Sehr verehrte Leserinnen und Leser,

Liebe Constipendiaten,

Nachdem der unvergessliche Franz-Joseph Strauß von den Toten auferstanden ist, endet nun heute wieder eine Woche, oder zumindest eine Arbeitswoche. Apropos, eine sehr produktive sowohl hinsichtlich meiner Hausarbeit, als auch meines Projektes, als auch meines Praktikums. Denn in diesen letzten Tagen sind viele Seiten über Probleme der Vertretung, über Probleme der Ehe, und über die Zusammenarbeit des säkularen Armes mit der Kirche entstanden.

Ich durfte wieder den Rat von Othmar Jauernig und Otto Palandt an meiner Seite holen, genauso wie die kühnen Wörter der Werke der Professorin Coester-Waltjen. Besondere Freude hat mir auch die Beschäftigung mit Berthold von Regensburg und seinem Einfluss auf dem Schwabenspiegel gemacht.

So viele Aufgaben veranlassten mich alle touristische Pläne zu kürzen bzw. sogar abzusagen. Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich heute das längst ersuchte Ikonenmuseum besichtigt. Zwei mal war ich schon da gewesen, und zwei Mal fand ich die Türe der Räumlichkeiten des Deutschordensgebäudes geschlossen. Nun durfte ich endlich rein. Wirklich ein schönes, wohl aber niedliches Museum. Es ist ja immer so wundersam, dass die Orientchristen und ihre Kultur uns so nah und zugleich so fremd sind.

Wie oft hat man ja schon Golgota-Berge und Verkündigungen gesehen! Wie vertraulich erscheint das Kamelfell des Johannes Baptista, er könnte fast würde ich sagen ein alter Familienfreund sein, der aus der goldenen Oberfläche des Bildes vielleicht eine etwas vergessene Kinderanekdote erzählen könnte.

Und wie exotisch ist dagegen die Darstellung der Hagia Sophia, der Hl. Weisheit! Bitte verstehen Sie nichts falsches, aber als ich die Figur zum ersten Mal in der Mitte der Ikone sah, kam sie mir so rot gefärbt vor, mit Fittichen und eine Art Krone, fast wie eine Gottheit aus Indien. Beim Anbetracht dessen kam der karolingische Diakon—ich meine in Frankfurt ist es sogar eine Pflicht an diesen Herrscher und an seine Zeit zu denken—Paulus mit seiner schönen Beschreibung der konstantinopolitanischen Kathedrale in Erinnerung. Und das alles unmittelbar neben dem Raum mit der äthiopischen Kunst. Was für ein herrlicher Anblick, wenn man so einen Schmelztiegel verschiedener Kulturen rund um denselben Kult sehen konnte…

Vielleicht zum Bedauern einiger Kommilitonen und Leser, habe ich die Reise nach Wetzlar vorübergehend abgesagt. Obwohl ich immer noch gelbe Hosen trage, werde ich wahrscheinlich diesmal das Haus von Werther nicht kennen lernen. Nach Dieburg, eine kleine Stadt auch in der Nachbarschaft von Frankfurt, habe ich vor morgen zu gehen, während der Mainz Besuch für nächsten Mittwoch geplant ist.

So wünsche ich Ihnen und Euch allen ein schönes Wochenende.

Time is really running fast, just yesterday we were wishing each other happy new year and today we are fast crusing past the month of February. For the chinese collegues and friends let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy new year, it is the year of the Tiger! So for all those born during the year of the rabbit and all years associated with small animals beware because the tiger is going to pounce on you. I honestly don’t know what am talking about so will any chinese friend come to my aid, the only thing I know is that I was born in the year of the dog and how that is to turn out with tigers I don’t know.

I will ignore Valentines day that passed by, lets just say that I have never marked my calendar for that day because I don’t understand why everyone should put pressure on the flower production just to be reminded that he/ she loves somebody. I mean we have 365 days to love, why pretend that on this one day our intensity to love has suddenly peaked. I am not being negative just because I did not receive a gift, but beacuse I am mad at the number of people who are crazy about the day yet they don’t understand the origin nor the main purpose of that day.

At the moment I have no control over my schedule, I am simply at the mercy of the lecturers, can you imagine that each single day I have to sign the attendance list? That’s how serious it is, you miss a single day and you have to explain why failure of which you risk facing serious consequences such as not sitting for exams. That is just to remind you that I have another batch of exams next week yet am still attending lectures. Who invented exams? What was the real intention? In life there are exams, they may not be written and they may not be graded, but they bear serious consequences in our lives. I still remember vividly like it was yesterday, my first ever exams to determine which kindergarten I would join. I was asked to draw a cow, I passed even though I drew something that looks like a car with horns and it was painted blue.

