The lyf so short

After we'd been promised (threatened with?) rain last weekend and this week's Monday and Tuesday, yesterday it actually did rain. It is also raining today. This is a good thing because we haven't had proper rain in three weeks. Our rainwater cistern was empty! In March! In Bergia! I ask you! We had to go back to using tap water for flushing the toilet and for the washing machine! Such horror! Such waste! And after preparing the ("useful plants part") garden so nicely, I almost would've had to water it! In March! In Bergia! Incredible thing. Well, now it's raining - rather softly but it's raining. On second thought, the soft rain is a good thing too, because I made a low earth bank on one end of the garden and planted it with wild raspberries and, because it was so dry, I doubt they had a chance to dig their roots in deep enough to steady the bank. So hard rain would probably wash it all away. In conclusion: yay.

I've been pregnant for 26 weeks now. Half a year. That's really rather surreal. Ok, actually it's 24 weeks (they start counting on the first day of the last period, so there's two "idle" weeks), but still.
I signed up for an antenatal class at the local hospital, which will start in two weeks' time. I hope that won't be too embarrassing. On the other hand, as everyone present (aside from the midwife) is sort of in the same situation, I expect we'll all be equally afraid of doing something wrong. ^^ At any rate, I'm curious how that'll go! Next week Jörg and I will go and check out the same hospital's delivery ward. In our case this is mostly just a formality: We don't really intend to check all sorts of locations (as apparently some parents do). We're just going to see whether the local place looks sufficiently nice. Unless it's really off-putting, that's pretty much it. At any rate, our hospital's OB ward has a good reputation, so... yeah. But it's good to see the place in advance, I expect.
(My mom is very anxious for us to go to a hospital rather than try anything funny at home. My grandmother keeps insisting that birthing at home is so much better because she gave birth to two children at home and everything was fine and then the third was born in a hospital and everything was horrible. Which may be true, but a) it wasn't a difficult birth because she was in hospital, but rather she was taken to the hospital because it threatened to be a difficult birth; and b) this is the 21st century, not the 1960s. There's rooming-in these days and no more "cuddling is BAD for babies, don't touch unless absolutely necessary!" even in hospitals. Honestly. And lastly, the last thing I want to worry about - and something I know I would worry about if I were to give birth at home - is whether everything's clean enough or what the midwife thinks about our furniture arrangement and stuff. It's absurd, I know, but I'm ridiculously insecure that way and I don't need that on top of the already sufficiently pain- and stressful business. I'll keep that for fanfic, thank you very much. (Poor Nerdanel.) Hospital it is.)
So far things have been almost ridiculously easy - no trouble at all aside from breast pains in the first months, and occasional shortness of breath now. No sickness, no oedema, no stretch marks - so far. Of course that makes me sort of paranoid because it's too good to be true and there's bound to be trouble at some point... :p

My honeybees did, alas, none of them survive this winter. (Hurrah, I have something in common with Neil Gaiman! But unlike Neil Gaiman, I'm not going to import Russian bees believing that'll make things better. Actually importing bees from Russia is what started all the varroa trouble over here, but I assume they're already having varroa trouble in the States anyway, so I guess now it doesn't matter. Anyway.) This is not a good thing. But thanks to our carpenter we found someone who is selling a couple of (fully-fledged) colonies for €50 apiece, which is really cheap, normally you pay about thrice that price. Apparently, his colonies were so strong last year that he got to make several new starter colonies to make up for the usual winter losses, except that he didn't have winter losses, and now he's running out of garden space. Good for me. So if this works out, I'll soon have one new colony. And if they behave at my place like they behaved at his, I may be able (or even forced to) make a couple of starter colonies, and so it goes on.
Incidentally, our willows have never blossomed as beautifully as they do this year. And no honeybees yet. :( On plus side, wild bees and bumblebees of various kinds are already all busy.

