Week 36 - Holi Festival, Cooking and Farewell Picknick

This week was the so called "Dead Week", the last week of classes - next week are only finals anymore. I already had a few final exams in Cyber Security, Software Engineering and Spanish, which went ok, but not great, but I think I passed all exams and that's the only important thing. It is also very different here than in Austria, the final exam only takes a rather small part of the overall grade (from 10 to 40 percent), so if you don't do well on an exam it is not too bad.

On Tuesday, we watched Pitch Perfect at night on the campus on an outdoor screen which was quite nice - it only could have been a little bit warmer...

On Wednesday I had the earlier mentioned 2 exams and at night we went to a bar/restaurant called ALE House to have dinner. I had a nice burger and a delicious Weihenstephaner wheat beer (I miss wheat beer so much - they don't have that here almost anywhere). On Thursday, I had only one class, studied a little bit for my Spanish exam on Friday and at night, we had a farewell party for Anabel, a Spanish student, who left the next day. It was fun, but I didn't stay really long as I had my exam on the next day.

On Friday, there was a Holi Festival on campus. We put colors on others and got covered with colors for about 1.5 hours.

At the night we also had a small party at an American friend's house. On Saturday, I had to start studying for my final exams and at night I cooked "Wiener Schnitzel" (Vienna Schnitzel) and "Kartoffelsalat" (Austrian potato salad) and I am really content with my cooked dishes! To complete an Austrian evening we watched "The Sound of Music" which is in my opinion just hilarious :).

On Sunday we had a pick nick / barbeque from the International Student Organization, where a lot of international students showed up and everybody was supposed to bring food from their country (I brought the Kartoffelsalat from the day before). We had really nice weather (about 26°C - 79°F) and were at a park close to the university from about noon to 7:30pm. We played soccer, volleyball and just enjoyed the sun and the good food.

At night I also went to the library, because I had two finals the next day. And now it's going to the final week already - the time flies - only 5 days left...

Week 15 - Dead Week and 1 Mile Climb

This week was the last week with classes for this semester (it's called dead week here). That means I'm almost finished with my first semester and I've already had 2 of my final exams on Friday, but at Marshall (and I think generally in the USA) the grading system is a lot different than in Austria. The finals I wrote on Friday only counted 10 percent to my overall grade! The other part of the grade comes from midterm exams, projects, assignments and quizzes throughout the semester, so it's a lot less severe if you would perform badly on the final. The finals I took on Friday were Spanish and Software Engineering. I'll get an A in Spanish and I also have a good feeling for the SWE exam.

What I did besides studying: Last weekend we had the last party with the Mexicans in Margheritas - they left on Saturday. On Sunday I also went for a run outside - the weather here in Huntington is a little bit unpredictable - it had about 15°C (59°F) and it was sunny, so I had to take the chance, because right now it has always at most 7-10°C (45-50°F). On Tuesday night, we went to "Herd Holiday", a Christmas event on campus. We could make the typical S'mores (a melted marshmallow between chocolate and crackers), drank hot chocolate and we made a picture with Marco, the mascot of Marshall.

On Wednesday and on Friday I went climbing with Marjolein and on Friday I could complete "the mile". There is a contest: if you climb up the wall (which is about 9.5 meters (31 feet) high) 171 times then you climbed one mile (1.6 kilometers). I am the third one overall, who completed the mile and the first one who is not a staff member of the Rec Center. On the next day besides studying for the finals we also went to a local church where a mini golf course was built. It was pretty calm because there was a football game at the same time - and Marshall is now conference champion!

Next week I have 3 finals and one project presentation and on Friday I will start traveling around during the winter break. We will go to Houston, New Orleans, Tallahassee, Miami (where I will meet my parents for 3 days), San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon.