Wait, You Call this Class? Ok! I'm Game!

Well, I have officially survived my first week of class and I have to honestly report that I love all my classes!  I met with my teacher for the teaching internship.  She is a very nice woman with a lot of energy (we're going to get along swimmingly).  She teaches ages 10-18 but I will mostly be working with the 10 year olds.  Monday and Friday mornings I work at a school teaching English and music.  The 10 year olds are so much fun to work with.  They had a list of questions prepared for me to answer and they had to write my answers down.  On Friday I worked with a group of 15 year olds.  They were not as excited as the younger ones were but I'm sure I can get them to warm up to me.  I am excited for the upcoming weeks because I have been asked to prepare lessons on American culture and customs during the Fall.  I'm pulling out all my Halloween songs and art projects.  We're going to have so much fun.

Mondays and Wednesdays I have Music in Performance.  We are required to attend 8 events were music is a large part of the production.  We then have to write about 3 of them.  In class we listen to music and watch performances.  No musical knowledge is required for this class so I was kind of bored for the first one when we went over all the main instruments in the orchestra.  But other than that I love my homework! 

I have German class three days a week.  I am at the point now where it is no longer review.  German I think will be my hardest class and will require the most of my study time.  But I'm thankful for this because it will force me to work on my language skills.  Class flies by and I am much more engaged than I was in my German classes back home.  The one problem with all this German though is that I am now replacing English words with the German ones unconsciously.  Like the world house.  In an email the other day I wrote haus.  This is not helping my appearance of being an educated young lady...oh well.  I'm just hoping that by the end of my stay here I will have a dream in German.  They say this is the ultimate sign that you know the language. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have the History of the Hapsburg's Empire.  This is basically the history of Austria with a focus on the happenings in Vienna.  I know I'm going to love this class.  Every Thursday is an excursion.  Class will take place in a museum or a palace or some cool place like that.  The best part is that I now have a museum pass which gets me into all the major museums in the city for free.  This last Thursday, we went to the Imperial Treasury.  It was so cool.  Our teacher just led us through and at each display would give a history lesson on the object and tell the story behind the object.  It was funny because many people stopped to listen and some even causally followed us from room to room.  I think that all the knowledge will stick better this way because I have an object to associate it with.  Instead of just memorizing that Otto I defeated the Hungarians and became the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, I remember seeing his crown and all the symbols on it telling the story of his life.  Let's just say that class will never be boring.  This week we are heading to the Imperial Armory to get a lesson on warfare.  Not too shabby for a day of class.

My last class is a psychology class, which is a field I have never ventured into.  This class only meets on Wednesdays for three hours.  Now you might being saying 'three hours?  In a classroom?'  Well fear not!  It is three hours because this class as well will be held on cite.  For example the Freud Museum or the first ever Insane Asylum.  Our teacher even has a night tour planned for the Insane Asylum!  Spooky!  This class is very interesting to me just because I never have studied psychology before.  It is not a hard science and therefore in the past I avoided it.  But this time I thought that being in the home of Freud I could give it a chance. 

Staatoper

After a long week of class, I decided a break was needed.  So Friday night I had dinner with some friends and we learned how to play some Austrian board games, all written in German.  German Taboo is very funny.  I think we spent most of the evening laughing at our bad German or at how people explained the word in German.  It was a good time.  Saturday night, I had a ticket to the ballet given to me by my host grandmother who I fondly call Host Oma.  I had a great seat in a box dead center.  It was really fascinating being in the Staatoper.  Every box has it's private for-chamber to hang coats and place purses.  I felt so fancy!  The ballet was Onegin, which is a very famous Russian novel.  It was tragic about love found and lost.  Sunday, I met with some family friends from back home who just happened to be traveling through Vienna.  They had a package of drugs for me that my parents asked them to give to me.  Haha, it's not as bad as it sounds.  It seems like everyone here smokes and there is no smoking free areas in the restaurants and cafes.  This has reeked havoc with my asthma and I have gone through my asthma medication much quicker than I anticipated.  So instead of shipping my refills to me and having them be stopped by customs, my parents sent them through our local friendly drug mules known as the Becks!

Konzerthaus

Monday was the start of my second week of class.  I decided to get a head start on my music homework so I attended a concert Monday night of Mahler's 2nd Symphony.  My mind was thoroughly blown!  It was the most amazing three hours with gorgeous music and in a gorgeous building.  There was a huge choir as well for the 5th movement with a soprano and an alto soloist.  My favorite part was the 5th movement when the organ came in.  It was very powerful!  Overall, I love school!  I actually wish I could take more classes!  Anyway, that's about it for now.  I'll be sure to update again after the weekend, which is quickly filling up with planned shenanigans.