We have mice in the intermediate ceiling. That is not good. We were warned when we bought the house that our predecessors had problems with mice, but when we (and, probably more relevantly, our two cats) moved in, no mice were to be found inside. Last year our tenants noted the pitter-patter of little mice feet in their ceiling, though, and (oddly enough, NOW that it's getting warmer outside) a few days ago they apparently made it across to our part of the house. Of course they're staying in the ceilings where the cats can't reach them. So we'll have to take down the ceilings and block all potential mouse-passages. Hurrah, yet another project. We also have to make some changes to the lovely new cesspit, because basically the local environmental office don't believe in basic physics*. Don't ask me why in Germany environmentalism so often comes paired with a complete ignorance of natural sciences. I really don't know.
Outside, the cats do continue to hunt, catch and kill mice. Yesterday, however, they caught a bat instead. I assume something must have been wrong with the bat because otherwise the cats presumably wouldn't have caught it, but still. Such a cute bat, and it was screeching for a long time before the cats actually killed it. ;_;

As of today, I am officially exmatriculated. Although the past two semesters at university basically just felt like "I hate this place, can I please be done now", now that I'm done I feel kinda wistful. And I'm gonna miss the free bus pass. :p Oh well. Once I've forgotten my annoyance about the silly rituals of academia, I can always try to go back for a Ph.D., right? I'll need one for pretty much all the jobs I'm interested in, anyway. *le sigh* (It's silly, really. Sometimes I look at job offers for lousy internships or traineeships and they want Ph.Ds and years of professional experience and years spent abroad and whatnot. I wonder whether people with Ph.Ds and years of professional experience (in the relevant field!) actually put up with under-paid internships or two-year traineeships. If they do, I hate them, because they ruin the market for the people such internships and traineeships actually should be aimed at. Gnah gnah. End entitlement whining here.)

To end on a positive note, yesterday I was given a surprise!present. I'd gone to the same local photographer who'd taken our wedding pictures, this time for job application pictures. I put this off for a long time (as you can see) because I hate having pictures taken of me. My face is, alas, the part of my body that I am least fond of, and as that's sort of the prominent part in such pictures (I mean, I can hardly send a photo of my awesome biceps, no?), I really really didn't want to have to deal with all that. But now the application deadline for an internship I'd really like to get (and that doesn't require a Ph.D....) is coming closer, I sort of couldn't avoid it anymore. (Yes, in Germany you still have to put a picture on your CV. No, it is pointless to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of that custom on my journal.) So I actually put on some make-up (urgh urgh urgh) and went to the photographer. Another childhood trauma; back in school, a photographer came to take passport & class pictures every two years, and the one who came to our school was a slimebag. (This seems to be common). But this photographer is very nice, the wedding pictures she took of us were lovely, so I figured if anyone could manage anything useful, she'd be the one. And eventually we did manage pictures in which I do not look too little-girly or otherwise goofy, hurrah. And we had a nice chat, too. And in the end, she said, "You know, I had these wedding pictures of you and your husband in my exhibition for a while." Which I did indeed know, because of course she asked our permission first. And then she said, "But I have to replace them with new pictures now. You know what, why don't I give them to you?" Which she then did. For free. Framed and all.
And I don't even look too goofy in them. :p
This was no doubt a clever move on her part ("They'll remember that when the time comes for cutesy baby photos") but still nice. So there.

Standard disclaimer: Everything in this post is (to the best of my knowledge) true, despite today's date. Hope you haven't fallen for any dirty tricks elsewhere! Last year I totally fell for something because it was posted on March 31st so I wasn't yet cautious about what I believed. Turned out the poster was sitting in Australia where it was already April 1st. Anyway. No foolish fish here.

- - -
*Sort of like my "favourite" Trittin quote.
"Sir, that is in direct contradiction to Ohm's law." - "Laws can be changed!"

Oh ye gods and little fishes, my exam results finally showed up. And I passed. And the two missing results are decent, too (1.7 in Japanese, 1.3 in English Literature (with Prof-whose-style-I-do-not-get-at-all, too! Adding a touch of feminist ranting was apparently a good idea.).

Assuming that I did the calculations correctly, which isn't entirely certain because the guide on the uni page is somewhat unclear, my final grade would accordingly be:
2.1.

Measured by my expectations from the start, that's a disappointment; measured by my re-assessed expectations after the bloody thesis, it's a relief. On the whole, the disappointment factor prevails, but eh well. Not much to do about it. And: At least it's over. Yes, NOW it's over!



