Game over
Goodbye Bonn university, goodbye Asian Studies.
Last Friday had me receiving note of failing the exam on History of Asia for the third time; don't ask me how I did that as don't have the slightest clue and still didn't get a hold of the professor who has the exam stored for sighting.
Failing this exam for the third time means that I have to leave and bury this part of university forever, as far as Germany is concerned. Sucks to be me.

Alas, we live in the age of internet and international connections, so I've been able to dig up a few options, all of which are starting in September/October 2006:

• School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS), London, offers a BA in Southeast Asian Studies, including the possibility to learn Thai, Khmer (Cambodian), Vietnamese, Indonesian and other, less known languages of the southeast asian region


• University of Leiden is still an option too, with both a BA in History and Cultures of China or (...) of Southeast Asia and Oceania


• Frankfurt University offers Southeast Asian Studies as well, but the overall program description makes this a last-choice

With all of those options only being available from September 2006 onwards, I have almost a full year on my hands to work, earn money and do what I like. Time for an additional job to the work in the pub, time to try getting my Dutch to a sufficient level, time to think about refreshing and polishing my French vocabulary, hopefully time to get through with a trip to Southeast Asia in Feb-Apr next year...

I'll post again once I have some more concrete ideas and some real options surface and get more structure.

Until then...

...ta-taa.

Quick update
Uni has started and the first couple of days pretty much wore me down, with all the stuff I had to get through with for myself and then the add-on work for the student council.
Alas, my schedule is done and interested readers can have a peak at it here.
As you can see, it's quite a lot of things I'm doing, and it's even more than I would have to do! (*gasp*) The modules on Southeast Asia and Japan are the extra stuff, and IT/R&P (IT, Research&Presentation) is only on that schedule because I should go there every once in a while and have a look at how the newbies are doing.
Nevertheless, I'm facing a grand total of 28 hours(*) of seminars this semester, 16 of which are language classes which need vocabulary revising and everything else that comes with learning languages. Luckily, I'm not having much problems with either of the two Japanese syllable alphabets (hiragana and katakana) so far; having had Japanese lessons back in 9th and 10th grade seems to finally pay off.
The module about Southeast Asia is 'teh b0mb' as they say, with the Indochina part being entirely dedicated to Cambodia, the country I fell in love with while reading about the different places down there.

My flat's getting more and more comfy, I finally started unpacking my cooking equipment and set a deadline for JT to move his used stuff out of the kitchen into his place.
In roughly a week, there'll be a huge crowd gathering here, as the hirr community will be holding a meeting here in Bonn, with 11 foreigners (from 5 different countries!) and 4 locals attending and getting massively drunk together while harrassing anyone within earshot range. Damn, this is going to be fun! I can hardly wait for it to begin!

The numbers on my bank account are starting to look friendlier again and a 6-week-trip to Southeast Asia in the next semester is coming into sight again. Also, I decided that if I failed that history exam (of which the results are still not published), I'll see to it that I earn a bit of extra-money as quickly as possible and then I'll head off for some sort of work/spontanious internship/vacation mix down in that region.
But then again, I also decided that I passed that exam, so I guess Cambodia et al will have to wait a bit longer still... ;)

Anyways, time for sleepies, gotta get registered as a local resident tomorrow, been taking my time with that for too long (and I am, admittedly, greedy for those free cinema tickets), which means I'll have to get up early despite tomorrow being my lazy-day.

Sayônara.

Ta-taa.

(*) academic/school hours; 1h = 45m

University? [ ] Yes [ ] No [x] Maybe(?)
I still have no news regarding the history exam I had on Sept 30th, and today is the official start of the new semester. I'll have to pick my new classes later today (in just a couple of hours, as a matter of fact) and I still don't know whether or not I'll be continuing this subject or not. You've got to love the fast ways of bureaucracy...

Last Thursday featured me and some mates from the students association playing tourguides for the new first-semester students. It was quite some fun, even more so because one of the girls was hitting on me like there'd be no tomorrow. I was actually speechless, but then, what are you supposed to answer to 'dares' like "hey I heard you'll provide escort after the pub-tour tomorrow night, can I book you?"?!
Too bad I couldn't be there for the pub-tour, as I was spending some quality time with my family back home at my parents' place on Friday and Saturday...
Thursday also featured a short visit by NH, who finally managed to drop by in this wonderful city; took us a bit more than a year, but we finally made it and we had a ball of a time drinking cocktails and talking about pretty much everything and then some more.

The job at the pub is gathering speed again, as more and more people are being driven inside again with the temperatures dropping and I've had quite a busy weekend and earned some nice money again. I just hope it continues to be like this, it's so much better than standing around bored while desperately trying to not fall asleep on the 5 customers you have throughout the entire evening.

Anyways, time for bed, alarm'll be ringing at 0700 as I need to get some uni-related things figured out, both for me and some other people who're depending on my help as member of the student association.
Can't wait for having something to do finally again!

Ta-taa.

Oh look: a new entry!
Wow.
After a hazardous month of...

reading up on Asian history like a madman (revised the entire semester in 3 weeks)

taking the exam on Asian history

moving out of my old place

moving into my new place

...I finally am 'home'; whatever that means.

Mid of September featured a change of plans in regards to the last re-sit date of my Asian History exam (which was re-scheduled from end of February 2006 to Sept 30 2005), so just in time for me moving out of my old place, I had to start living at the library and revise all those tedious historical details on the Muslim states, buddhism and the rise and fall of the kings in Tibet, the Mongolians and what I came to call "their family values" tour through central asia and the various Chinese dynasties and Japanese eras.
And as if roughly 3 weeks for revising all that wasn't bad enough by itself, the exam was also my last possibility to keep this direction of studies; failing this exam means being expelled from University and having to find a new (and unrelated) subject. Exam results have still to be published, but I'm somewhat confident that I passed, seeing how I spent between 5 and 10 hours a day at the library reading up on all the stuff...

In the meantime, while revising asian history, I started to move out of my old place, and it wouldn't have been my life if it didn't feature a series of complicated stalling moves that kept me from moving into my new place until 2 days ago!
After moving my stuff into the cellar of my new place (and a promise by JT, the former inhabitant, that he'd be done moving out by Sept 30th latest), I pretty much was without a place to sleep. No more bed at my old place, no bed yet at my new place.
JT is a bit of a slacker lazy turd who's working 12 hours a day and who still wouldn't have moved his stuff out of this flat if it hadn't been for me threatening with our landlord.
Good thing I got a good friend living in Bonn, and thank Heavens he's still pretty much living at his girlfriend's place! So I packed the few things I had left out of the carton boxes along with the books and photocopies I needed for the history revision and moved in at his place; which basically means (1) I left his place in the morning, went to the library, sat there all day long, returned 'home' and pretty much instantly fell asleep. Go to (1). Repeat for almost 3 weeks.

All things have to come to an end though, and I finally kicked him out 2 days ago and started inhabiting this place after all. Today I'll go buy the last parts to complete my shelves and start filling them and then I'll have moved in, and can then begin to settle in, which shouldn't take longer than a few weeks; and hooray, just in time for the beginning of a new semester. Timing is everything...

The new semester will feature me repeating my Chinese I class as well as taking Japanese I classes in addition; given that I actually did pass that exam. If that's not the case ... well, I guess I'll have to improvise and do something else, but I'm not much for painting that black lately.

And now I should be leaving, got a good load of things to do today and so little time to get it done!

Ta-taa.