Talk of blue cows! I guess it is one of those days that you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It must be the winter, it must have finally gotten to me, it feels as if i have lost track of time. I have been advised to take some multivitamins because I may be lacking vitamin D due to lack of sunshine. So many explanations yet so little help, I guess it has something to do with lack of rest, I don’t know but I am certainly feeling funny nothing is painful yet I wake up with this funny feeling that something is wrong, could it have something to do with the year of the Tiger?

I have got news, one is good the other not so good the third one is bad. I will start with the good news which is the completion of the exams. The exams period is not one of my favourite moments as it limits my movement and time. There isn’t much you can do apart from revising and hoping that you don’t miss on anything and while you may comfort yourself that you will only revise on key areas you cannot brush aside the thought that probably 80% of the areas you don’t revise on will come in the exams. Well that torture is behind me at least for the moment and I can let my brain relax as I choke on the thought of the next exam session in two weeks hoping that the results will be good.

That makes my not so good news having to attend lectures and sit for exams while the rest of the student community is on vacation. While it is comforting to know that the library and the halls will be less crowded it feels like going to school on saturday or sunday. That reminds me, as a kid I remember the day I woke up early and dressed up ready to go to school only to be informed that it was saturday. Yeah, it is a contradiction but I loathe silence and empty space I would like to be in crowded lifts and halls having to fight for space in the libarary and having to line up in the mensa and board the crowded bahns, it makes me feel that I am not alone. Why can’t we just all go for the vacation at the same time and reopen at the same time?

The bad news ist that the mensa staff have gone on strike, and that means no lunch, just imagine on a monday! Imagine coming from a lecture room so tired and hungry headed for the mensa only to find that there is no real food, and you have to settle for soup and bread. Others may have no problem with that, but I definetely do, I have never really considered soup as part of food, don’t tell me about the nutritive value blah..blah …blah, I need real food which in many cases comes in a solid form. I am not sure of why the mensa staff have gone on a strike, but if it has to do with anything like salary increasement or better working conditions then I totally support them, all I am asking them is to come to an agreement soon so that I don’t end up starving, not with this winter.

Die Situation ist schon an dem Punkt angeraten, dass ich die Stunden zähle bis ich meine letzte Prüfung hinter mir habe. Und die ist morgen!
Nach der letzten Prüfung heißt es erst mal feiern und lange schlafen.
Manchmal wundert es mich, dass ich noch weiß was ich an so einem lernlosen Tag machen würde. In den letzten Wochen habe ich nur Bücher gesehen. Nun werde ich bald die Zeit haben genau das zu machen worauf ich gerade Lust habe. Ich freue mich wenn ich in die Stadt gehe und alle Leute so eine Freude ausstrahlen, weil sich alle auf die Semesterferien freuen und weil wahrscheinlich alle diesen enormen Druck von den Prüfungen hinter sich haben. Kleine Dinge nimmt man wieder wahr und schätzt sie wieder von ganz neuem. Die strahlenden Gesichter und die Lebensfreude die man bei allen erkennen kann. Langsam kann man sich dann auch schon auf den Frühling freuen.
Draußen in der Sonne auf der Wiese mit einem Picknickkorb. Mein Ideal für die kommede Zeit…die Semesterferien!

Sehr verehrte Leserinnen und Leser,
Liebe Constipendiaten,

Endlich scheint das Semesterende in greifbarer Nähe. Innerhalb von zwei Wochen werde ich mein drittes von insgesamt neun Semestern beenden. Die Dozenten verabschieden sich und man plant das kommende Semester. Vorlesungen, Hausarbeiten, Übungen und Seminare werden auserwählt.

Das Studium der Rechtswissenschaften ist ein Studiengang in dem die Prinzessinen Stephanie und Caroline von Monaco und die Zeitschrift Hello!, die Straßenverkehrsordnung , die Abgeordneten des Bundestages, die karthaginesischen Kirchenväter Cyprian und Tertullian, und nicht zuletzt auch Theodor Fontane und der Spiegel, sowie der Schauspieler Brad Pitt und Karl der Große eine gewichtige Rolle spielen. Und dementsprechend werden auch in diesen letzten Tagen noch Klausuren geschrieben, was natürlich auch Zeit in Anspruch nimmt. Sonst vergisst man ja die Details des Rosenballs vom letztem Jahr, die Vorschriften des Handelsgesetzbuches oder die Siegeszüge des Belisars.

So verabscheide ich mich diesmal von Ihnen und Euch allen. Bis nächster Woche.

First time I arrived in Berlin I went to visit the famous art-house Tacheles. I was especially taken with an exhibition titled “Global Warning”, but it’s not the exhibition itself I want to talk about here, but rather, the way it was portrayed in Tacheles; the massive drawings, which could have easily decorated the walls of a museum, were scattered on the floor or “sat” on chairs leaning against the walls; the place was not tidy nor clean and the guy standing at the entrance, who looked like a homeless person, was actually the artist. I spent a long hour talking with him about his works, his masterpieces, actually.