Time to write job applications, I guess. And hope I find someone who's nice and/or stupid enough to employ someone with a suspiciously round belly and an unexciting degree in Weird Stuff. *le sigh* Complications, complications.

So.
I have completely (in my opinion, comprehensively ;)) prepared everything about the Middle English half of my topics. In the way I think it's right. (Which is probably not the way the prof thinks it's right. Eh well. There's only so far I can bend.) Have even managed to transfer it in bullet-points to blank Kanji cards (OH ERU THANK YOU THE TIMES OF KANJI CARDS ARE OVER) so that I can use the time spent waiting at the Philosophikum (alternatively, in a traffic jam) for a last-minute conscience-soothing brush-up.

The other... um... is there an exact English equivalent for Da schweigt des Sängers Höflichkeit? That. Let's not talk about that.

Anyway. If Professor-of-whom-I-do-not-think-highly behaves like a normal human being and sticks to the rules guidelines and specifications, I should be ok (by which I mean, 3-ish. no more illusions.)
If she decides to be an asshole and break my back, on the other hand...

... let's just pretend there is no other hand. (Hello, Maedhros.)

On plus side: It is only half past seven. Gives me a chance to make pizza, watch a nice moodlifting movie, and still go to bed at a reasonable time. If I learned ONE THING from the bloody exam preparations, it was to bring my procrastinative time management to perfection. (And completely without having read Dinge geregelt kriegen, too! ;))

I cannot remember ever having felt so relieved when turning off the computer, for realz.

Thanks to all for your well-wishes! I don't know whether they helped yet, as we'll only get the results from mid-December onwards. But surely they did!

Translation consisted of four sentences - one extremely simple (室町時代は鎌倉時代の次に来る時代です。), the rest of increasing length and (grammatical, not contentual) complexity. Not certain at all whether I managed to crack the final two, particularly the last. Am v. glad that I did the translation first - I'd initially thought half an hour should be ok - ended up taking an hour and still hadn't done the last sentence. Put it aside, wrote essay (which, as I had thought I'd only need half an hour for the translation, got a little rushed), tried again. Hope I managed to get some sense into it.

As for the essay... as usual, once the first brain-void after an exam is gone, all the doubts come rushing in: Did I mention this and that? I should have elaborated on the classifications! Oh crap, it's probably way too superficial, I should've used less examples and covered them more in-depth... The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's crap. Accordingly, I try not to think about it. It's not like I can change anything now anyway.

My brain is so fried that, when my virus scanning program asked me whether it should check a newly added hard disk for malware, I read it wrongly. See, it talked to me in German and capitalised "malware" (because in German, all nouns are capitalised), so I... pronounced it in German in my head. Mull-vare-ey. And thought, "Huh, Malwárë, cool Elvish name." (A little unfortunate, maybe: malwárë in Quenya would mean "pale day" or "pale dawn"; whenever a day dawns pale-ly in literature, there's going to be a battle or someone is going to die or somesuch...) "I'm totally going to use that."
And then I realised, you know, that it meant malware, and felt slightly foolish. Obsessed fangirl much?

Also, have a headache and slept really badly - not due to exams, but due to my parents inviting us out to eat yesterday to a restaurant that... um... disappointed slightly. Shouldn't eat so healthily: I'm no longer used to food junk and my body reacts really badly to it. Glutamate-induced headache + light sensitivity: No fun at all. Did I mention the dry mouth and throat, too?

Other than that, still alive. Now preparing for Anthropology exam. Fun times.

Ich soll am Donnerstag ein Referat halten.

Deswegen muss ich morgen eigentlich ziemlich dringend in die Sprechstunde beim entsprechenden Prof.

Ich zitiere bei dieser Gelegenheit die amtliche Vorwarnung zur Unwetterwarnung für den Rheinisch-Bergischen Kreis:

gültig von: Dienstag, 02.02.2010 00:00 Uhr

bis: Dienstag, 02.02.2010 08:00 Uhr

ausgegeben vom Deutschen Wetterdienst

Dienstagmorgen kommt von Nordwesten her Schneefall auf, der bis zum Abend andauert, im Flachland aber zum Teil in Regen übergeht. In Westfalen und vor allem im Bergland über 300 m sind Neuschneemengen um 10, im Stau der Eifel, des Bergischen Landes, des Sauer- und Siegerlandes und des Weserberglandes 15 bis 25 cm zu erwarten. Da es sich um nassen Schnee handelt, besteht die Gefahr von Schneebruch. Bei Böen um 65 km/h (Stärke 8) muss zusätzlich in freien Lagen und in Kammlagen mit Verwehungen gerechnet werden.

