P.S.

I'M STUDYING ABROAD IN GERMANY!!!!!!

That's right, it is something I've always wanted to do. You know those brain-buster questionnaires that we've all been asked at one point or another?

"If you could have lunch with anyone, who could it be?"
"If you could bring back anyone from the dead, who would it be?"
"What does the color blue taste like?"
etc...

Well, there is always that one question that pops up: "If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be??"

For me, that answer is GERMANY. And now, I am going!!!!!!!

I applied last week, and held my breath because the program needed at least five students to sign up and be accepted, or else it was going to be too small of a turnout to fund. At this time last week, we had three lone people (including myself) that signed up to go to "Mecca." (Heh heh heh.)

Somewhere between my physics exam, going home for the weekend to play pool at Lambeau Field, and coming back to a rip-roaring comp-sci exam yesterday, 2+ more people signed up to go....

AND NOW THE PROGRAM IS ACCEPTED!!!

I got this e-mail today, confirming my trip to the Mothership:

"17 October 2006



Congratulations! Your application has been reviewed and you are invited
to participate in the UWM winterim 2007 study abroad program to Germany,
led by Professor Emeritus Robert Balmer, and co-sponsored by the Center
for International Education and the College of Engineering and Applied
Sciences. Your study abroad coordinator for the program will be Victoria
Serrano Ruiz and you can reach her by email vsr@uwm.edu or by
appointment through contacting the Overseas Programs and Partnerships
(OPP) office at 414-229-5182.



Please read this important email NOW and keep it for future reference.
You will need to print out and hand in many forms for the program.
Please pay close attention to deadlines. You will find all important
documents for the program stored in Pantherfile, which can be accessed
by following this link: "

Another three pages of e-mail ensued, with a link to go to Pantherfile and download six or seven different packets of paperwork, and an 11-step process I must go through between now and Dec. 1st to be fully and adequately prepared for my first international travel. The last and 11th step actually had its own five substeps.

Let's just say I've got a monster of a side-project cut out for me. But it is so worth it!!!!




I guess it hasn't even hit me yet that I am going to travel abroad. I leave December 28th, to arrive in Frankfurt, Germany on December 29th. I spend New Year's Eve in Berlin, and by January 2nd I take a ride on the AUTOBAHN to Kassel, where I will stay for three weeks with a hopefully American/Bush administration-friendly German host family, taking my 3-credit course on renewable energies. Two things to top the cake:

1) Apparently the 1 day of the year where it is legal to shoot off fireworks in Berlin is New Year's Eve, and everyone just goes absolutely apeshit. I will be there to witness it all, firsthand. Scary, but funky. :)

2) This 3-credit course has already been approved by the College of Engineering and Applied Science to count towards my degree!! So I am making progress, this isn't just for fun. :) This puts me up to my last two semesters of college I have mapped out, at a measly 12 credits. Oh yum.

But no, it has not hit me yet. It has not hit me that I will be able to visit Paris in the course of one weekend. It has not hit me that I will be setting foot in the largest Porsche museum in the world. Or the largest Mercedes Benz one, too. It has not hit me that I will be given a personal guided tour of VOLKSWAGEN's GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS to look into their projects that seek renewable energies. It has not hit me that I will be riding a passenger train for the first time in my life, on actual railroad tracks, through the deep green countrysides of Germany, past all the old glorious castles and architecture, as well as some eerie WW2 monuments.

I'm scared shitless at this point, but I know it is something that I want to do. Something that I even feel compelled to do.

Really, I do. Secretly, I've always competed with myself that I would not feel that my college career was *the best* and that I tried *my hardest* unless I did two things:

1) Get an official internship, not just a summer temp job
2) Study abroad

BINGO. I'm accomplishing #2 right now, and I've already got #1 up my sleeve, with deals in the background yet with Volkswagen of America, and Schneider National. :)

This is the year it is all happening. This is the year I am doing it. I am pushing ahead, I am proud of myself. And I am capturing it all here, for you to follow with me, and derive your own thoughts and bonding with me, so that when you might see me in-person next time, we have a blast together.

I guess the P.S. I put up here in the first place is that I purposely caved in and started this blog tonight, the night of me getting accepted to Germany-study-abroad, because I plan to use this blog as a journal for the whole study abroad experience: getting ready, getting packed, getting the passport, applying for a host family, and pending how much internet access I will have while in Germany, the day to day/weekly activities of my globe trotting. :) I've seen other colleagues create a blog dedicated to this purpose as well, and I do like the idea. So I will incorporate a lot of the Germany prep stuff in here as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading as far along as you have, here. Time for me to take a much-needed whiz, and debate if I should either just go right to bed, or study hap-hazardly for my Strengths of Materials exam I have tomorrow. Eeep.

I'll post more later...once things slow down from the climax of today. (Every class of mine has stuff due on Wednesdays...so Tuesdays are my ratrace days, to get it all done.)

I am sure Germany will officially sink in at about this time tomorrow, when the immediate hubbub is all over and done with.

Whooooo!