerful Chinese medicine is blah blah... Ok my Dad's a pro-Chinese personnel, so.... Come to think of it, I am starting to miss home...

Sometimes, I will go supermarket for a while to buy some groceries or go gym. Or just walk around abit. Walking around in Munich is DEFINITELY much better than in Singapore. For one, you dun perspire and you enjoy sceneries and ogle at beautiful people. Lunch is usually at the Mensa (which is German unis' canteen) but today's different, cos I met up with Chuanjie to plan our Salzburg trip. So I had Burger King :/

Coming back at 1915, this is the red-white combi facade of my place. Quite classy, dun u think? Then usually I would go for a little jog, nowadays I can go to the gym finally after I got my Sports semester ticket but that would be at Olympiazentrum. Anyway, my route usually includes this Panzerwiese, 'Tank field'. It was originally a training grounds for US armoured vehicles. Flat, you can even see the Arena and Olympiaturm from here, you can imagine how far and wide this place is. Usually in the early evening, people will fly model airplanes and run their dogs, even sun tan. Well, they sun tan EVERYWHERE, so it's really not so special for them to sun tan here at this wide open space anyway. Gotta get used to running here at first, due to the chilling evening air. Sometimes, I end up whizzing at the end of my run.

Running about 15 min to 30 min, I will come back for a shower, then walk around and meddling with the plant sometimes. Check out the bloom. And by the way, it's 8pm and this bright, so the brightness will last till about 9 pm. At first, it really gave me a warped sense of time. Well, get used to summer.

Then make dinner. Usually Jason and CW come over and 3 of us will make dinner together. Well, this time they are on a trip to Vienna, so I am making pasta today, finishing pasta and the sauce up HAHA! This is our combined stash of utensils. Not too much ehz. Cheers to minimalism manz!

Ok then, the day usually ends with me in the room. Obviously. Either doing some work, which, believe me, is VERY very hard. Try answering 'Advanced Bioinformatics', a level 4000 and 5000 equivalent module in NUS, the German questions in English and listening to the lectures in German. Catch no balls. OR I will watch dramas and animes OR I will DOTA and listen to music on my blasters....

Then I will sleep, usually about 12 midnight. And then here we go again...

Nice, well-paced day with little stress whatsoever. Doing laundry, washing the dishes, cleaning the room and making meals became a routine and part and parcel. Things I once took for granted.... Things you never really appreciate until you stay alone. Well, I guess I am still human. *pinch myself* Yahz ok I am....
*Yawnz* Lights out.

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