Week 29 - Midterms and Intramural Racquetball Champion

As I leave on Friday in the morning (and miss one class and one quiz) I have to post the weekly update today on Thursday. This week was all about midterms - on Monday I had my software engineering exam, on Tuesday I had digital image processing as well as 3d game development and on Wednesday I had my cyber security midterm exam. All of them went quite well - I already have the result for digital image processing and I'm totally okay with it (84/100).

Besides taking these exams and studying for it, I went climbing on Sunday and Wednesday. On Tuesday I should have my last racquetball game of the racquetball tournament, but my adversary did not show up -> so as I won all my other games I won the tournament now :).

Furthermore, I also went again to the Boxing Body Beatdown which is every Wednesday and we had our first soccer game on Thursday. I also went to Fat Patty's on Tuesday, went to Jake's on Wednesday and I'll also go out again to Fat Patty's today.

AND NOW: SPRING-BREAK, I AM COMING :D!!!!

Week 28 - Poker Night, International Party and Preparation for Midterm Exams

Again one week passed and I can say that it was an eventful and fun week. On Monday we went to the "Herd Talent Show" where 8 Marshall students performed various acts from singing to dancing. On Tuesday after I went climbing I had my second game of the Intramural racquetball tournament and I won it - so now I'm in the playoffs :). On the next day, I only had one class as one of our professors wasn't at the university that day and at the evening and night it snowed a lot - so classes on Thursday and on Friday got canceled :D. So the first free snow day had to get celebrated with a new run in the snow with only swimming wear and shoes. I also went climbing that day and we also played soccer on a field that was covered with 15-20cm snow which was really fun. At night we borrowed a poker suitcase and played poker with about 12 players which was also really nice.

On Friday after working on a few assignments in the morning, I went climbing again - and I completed a 5.10b route the first time :). Afterwards we played again snow soccer and at night we had again one of the International Student Organization parties (Unfortunately this time I don't have any pictures).

As I have 4 exams on the first 3 days of the next week I had (have) to study the whole weekend for my midterms... But after I complete these exams I'll go on my spring break trip to Buffalo, Niagara and New York and therefore I have something to look forward to :D.

Week 25 and 26 - Closed University, Basketball-Game and Run in the snow

The 25th week was pretty quite - therefore I did not write an own blog post for that week and will combine it with the current week. At the first week I went to a boxing class on Wednesday, which was really interesting - we learned some basic techniques and also tried it at a living object (who obviously held pads that we used for practicing punching). Later that day we went out for 25 cent pitcher night at Jake's. On Friday a pretty big group of international students met at the gym and we played a lot of badminton, racquetball and walleyball. The next day I went to a basketball-game of the Herd. The stadium was pretty full as Marshall played against Western Kentucky University which is really close and therefore the atmosphere in the stadium was really nice. I also went climbing that day after a break of about 1 and a half weeks - and my elbow did not hurt anymore, so I was pretty happy. We also went out at night. We went to Jake and as it was Valentine's Day, we all put some hearts on our clothes as a party gag. On Sunday I just had to do a lot of work for my courses and worked the whole day on assignments and projects.

The 26th week was really influenced by a lot of snow. It snowed the whole night from Sunday to Monday and at the morning there were about 15cm (6 inches) snow lying on the ground. As Americans don't have winter tires, I can somehow understand that it is a risk to drive under that conditions. The university decided to close for Monday and Tuesday, so there were no classes at these days. We obviously had to find something to do at that time :). So, to celebrate the great amount of snow, we decided to run around the campus only wearing swimming wear. According to Google weather, it was -12°C (10°F), but in my opinion it did not feel that cold. We ran a little bit more than 1 kilometer (about 0.8 miles) - our route was from the gym to the administration building (Old Main) and back on the 5th avenue. The run itself was nice, but there was a crazy guy, who tried to tackle us in the snow, as you would image someone would do it in the NFL :). He got Matheus immediately after we left the gym and he also tackled me in the snow just before we came back to the gym. It was cold, but the whirl pool in the rec center let us warm up quickly - I'd do that again :D. We also found our way on twitter (video), where someone just recorded us from their dorm and even the town of Huntington posted a meme about our run.

I also went climbing at the same day - and unfortunately my elbow hurt a little bit again. I just hope that it get's better again... As classes were canceled for Tuesday, we decided to pre-celebrate the birthday of an American friend. We had a few beers at a dorm room and then went outside to enjoy the snow :). On Tuesday I first worked on a few assignment and at night I had my first racquetball game of this season's tournament. I won with 2:0 and I'll have my next game next week. Afterwards we had the real birthday-party at a flat a few minutes away from the campus. Despite the fact that the people in West Virginia don't celebrate "Fasching" (which is something close to Mardi Gras or Carnival), we decided to dress up for that evening - I wore my Lederhose. We played card games and it was a really funny night.

On Wednesday I had my only two classes for this week, because the university decided to cancel classes on Thursday and Friday too. The reason was that the weather was too cold (-26°C or -15°F, respectively) - Americans are sometimes just big wimps ;). My schedule for this week looked like this:

Besides all that, this weekend (beginning with the 20th of February) 7 international students and I will travel to Washington, D.C for a long weekend from Friday to Sunday. We'll rent cars and drive to D.C. and hopefully have a good time there :).

Week 13 - Road to Thanksgiving Break and Hunger Games Movie

I want to give you a short update before the thanksgiving break next week. I will go to Chicago and Cincinnati with two other international students. This week I registered for the courses for the next term and I am glad that I got all the courses that I wanted on the time I wanted. I registered for Spanish II, Game Development II: 3D, Software Engineering II, Cyber Security and Digital Image Processing. I hope the courses will be interesting and that it is not too much to do :).

This Tuesday I had only one class and therefore I could sleep a little bit longer than usual. And when I looked outside the window there was the first snow I saw in the USA. For me it was no big deal, but there were a few Mexicans which saw snow the first time and it was really exciting for them. After the only class that day we watched the second basketball game of Marshall against another team of West Virginia. It was in my opinion more interesting than the first one and Marshall won again. On Wednesday after dinner I went climbing again and now I am almost climbed one mile high -> this is a contest: when you climbed 171 times up the wall it will be one mile (1.6 kilometers). Only 2 people got it, and I hope I will be the third one (I'll also get a little price then). On the next day I had a presentation of my a poster I created for my GIS-course, and I am fully satisfied how it went. In the evening I played racquet ball against my SWE professor again and watched the first part of "The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay". After that nice movie we also went to Blacksheep and had a funny night. Today (Friday) I packed all my stuff and hope that the Thanksgiving week will be nice. We will travel to Chicago over night by train and it will take somewhat longer than 12 hours!

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 :).