Week 33 - ISO Party and Nice Weather

After the Cleveland-Trip I first had to catch up with some work for my classes. So from Monday to Thursday I got up early and went to the library to complete some assignments and other stuff. I also played tennis on Monday, went climbing on Tuesday and Thursday and we had another volleyball game on Wednesday - we lost again, but this time it was a little bit unlucky... The weather overall gets now a lot warmer. We are having a really April like weather now - either it is really warm and sunny or it is raining, and that can switch within a few minutes. But still it is so nice to be able to go running outside and do other activities again.

On Friday I went for a run with a friend from the university and we had our third International Student Organization Party. I wore my Lederhose, because I made an arrangement with a girl from Turkmenistan, that if I wear it she will wear a traditional Turkmenistan dress.

As the weather was really nice on Saturday, we rent bikes from the rec center and went to Ritter park, which is about 15 minutes away from the campus by bike. There we did sunbathing and played Frisbee and I got a little bit sunburned. At night we had another party at an American friend's house.

On Sunday I slept until noon and then went outside to study for my Spanish exam that I'll have on Monday. The weather was again awesome and I and my running buddy will go for another run.

Week 11 and 12 - Gaming Night and International Festival

The 11th week was rather quite, there was not much going on. I had the Spanish midterm, that I passed with great success :). I was also able to get an exception to take an Computer Game Development 3D-Course next semester and so I won't have to make the Computer Graphics course in Austria.

Besides the academics, there were about 160 Mexican students arriving at Marshall - they are making an English course and will stay for 5 weeks. On Thursday, I had a racquet ball game, which I also won and therefore I won the whole racquet ball championship for this semester. At the next day, we had the first INTO-party with the Mexicans which was great fun and afterwards there was a game night at the Campus Christian Center, where we played Mario Kart and learned a new card game.

In the 12th week there was more going on. I had to finish 2 projects and make a presentation about the software engineering project, but that was also going well. On Thursday we watched a comedian show - "Dakaboom" was making a comedy/singing-show that was pretty cool. At the next day after class there was a ceremony where a lot of people thought of the plane crash on December 14th, 1970 where 75 people lost their lifes, including the whole Marshall football team and some of their fans.

Afterwards, we helped to setup some stuff for the International Festival on Saturday first. We also went to the first basketball game this season, which was really nice, Marshall won. We participated in the halftime show - I represented Austria and carried the Austrian flag over the basketball court. Afterwards we went to Margarithas, a Mexican restaurant where we had a party with the Mexican students. Dancing is really important to Mexicans and you can see that they practice it a lot, because they can do it very well. I tried to learn Salsa a little bit but I think I will never be able to move like they do :).

On Saturday, I stood up pretty early to finish my poster for the International Festival. After that we had brunch and went to a tailgate party with the International Student Organization and we also went to the football game afterwards. Marshall won again and has now 10 wins and no losses! Go Herd :). We had to leave the football game earlier to be on time at the International Festival. I shared a table with the Netherlands, where I answered a lot of questions about Austria. And you won't believe it, there were more than 10 people who thought I was from AustrALia :). I think I really should buy a t-shirt "No Kangaroos in Austria" :). I also wore my Lederhose and that was really an attraction for the Americans, I was a motive in I guess more than 30 pictures. Furthermore, I also participated in the fashion show, where a lot of people represented the clothing of their contries. The festival lasted 3 hours and we went again to Magharitas and Jakes and had a really funny night.

Today (Sunday) and the whole next week, I will try to achieve as many points as possible for the Marshall Cyber Security team, where I was recruited to solve hacking problems. It was really hard today to solve some of the problems, but finally I could really help the team.

The next week is already the last week before the Thanksgiving break and I am really looking forward to the trip Chicago and Cincinnati and afterwards there are only two weeks left until the winter break - time is flying, but I am glad that the semester is almost over.