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Published: October 10th 2008
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The Zentrum für Sprach made our marks for the Sprachkurse available to us last Monday. I hadn't been in any real hurry to go over and pick them up, partly because I already knew I had passed, but mostly because I was afraid that when I went, I would have to interact with the Zentrum staff in German and they would inevitably realize what a huge mistake they had made passing me and how they would rescind my Schein (pronounced "shine"). What finally got me to go over takes a little explaining. In truth, I had been craving the Schein for a long time. I really really wanted that Schein. Of course, from a strictly functional standpoint, the Schein sits as proof that I took the course and guarantees me the transfer credits when I get back to the UA. That only mildly interested me. How to say this.
I'll never forget the first time I heard about the Schein. I was sitting in the Study Abroad office 4 or 5 months before I left, pretending as usual that I had a clue about what I was getting myself into. Laura Thornes, the study abroad advisor for Germany was explaining
ARRRRR
pirates don't sleep but if they did it would be on these some administrative detail of my trip. I was concentrating so hard on seeming to understand, I may have phased out a bit (Beginner's tip: NEVER IGNORE LAURA. Laura has this enviable trait where EVERY. SINGLE. THING she says becomes manifestly relevant in 4 or 5 months.). Then I heard this word. This "Schein." What was it? I knew she had just said what it was, so asking was out of the question. I mentally backtracked. "And when you finish the course," she said in the phantomy voice of my mind's-eye, "you bring back a piece of paper that shows that you were there and passed. It's called a Schein." YES. You see there is this game, Super Mario Sunshine, which takes place on Delfino Island, an idyllic Caribbean vacation spot where Mario, Peach, Toad, and some unexplained Professor are headed to get some much-needed repose from kidnappings. But then some punk has to go and dump toxic goop all over the island and kidnap Princess Peach! So it's up to Mario to clean up the mess and save the princess by completing a long series of arbitrary tasks netting him massive good karma and more importantly, beaucoup Shines. What are these Shines? Well, a Shine is a man-sized yellow-gold sun medallion with a smiling face on the front, and at the end of each level, it rockets out of an egg, or treasure chest, or dead boss-enemy-squidling's corpse and rotates there, two feet above the ground until you run up and touch it, at which point an animated sequence is triggered in which Mario jumps up and snatches the Shine and freezes in mid-air, shine in hand, Mario's face radiating like a tiny smiling sun, and the sun's face smiling like a regular-sized radiant Mario, and for a moment you can't tell which looks more sun-like and which looks more man-like, both staring directly into the camera. And then, as if this all weren't enough, big WordArt letters zoom in and the letters say "SHINE GET!"
There I sat, dreaming up this fantastic Super Mario super scenario in which I, Robert, would travel around collecting smiling suns for SCHOOL CREDIT, no less! I tried to smother a smile in my cheeks, but it was like smuggling 28 bottles of Frankenwein through airport security ("Sie sind GESCHENKE").
As you can imagine, the real Schein was somewhat of a disappointment to me. On the front it had my grade, a respectable 84%. Wait, what, an 84% is a C? OK that's fine, C, that's average, right? Average is fine. Turn it over. Oh, that's nice, look here they clarify what the percentages mean; it's probably some cultural thing. "Good - generally sound work with a number of notable errors." For some reason, this made me want to smile. Partly, it was the bluntness of the description, but it was more. This sentence fragment was magic in the absolute dead-on accuracy with which it described my German language ability. "Generally sound." "With a number of notable errors." It's like when you're checking out the latest Marmaduke in the Sunday funnies and out of dumb curiosity skim across to the Horoscopes and see some forecast that Vulcan nerve pinches your most treasured insecurities, in a way that makes you at once, cringe and grin, that someone has you totally figured out. All we really want is for someone to totally understand us, for better or worse, to see our each and every motive and call us out on it. I speak figuratively, of course; no one would ever read Marmaduke. It's the second-worst comic ever written. I use the word "written" loosely, more, it is the vomitous blue-black spray of a dying Zerg, that thing in the shower, the sadly discarded trophallaxis of a confused worker bee who got stuck sucking stink stamen. I really don't like Marmaduke.
I realize that this was probably the least focused of all my blog entries so far. It couldn't come at a worse time, either, since so much happened since my last post. Well until next time, you can eagerly await vivid descriptions of a trip to the Alps AND what I actually came here to do, work. Oh, I also got new bedsheets, and I include a picture to satisfy those of you who like pictures. They came with matching temporary tattoos, which graced my forearms for a couple days, but have since washed off. And another of a foggy University of Würzburg bibliothek. Bis später.
Robert
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larissa Gronenberg
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1) this post was way overdue. do you not realize people are counting on you? 2) jesse and i will be in wuerzburg next saturday. want to be our tourguide? aka you are our tourguide.