I find in Tacheles a good metaphor for my research method in Berlin. Before I clarify this comparison, I ought to say a few words about the research itself: I was granted a DAAD Kunststipendium to conduct research at the Visual History Archives (VHA) of the Freie Universität, hosting the Steven Spielberg Holocaust Foundation Institute.
Inspired by his experience making Schindler’s List, Mr. Spielberg established the Survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust) Visual History Foundation which, within several years, held some 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages representing 56 countries; it is the largest archive of its kind in the world.

My interest in the archives has to do with a script I’m writing. What I’m looking for there is the evasive thing called: human subjectivity. I can only presume that some of the survivors give inaccurate information in their testimonies. After all, they are asked to recall events which happened over 60 years ago; in some cases when they themselves were quite young or too young to remember; and especially so when dealing with a traumatic ordeal, which has its own ways to play with your mind.
But the way the memory is told – even if no place could be found for it within the pages of a history book – is exactly what defines those who tell it. It’s what makes it subjective.

Back to my comparison: a museum is like a history book; there they would treat the memory with silk gloves, hang it on the wall in a room with a humid-meter and beside it you would find a few selected words about the artist himself. It would be forbidden to take any pictures of the memory, let alone to touch it. There would be no one doubting its authenticity there. And that’s a good thing; so it should be.

But we should also be allowed to visit other “exhibitions” of memory; ones like in Tacheles, where you could meet it in “eye-level”, where you could touch it, have a cigarette with it, confront it with difficult questions. A museum and an art-house (like Tacheles) together give a more complete picture of art, if such a thing as a complete picture of art actually exists; history books and personal testimonies together give a more complete picture of history – a truly complete one probably doesn’t exist.

I will give some examples of my research method during the following weeks in the form of short stories which are inspired by the testimonies I view; I will also try and explain a little about the original testimonies vs. my adaptation of it.
I often try to identify common narratives within several testimonies and then combine them into a single story of a single protagonist. I try to write them plain, honest, straightforward – Tacheles.

Finally, I made it to Bonn to the DAAD headquarters for the second Development-related Postgraduate Course for Young Professionals“(German acronym: AST = Aufbaustudiengänge) meeting. The scheme was established in 1987, currently having over 42 courses offered by different universities in Germany and will be celebrating its 25^th anniversary in 2012. The aim of the first meeting held last year was to better interlink between the 42 different courses and form an active network for a more active exchange of ideas, experiences and a better access to existing subject-related Alumni networks.The second meeting was aimed at furthering the concepts and ideas that the first network meeting had come up with such as strengthening the linkage between the courses by both virtual and face-to-face activities, the vehicle for the virtual interaction was established as a starting point with the Alumniportal Deutschland, an online platform for the AST-Network.

The second network meeting also had representatives from all the courses under the scheme represented and the whole idea was to further the face-to-face interaction and come up with ideas that would be relevant for the 25^th anniversary this could be through workshops or conferences with themes that reflect the development related concept. The meeting was officially opened by Anke Stahl, the Head of section of the scheme who gave a brief summary of last years meeting and challenged us to pick up on where the last participants left and come up with practical and meaningful results that could be pursued in the year and climax at the anniversary celebration. After a brief introduction of the 40 participants, the challenge for the day was how to divide the participants into working groups based on the recurring themes that came up during the round of introduction based on the courses profiles. After much deliberations and several attempts with different ideas the participants finally agreed to divide the groups in to the following core areas, climate change, health, resource management, food security and peace and conflict al discussed under the theme of sustainable development.

with some of the participants

The second day was mainly limited for the various group discussions and presentations on the group’s ideas. The idea behind this was to come up with relevant activities that could be pursued, the courses that would be ideal to participate in such an activity and who would lead the whole process for easier coordination and communication. The results from all the groups were quiet good and by the end of the presentations it was clear that all the participants had put in lots of effort to ensure that the meeting was a success. However, the real work begins with the implementation of the concepts as in the previous year the participants came up with great ideas but the commitment by the participants was not good. The DAAD is committed to ensure that this year the ideas will be pursued and with the selection of the various coordinators its is hope that all the grassroots work with begin but the starting point would be to join and actively participate in the alumni portal part, interesting was the proposal by the food security working group to establish a online workshop where participants would be able to discuss issues that relate to food security. Until then,we can only hope that this is a starting pint for the journey that lies ahead!

Ja ja, so leben wir, die Studenten, Jahreszeiten ungeachtet, von Semester bis Semester. Trotz alledem die Information bezüglich die Semesterferien und Lehrveranstaltungen finde ich es besonders schwierig in Deutschland vorgelegt ist. Dabei werden es 4 Begriffe (vielleicht noch mehr) benutzt:

•    Beginn/Ende des Semesters;
•    Beginn/Ende der Lehrveranstaltungen;
•    Schulferien/ Vorlesungsfreier Zeit;
•    Rückmeldung.