Dies ist ein erster Hinweis auf erwartete Unwetter. Er soll die rechtzeitige Vorbereitung von Schutzmaßnahmen ermöglichen. Die Prognose wird in den nächsten 14 Stunden konkretisiert. Bitte verfolgen Sie die weiteren Wettervorhersagen mit besonderer Aufmerksamkeit.

Das kann ja lustig werden. Ich wohne "im Stau des Bergischen Landes". Huzzah.

Das besonders Schöne ist ja, dass in Köln wahrscheinlich wieder mal bestenfalls zehn Flocken fallen und "ich bin eingeschneit" folglich nicht mal geglaubt/akzeptiert werden wird. Hahahah. Hah. Hahah.

Vielleicht mach ich mich besser schon mal zu Fuß aufn Weg?

Ach was. Die Hauptstraßen werden bestimmt toll geräumt und die Busse fahren selbstverständlich alle planmäßig, nicht wahr? :p

Dies ist keine Beschwerde über das Wetter. Das Wetter als solches finde ich geil. Dies ist nur eine Beschwerde über den Mangel an Flexibilität. ENTWEDER, es ist dafür gesorgt, dass auch bei schwersten Wettern alles normal läuft - ODER man muss Arbeitgeber und sonstige Heinis dazu verpflichten, zu gestatten, dass die Leute dann eben ganz flexibel mal zuhause bleiben dürfen. Ohne schlechtes Gewissen, Abzug von Urlaubstagen oder "dann kann ich Ihnen aber kein Feedback geben!".


Und mein vierter Weisheitszahn drückt sich durchs Zahnfleisch, das hebt die Stimmung auch ganz ungemein.

EDIT:

Sie haben die Vorwarnung "konkretisiert".

gültig von: Dienstag, 02.02.2010 10:00 Uhr

bis: Mittwoch, 03.02.2010 00:00 Uhr

ausgegeben vom Deutschen Wetterdienst

Es tritt starker Schneefall mit Neuschneemengen von 5-10, in höheren Lagen um 15 cm auf. In Verbindung mit wiederholten Böen um 65 km/h (Stärke 7 bis 8) sind zunehmend auch starke Schneeverwehungen zu erwarten. Zudem besteht hohe Gefahr von Schneebruch durch Nassschnee. Am Nachmittag und Abend steigt die Schneefallgrenze vorübergehend auf 400 m.

ACHTUNG! Hinweis auf mögliche Gefahren: Straßen und Schienenwege können unpassierbar sein. Bäume können unter der großen Schneelast zusammenbrechen. Vermeiden Sie Autofahrten!

Köln liegt wie erwartet außerhalb des Warnbereichs. Köln hat "Wetter", Leverkusen hat "markantes Wetter", und wir haben "Unwetter".

The old furnace is now gone. Upstairs bathroom (where it used to be) looks horrible because our asstard predecessors naturally didn't bother to renovate parts of the house that are hidden by furnace anyway, so the walls there are paper-thin, covered liberally with old wallpaper and fugly early-19th-century tiles and all that. Oh well. Bathroom is due to be renovated at some point next year or so anyway. Until then I suppose we'll just have to put styrofoam or some such against the outside wall.

More importantly, new furnace is up and running!

So that's good.

Not so good is that they'll have to continue working on the connections between our part and the tenants' part and whatnot, so I have to stay at home again. I'm being paid for being there, so I won't be paid if I'm not there. (Kinda makes sense, no?) Yes, I know it's "only" € 80 before taxes, but still. Gnah. If nothing else, I'm kind of feeling bad about not going to work for a whole week when I only meant to take a day off on Monday.

On the other hand, work is boring and being at home will enable me to do Christmas preparations and now I have a good excuse to miss work, so there's that.

Focus on the positive.

