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.

Week 10 - Halloween and Racquet Ball Trounament

The 10th week is over and I can look back and say it was a nice week. After a psychology exam on Monday, which was rather easy again, I started looking at the courses for next semester, as they became available. Unfortunately, they don't offer Computer Graphics and so I'll have to do it when I'm back in Austria. The courses I will pick next semester are Spanish II, Software Engineering II, Digital Image Processing, Cyber Security and another one, but I have absolutely no idea which course I should pick as the 5th one.

On Tuesday, I had the first match of a racquet ball tournament and it went better than expected. I won against a guy, which teaches racquet ball at the Rec Center and so I'm looking forward to the next game. After I finished playing the game of the tournament I also met my software engineering professor and we also played one set.

The rest of the week was all about Halloween. Americans really live Halloween, that means you can see a lot of people walking around with costumes during the day. And it is also some kind of different, as here they don't really focus on scary costumes, they just want to have funny and nice looking ones. A really cool Halloween event happened on Thursday. At the "Tower of Terror", they turned 3 floors of the eastern twin tower dormitory into a spooky area. It was really popular and so we had to wait for about 1,5 hours. After we went up we could see a fully darkened floor and there were several rooms where people were playing scenes from fairy tales in a scary way. It was really cool and much better than the haunted houses at Kings Island last week.

At Halloween (Friday) we first went to the famous West Virginia Pumpkin House in Kenova, a town next to Huntington. There were more than 3.000 nicely carved pumpkins at the house and also a wall where the pumpkins were lighted within the rhythm of some famous songs.

After we came back, we dressed up and went to the street with the fraternity houses. There were parties in almost every house, so we looked around and stayed at a house with free beer. I think it's obvious that it was a funny night. We also went to Jake's afterwards and had free pancakes at the university before we went to bed. On Saturday I slept long, went climbing at the afternoon and we went out again on another Halloween party.

The weather this week was really strange. On Monday and Tuesday it was about 25°C (77°F) and now at the end of the week it was almost below zero (in Celsius). I talked to a few people and they told me that it is normal that it becomes about -20°C (0°F) in winter, so I hope i never have to stay out long in that time. Americans also have a really strange feeling of temperature. There are several people walking around with shorts now, when its around 0°C. They are also cooling down the houses ridiculously in summer. When I arrived here it was around 30°C outside and inside of some buildings I sometimes felt like I'd need a sweater. They also need enormous amounts of ice in their drinks, even when it's really cold outside.

The traveling plans for the thanksgiving and winter break are also ready. At thanksgiving 2 other international students and I will go to Chicago and Cincinnati. At the winter break we will go to Houston, New Orleans, Tallahasse and Miami, where I will spend Christmas and meet my parents. Afterwards I will fly to the west coast where I will meet a friend from Austria. We will visit San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego. I'll also go to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon before I have to go back to Marshall and the second semester starts. I'm really looking forward to this time and hope I'll have money left afterwards :).

Week 9 - Run to Ohio and Kings Island

The 9th week in Huntington was a really nice one (besides a midterm exam on Tuesday). I went climbing twice and climbed my first 5.10a route which is a really huge challenge for me. On Tuesday a few other international students and I also watched a free movie in the cinema on Pullman Square. "Gone Girl" was a really good movie for all who like thriller movies and I really loved it. On Wednesday I mostly had to work on a project I had to finish and on Friday I went on a run to Ohio - it sounds far away, but if you run over the Ohio River bridge you are already in Ohio - it was about 8 to 9 kilometers (5 miles) and I had a really nice view from the bridge and the other side of the river.

Certainly the coolest day of the week was Saturday. We went on a trip to the attractions park "Kings Island" which is in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a bus trip of about 3 hours and the best thing was that it was free (organized from the Campus Activities Board). We had several rides on different kinds of roller coasters and also went to a drop tower which was about 100 km/h fast. There were also several Halloween attractions, like haunted houses or a haunted corn field which were fun, but they weren't really scary.

View from the Ohio River Bridge and the other side of the Ohio River, respectively:

Kings Island:

Week 8 - Applebutter Fest and Annoying Units

It has been about 2 month now that I am here. The first midterm exams has successfully passed but there are more coming in the following weeks. I also have to do projects in 2 of my courses and I have to write a paper in my Natural Language Processing course. So right now there is a lot of stuff to do.

Besides that I had a rather quiet week, I went climbing a few times and managed to climb the first 5.9 route, so I am happy with my progress :). On Friday, we went Crate Stacking (Bierkisten-Klettern). It was fun - I managed to staple 14 crates until I fell). Furthermore, on Saturday we attended a Applebutter Festival in Barboursville (about 30 minutes by car away from the university). As the name says, the festival is about applebutter, which is just mashed apples with several ingredients, like for example cinnamon. We also carved some pumpkins, played a few games and they also had very good food and deserts (but compared to the dining hall, where I usually eat, this is not a great challenge).

I also want to write about the units Americans use. Here a quick overview of all (for Europeans) weird units:

Measure	Unit in Austria/Europe	Unit in America	Conversion
Temperature	Celsius (°C)	Fahrenheit (°F)	Celsius = (Fahrenheit - 32) / 1.8
Length	kilometer meter centimeter	miles foot inch	1 mile = 1.60934 kilometers 1 foot = 0.3048 meters 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
Mass	kilogram	pound	1 pound = 0.453592 kilograms
Volume	(milli)liter	ounces gallons	1 US oz = 29.5735 milliliters 1 US gal = 3.78541 liters
Fuel Consumption	Liters/100km	Miles per Gallon	20 MPG = 11.7607 l/km

That can be sometimes really weird when you hear someone talking about ounces and pounds or Fahrenheit. For example one beer with about 350ml is here labeled as 12oz. And by the way, America is except from Lebanon the only country which has Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.


Crate Stacking:

Week 7 - Homecoming and Written Driver License Test

This week was Homecoming Week in Marshall. There was a lot going on on the campus during the week and of course at the game day. For all of you, who don't know what "Homecoming" is (probably the majority of the readers), Homecoming is just a randomly picked football game in the season, where a lot of PR is being made and the whole week before there are events (mostly to make money :)). On each day of the week there was a specific topic for dressing and some students really followed these guidelines. We should go to class with pajamas, dress up as people in the 90s, super heroes or villains.

On Saturday there was the Homecoming Parade. I participated in the group of the International Student Organization. We all should wear traditional clothes from our countries and I also wore my Lederhose. We all got a pack of candies and threw it to some kids, who stood at the side of the streets. Afterwards, we had a little tailgate with the ISO. A tailgate is just eating something before the football game (we got some pizza, chips and beer), a lot of Americans also have barbecue at their tailgates. The game started at noon and Marshall won with 49:24!

Other activities this week:

On Sunday I played for the ISO-Team in a dodge-ball tournament. Dodge-ball is comparable with the Austrian "Völkerball", with a few extra rules. It was fun, even when we lost every game.

I also made the written driver license test in the local DMV. In the USA you can get your driver license really cheap and fast. I only had to pay 5 bucks to take the written test. The test itself was not very difficult, but I had to study for it because there are some custom regulations for West Virginia such as laws for alcohol, punishments and other variations. So now in about 30 days I can do the driving test and the I will hopefully get my license. I got a pre-drivers license, so now I would be able to practice but I would need a car and someone with a driver license would have to accompany me.

On Thursday we also went to a "Hispanic Night" where they had a lot of good food from South American countries. And the best thing was that I won a tablet - which they gave to a random attendee. Afterwards we also went to Jake's and had a few beer.