Es ist wichtig nicht nur wann das Semester beginnt, sondern wann die Lehrveranstaltungen beginnen, denn Sommer und Winter Semestern haben fast überall das gleiche Anfang. Bei uns an der uni blieb seit 2001 nicht verändert:

•    SoSe: 01.April
•    WiSe: 01.Oktober

Also ändern sich nur die Anfangszeiten von Lernveranstaltungen, davon hängt es auch ab ob es vorlesungsfreie Zeit gibt, z.B. die Woche nach Pfingsten. Ich persönlich im Sommersemester 2010 habe Beginn der Lehrveranstaltungen  am 06.April, und Ende der Lehrveranstaltungen am 09. Juli. Dabei muss man noch an der Begriff der Schulferien angehen, der auch als Kennzeichen für das vorlesungsfreier Zeit benutzt werden kann.

Es ist auch sehr wichtig nach jeder Semester anzumelden und Studienbeitrag zu Zahlen, das wird leider nicht automatisch gemacht. Man kriegt üblicherweise eine empfehlende Email Nachricht für die Rückmeldung. Falls es schwierig rückzumelden wird – schreibe ich später hier noch was darüber.

Schönen Tag noch an alle!

Last Friday marked the end of our first exams, and I am now looking forward to a round trip in Europe to celebrate my Christmas. However, I still have one more week of class work before I can finally take that well deserved break off the books.  It was one of the toughest weeks ever, waking up early to revise and prepare for four exams all done on the same day. This was a new experience to me as back home we could only sit for a maximum of two exams in one day; so sitting for four exams with only fifteen minutes break between the subsequent papers was more of a torture to me.

It is always a common practice among students to ask how the exams were right after sitting for the paper. I have never found the correct answer for that question as I imagine that, my performance will be determined by the final grade. Anyway, this week I have learnt that you can never be fully prepared for exams. No matter how well you prepare, you will always be nervous and I consider that a sign of having just the correct dose of confidence, you don’t want to walk in to an exams room feeling overconfident just for you to be frustrated by the exams.  Now its time to equate the term exams with xmass and the good thing is that you don’t have to revise for it but have to prepare your bags.

However, before I can pack my bags for a trip around Europe I still have to contend with one week’s course on marine monitoring and GiS coupled with a presentation on our respective country’s monitoring system. I would have expected that right after the exams we would have the break, but surprisingly enough we have to sit for one more. The positive thing about this course is that it’s a totally new field to me, and therefore I am very eager to learn more about it is as it’s a very critical part for my future career.  In addition, the course is being offered at Vechta University and that means commuting daily for the entire week, and you cannot afford to miss the 7:20 am train.

Finally, this week we are scheduled to have the DAAD meeting on the 15^th, this is going to be our second encounter but the first away from home.  I hope that it is going to be exciting meeting other students in Bremen and the officials, for apart from my colleagues in class I have not met other scholarship holders in Bremen. It is the final week before Christmas the season of giving and to be jolly I hope that it’s going to be a jolly week, don’t you?

The past two weeks have really been busy, with deadlines to be met and with exams approaching, getting free time has not been easy. Most of the classes have been running from 9 am till 5 pm with one and half hours for lunch break just enough to grab a bite. Therefore getting time to prepare a favorite meal has not been easy as duty demands that you spend some time in the library to finish the daily assignments and by the time you retire back to your room you are too exhausted to spend time in the kitchen. Anyway, I have resigned to the fact that I came here to study and I cannot afford a luxurious life except to fulfill the course requirements and pass my final exams.

It was a busy Friday, as the previous day we had been given the task of reviewing six scientific papers and making a presentation, that meant spending the better part of the night reading and summarizing the findings. By morning I was exhausted that waking up was a bother, the fact that it was a Friday did not cheer me either. When we finally broke off for lunch as usual I was headed to the cafeteria to grab a quick meal and with the usual experience of getting a long queue along the flesh counter, the alternative short queue for vegetarian meal of mashed potatoes only further dampened my spirit.

So, amidst the busy schedule when a friend squeezed his time to prepare a meal enough for five I was more than touched, for it meant that he had spent the previous night preparing the meal. Instead of heading to the cafeteria for the torture of queuing up, he whisked me to his room with four other classmates to a homemade meal of shrimps and fried rice, Bangladesh cuisine. It felt like being released from prison, not that I have been there but it felt great to sit down to a well prepared meal spiced by friendship, what more could I ask for? It made me think, that just when we think we are too busy even to spend time with friends, or even send an sms, there are others who deeply care that they go out of their way to make that friendship bond stick, that’s true friendship.