On Tuesday I actually managed to get into Prof N. (this is beginning to be confusing, isn't it?)'s office hour. Even better, she agreed that she'd examine me. Better yet: She'll even examine me about Medieval Literature, which is not among her foci (her foci start at Renaissance Theater), so I'll mostly just have to do a lot of re-reading and not find my way into some topic I never attended seminars to, like 20th century literature (well, there was that one "Journey and Identity" reading course, but that's no seminar as such) or some such. Will probably have to find out what kind of secondary sources she's into, but that's ok. The alternative - apparently the standard approach for those who took their classes with Colin who isn't licensed to examine in Cologne - would have been asking Prof A., and after a friend is currently making very very bad experiences as pertains to the reliability* of Prof A., I'd really rather not write my essay for him.

So now I just have to get a signature from Prof B. of Cultural Anthropology and I'll actually be set to register for the exams. (They want a CV "that particularly clarifies my educational career". They already have a curriculum of my educational career up to my matriculation because it was necessary for my matriculation - and everything that came after that is in their bloody records. Why do they need a separate CV for stuff they already have the documentation for? This is probably one of those rules that were made back in the 1850s and never revised because datt hannewer immer esuh jemaht ("It's always been done like that"). Absurd.) Which is not good because I am terrified, but it is good because I'm in my 15th semester and this is getting ridiculous. >_>

Today I did my presentation on my thesis topic and concept and it went pretty well on the whole. Prof K. interrupted for questions a few times, but there were only two questions I couldn't answer, and one was because I didn't know the necessary mathematical terms in English. Sue me. I've never had to einen Mittelwert ermitteln in English before, and for some weird reason they never taught us mathematical terms in high school. :p For another I just didn't understand the question and thus gave the answer to the question I'd understood, not the question he'd asked. And he noted that I hadn't formulated my hypothesis clearly enough. Since I am officially not allowed to do too much work on the thesis before I have officially registered and received the official topic, I think it's quite all right when it's officially visible that I am still in the preparation phase. So that's ok.
I'll need some snaggy tag line for magistra thesis talk here on LJ though.

I had a great! brilliant! fantastic! idea concerning small but impressive presents for all those relatives that "don't want a gift for Christmas" but are deadly offended when they don't get one. CHOCOLATE BENTÔ. You know you want it. All those chocolates I made last week and this must be useful for something after all. I mean, aside from eating. There's only so much concentrated chocolate even I can stomach...
As I seem to be grounded tomorrow, it's probably safe to assume that there will be picspam.

And that's five things again!

- - -
*I've been reading a lot of Early Modern English stuff this week; does it show?

Just this Friday I was talking about exam nightmares with vout, and I said (truthfully) that I still had nightmares about my Abitur exams.

Well, this night I had my first Magistra nightmare!

It must have been one of those dreams that somehow anticipate the coming week and try to prepare you for it. Not that I am going to take any exams this week: But I finally signed up for Prof. N.'s office hour to beg ask her to do my literature exam stuff even though I never actually took any of her classes (well, not quite true: I did a class on Medieval English drama waaaay back, and I'm sitting through her "Gothic Shakespeare" seminar now; but I didn't take any exam-relevant classes, nor write any papers for her) and my topics are only marginally related to her foci, but hey!

In my dream, on the other hand, it was already May next year and I went to take the written exam - without ever having spoken to her about the topic. And I only remembered that I should discuss the topic with her about five minutes before taking the exam.

...
...
...
Thank you, subconscious. Now I am scared of the mere office hour.

At this point I still believe that signing up for the exam is harder than taking the exam. Of course I'm certain I'll think otherwise in half a year.

Not Things that made me happy, not things that made me sad, just... things.

1. University mail system sent me about 9 new e-mails at the start of the semester.
The mail they didn't send me was the mail about how Prof K. is ill today, and that his lecture would thus be cancelled. Guess who drove all the way to Cologne in order to find out?
Yep.
This being the highly lauded mail system that supposedly informs us about anything and everything relevant about our courses, for which we now have to register online (on another system which doesn't work properly either), so there are lists of who's registered for which seminar, and automatised mails to the students who don't have to get up quite so early after all could be sent.
And since Prof K. was ill yesterday already, nobody can tell me that the system simply had no way of knowing it.

2. Magistrantenkolloquium (I'm sorry, it's just too awesome a word in order to translate it; it means "colloquium (in the seminar sense, not in the exam sense) for those who aspire to become M.A.s (in the old sense, i.e. the magister/tra artium degree, not the "Master of Arts", which is the same except not)". See? Told you Magistrantenkolloquium sounds better.), for which I killed three and a half hours after finding out that abovementioned lecture was cancelled for today, took all of 15 minutes because Prof B. only asked who already had a topic to present and who was thinking about a topic and who was just sitting there for the random pearls of wisdom and after putting together a tentative schedule ("December 2nd... oh wait, I'll be in Cameroun then") we were released.
Prof B. is disturbingly handsome. He makes me suspect that he's some Hollywood star playing an anthropology professor at Cologne university, because he's way too smart, charming and handsome to actually be a normal professor. Seriously. He's kind of like George Clooney, if George Clooney had aged better. Kind of distracting. Not typical random anthropology professor material.

3. Funny YouTube video filk of We didn't start the fire. "We didn't start the flame war". Sad but true about many, many interactions-in-comments. I lol'd. NSFW because of dirty words and images, and such. Perhaps not for the easily offended, although the video only quotes and parodies and the real offenders are elsewhere.


Oh wait, there's a fourth. I ran into Cele after the brief Magistrantenkolloquium (let's see when this gets old) and we chatted for about two hours, which was fun. We probably geeked out everybody around us, but that's ok.

After exam!prof actually asked me whether I wouldn't want to write my Magistra thesis (look! I am being all technically and politically correct, and now nobody outside the German [or Latin]-speaking world will know what I'm talking about!) for him and I said I'd think about a topic, I...
... didn't really do much about it.

I mean, I had three basic ideas in mind, but they're all very fuzzy and vague and I didn't have the time to do any preliminary research yet as I have to finish another term paper first anyway.
These ideas were, basically (poor laurenia already had to listen to me prattling about this, but the rest of you may as well suffer along):

a) A comparative study of Anglo-Saxon fiction and non-fiction, esp. poetry on the fiction side and administrative and exhortative prose on the other, looking for traces of oral tradition in the poetry (which obviously was written down or we wouldn't know about it today, but in many cases was probably composed and passed down orally before someone finally penned it down) and the (hopefully) far less frequent occurance of such traces in the prose (which was composed and consumed in writing in the first place). If the "typically oral" formulae etc. also show up in the typically written genres (or in the poetry where, thanks to puns that only work when you read it, we can be fairly certain that it was composed in writing; yes, Cynewulf, I'm looking at YOU)... well, then we know that they're not, in fact, any measure for the orality or literacy of a text. Which might still be relevant knowledge, so hey.

b) Pretty much the same thing but with Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry that may have been composed orally, and Middle English poems from the Alliterative Revival in the 14th century that was very, very, very likely composed in writing, to see how much (besides the alliteration) they have in common, and what conclusion that allows us concerning oral or written composition.

c) This would basically be an extension of my term paper, changed enough to meet exam regulations (which state that I'm not allowed to write the thesis on the same topic I got the Schein in). As my main problem with the paper towards the end was that I had only one text type to compare it with and it would have been more fruitful to compare it to further written genres, this time something to include more texts from other genres (and possibly more language developments, too) would've been good.

All three would have been corpus-based (I love corpus linguistics). Case c) would be the easiest to delineate, as I've already worked with the Helsinki Corpus and already did a study around language development in the Early Modern English period, so I'd know what I'd be dealing with from the start. This is also the only one where I definitely know that there are going to be useful results one way or another, where I could easily add or remove data in order to reach or stay within the 60-page limit. However, case a) and b) would be really interesting, too; it's just hard to judge whether they'd yield any fruitful results, and if they do, whether it's the "enough for 20 pages" kind or the "100 pages at least" kind or the "somewhere around 60 pages" kind I'd need for the thesis. So before I could even choose either of these topics, I'd first have to do the full analysis necessary to actually write on them. Which is difficult, because it would very likely take a long time, and I'd have to choose and possibly digitise the texts in question, and meanwhile I'd have to sign up before I may officially start doing that analysis, but in order to sign up (at which point I already should have cleared the topic with the prof) I'd first have to do the analysis - or fly blind. So a) and b) would be rather more risky. But equally fascinating. Argh.

So I haven't been able to make up my mind in any way, and thus haven't talked to the prof again. Which was slightly worrying because he'd probably forget he'd agreed to read my thesis, or worse, wouldn't forget but be pissed off that I took so long to decide. But, argh.

Now today in a lecture with that selfsame prof, during half-time he walked up to where I was sitting and said, "I've had an idea for your thesis topic, if you're interested."
I tried to mumble something intelligent which resulted in something along the lines of "Oh good, I'll go attend your office hour", and spent the other half of the lecture silently panicking. Fortunately my seat neighbour - same one with whom I did the presentation on Ælfric - did her best to reassure me.
So after the lecture I waited for the office hour, Andie still keeping me company, and then suddenly laurenia showed up on her way to the Philosophikum, who also reassured me that I wouldn't have to take the topic if it was something that didn't interest me and the prof likely wouldn't let that count against me and perhaps it would be something I'd actually like to write on after all.

What he suggested in the end was that I'd look at language development in Early Modern English again, but more developments than the three I chose for the term paper, and in more genres than the two I used for the term paper, and instead of focusing on religious language and archaicism the focus might be on the process of standardisation of English across different genres.
So basically c), only more precise and with a focus I hadn't thought of.
Which, frankly, sounds pretty fascinating.
(I mean, if you're weird like me.)
And moreoever it sounds doable. I think I'd like to include texts from the late Middle English period already in order to have a nice starting point before the change actually starts. And maybe this time I could include the development of do-support, which is madly confusing but also rather interesting, and, oh no, I've already begun to plan, haven't I? And, well, I'm sure I'll pine a little for ideas a) and b), but I can always shelve them for a Ph.D. or something.

I feel kind of bad about the topic - and my other topic ideas - because all of these are fun topics. Academic fun, but fun nonetheless. I mean, historical linguistics is practically another fandom of mine. Writing an extensive thesis in this field is, when it comes down to it, kind of like fan fiction. Lots of work, sure, and a pain in the rear when the muses don't cooperate, and doubtlessly it'll take far longer than I'd like, but still, it's fun work. I doubt you're supposed to have fun writing your thesis. You're supposed to write about nasty topics that chew your brains out and drive you up walls and torture you with absurd theories and ugly arguments. This topic might have been a proper thesis topic in the olden days when you still had to read every single text in full and count every single occurance of every single paradigm by hand, but in these days of computerised corpora and search algorithms and POS tagging, all I have to do is pick up the pieces and put them together. And while I enjoy doing this, and am not entirely incompetent at it, there are other fields of linguistics I have forgotten everything about, so I feel kind of bad about getting off so easily.

If I get off. I still have to write it, after all.
Just now it looks too good to be true.

- - -

In completely unrelated news, the tit now manages to stay airborne for so long that one can actually speak of "flying" now. It can't cover distances beyond one or two metres (depending on how high up it is when it starts) and sags very much, and it can't change directions in flight because its tail feathers aren't fully grown yet, but it definitely knows how to stay aloft. Still needs to be fed, though. There's a nice caterpillar and some plant lice on the branches I cut for its cage, but so far it has looked at them without even trying to eat them. And it's not like lice or caterpillars move particularly fast.

And while I'm keeping the little great tit alive upstairs, Darcy went outside and killed a nightingale. >.

So the presentation on Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Ælfric's Preface To Genesis And Then Some actually went well. We managed to get all (I think) our points across (I think) well (I think), and people didn't fall asleep or look entirely confused.
We did not, however, manage to include the audience as planned within our half-hour. On the first two attempts nobody reacted, and because we had little time and I am not cruel enough to tell someone "Well look at line 26 and tell me what you see there, damnit" ("What is similitudinem? What? What?" - "Accusative, lord lady! Accusative!" - "Accusative what?!" - "Singulaaaargh!") eventually we did the things the others should have found ourselves, and the time didn't suffice for the third option anyway.

Which, of course, got us a reprimand after the presentation. "Did you have no plans to include the audience?"
"Yes we did; but time was too short."
"Well then you should have cut other things, because this was a priority."

At this point I was feeling surprisingly angry, and was seriously tempted to say "Yea more! And what exactly should we have cut? You told us explicitly to include background information on Ælfric, to explain the office of Ealdormann, to explain about Old English Bible translation again, to point out the rhetorical figures, to give examples for Ælfric's inclusion of the reader. You wanted cultural background, historical background, biographical background, background on the genre and in-depth text analysis. What, pray tell-" and yes, if I had spoken that moment, I really would have said pray tell - "What should we have left out in order to include the lazy masses that actually don't want to be included and won't do so until pushed, which takes even more time that we didn't have in the first place?"

Fortunately I managed not to vocalise these thoughts and only gave him a brief Look, but I either thought them forcefully enough or the Look was very eloquent, because his next words were "Well, but on the whole it was a very good presentation - quite exhaustive - and you should take the lack of questions not as a sign of indifference but as a sign that you left no questions open."
Note that he normally always says "Well, that was fairly good", and we actually got a "very" and additional praise. Perhaps I should use the Look more often.

After class he passed us and told us again that it was a good presentation, and then turned to me.
"By the way, I've read your term paper."
Oh crap, thinks I, here it comes.
"You can pick up your Schein whenever you want. It was a good paper."
"Thank you," I manage. Good paper. Huh. Is this the "It was a passing grade, which is a good thing" kind of good, or the "You got a grade 2" kind of good? (Note on academic grading in Germany: There's four basic passing grades - 1.0 = very good, 2.0 = good, 3.0 = satisfactory, and 4.0 = sufficient, with lots of sub-grades like 1.3 and 2.7 and what have you, plus two "failed" grades - 5 = insufficient and 6 = poor) Probably the latter, I tell myself - the paper wasn't that bad. Surely it'll be 2.something. 2.3 if I'm lucky, but let's assume 2.7 so I won't be disappointed. Or 2.9? Or did the "good" just mean "passed" after all?
Oh well. Only one way of finding out, really.

So later on between classes I go to the Student Information Office as they call the Geschäftszimmer, the department office, these days, and ask about my Schein.
I get five (whoops), two of which are wholly unexpected. Figures none of them is from Prof. A. for the Semantics seminar even though I would have been eligible for a Schein there - am not really surprised, just feel affirmed in my severe dislike of her. Also Prof. J. actually managed to grade that bloody essay from two years ago. I suppose I should have dropped by the Student Information Office earlier.

What I don't see is the Schein for the paper in question. Perhaps the Prof hasn't brought that to the SIO yet after all? Gnah. I was curious at this point.

A moment later I leaf through the five Scheine + one ancient essay again. Oh look, there's the one for the paper after all. They look different these days, you no longer have easily discernable [enter information here] lines but one homogeneous computerised mass, plus a crapload of modular information that makes it really hard to find the most interesting point, i.e. the grade, and ---

Ahahahah whut.
I think I got somebody else's Schein.
The matriculation number is mine, though, and the name is mine (albeit the maiden version).
And the paper title is mine, too.
Holy crapzors.
This must be a typo. I mean, WHUT. My paper wasn't that bad, but then again it wasn't that good, either. I mean, it didn't actually have any proper point (besides "I can't prove my point, I can only prove that I can't prove my point. Further research necessary.")
He probably meant to type 2.9, and accidentally hit the keys on the left and on the right, respectively.
I mean, he can't possibly have meant...
1.0.

ONE. Point ZERO.

This must be an error of some sort. Surely he meant 2.9. Or perhaps 2.0. Or 1.9. But never, never, never 1.0.

Except there's not just numerals, it's spelled out too. And it says, black on grey (like any proper German public institution, Cologne University uses environmentally friendly recycled paper):
very good (1.0).

The phrase WTFeth was rarely ever this appropriate.

I just barely managed to refrain from having a bonfire in the Philosophikum, or from hugging random strangers, or from running into the Prof's office to ask whether he was drunk or reading a different paper when he typed that up.

- - -

To top things off, Colin is back from Cambridge for the Medieval English Literature seminar. I'm taking said seminar for the 4th time now and finally begin to hate Othello (both book and character) a little less. And maybe, after this major motivation booster, I'll finally manage to, like, finish that paper on Sir Gawain...

*hyperventilates, and goes to light bonfire NOW*