Reality and School in Freiburg

Liebe Alle,

Another two weeks gone, another two weeks closer to a bittersweet return to my home: Wisconsin.
These last two weeks have been unbelievably busy! Last week, in the midst of the election, not only did I have midterms, but I also had a huge presentation! Sleeping soundly Tuesday night was just not an option. The results and speeches finally came out around 6am, and although I was thrilled with the results, I no longer had an excuse to stay here and shun America, as my plan may have otherwise been (I'm only kidding...sort of...)
This week...I had another presentation, one midterm, and several small papers which are to precede larger papers. To top it off, I didn't even have much of a weekend to relax in between my busy weeks.
Since our WG has 9 people living in it, it's not often that we plan things, so we'd been planning a WG Motto Party for a few weeks. The motto: celebrity/movie star. The timing was poor, but the party was great. We borrowed huge speakers, rearranged out entire WG, spent large amounts of money on drinks and snacks, and, to top the theme off, we put up movie posters, a white backdrop for photo-taking and laid a red carpet up the steps to our WG.
Success? Yes, and no.
Midterms: They all went pretty well. I was slightly disappointed in my German midterm, which was ridiculously hard, but I'm told it translates into the A- range. My presentation went spectacularly! I was well-prepared, understood my theory, and had a really good time. We all brought food, and our professor brought 4 bottles of wine (for a class of 6 people), which we enjoyed between and after presentations.
My last midterm was yesterday in Film. The only word I can think to use is domination. I'm not being arrogant, but I knew everything on the test, and I felt that I did a fairly decent job of communicating the answers.
Party:
fun-check
lots of people-check
spoke german the entire night-check
good costume-check (I was Sarah Palin. It turns out I have a gift for imitating her interestingly Midwestern accent and duplicating many of her unfortunately naive quotes. Germans and Americans both appreciated the costume. Since the election was over, I just put I name tag that said "PALIN-2012." and! my roommate Volker studied in Alaska, and volunteered has Alaska pin for my costume--an unexpected, yet welcome, addition to my costume.)
met people-check
met German- check, check! (Not only do I feel as though preparing for the party helped me get closer to my Mitbewohner, but I met their friends, and friends of their friends, and I think my German was at its best.)
pictures- fail.
Here's the bad news: A poor decision I made that night was to leave my camera out, so people could use it to take pictures....My camera disappeared at some point during the night, and has not been seen since then. To be honest, the camera was nearly broken, anyway. You couldn't change the settings anymore, and sometimes it decided to stop working. Unfortunately, that means I am now camera-less for the remainder of my trip. I'm going to have to steal pictures from people, but I'll figure it out.

I miss everyone at home--friends, family, classmates, etc. I look forward to Christmas at home, and spending time with people I really care about. I miss going home for a weekend. I miss my crazy dog. I miss spending time with my best friends at Lawrence and at home. I miss my big fluffy blanket and good Mexican food.
But as much as I miss everything at home, I can already see the people and things I am going to miss from Freiburg. Because I've been here, Ive discovered things, and people, which I still don't know will translate into life back home. We always lose a little bit in translating words between languages: meaning, connotation, and sometimes the point entirely. Though I love words, they're just words...translating a way of life I've discovered here is going to prove the most difficult, and possibly disappointing part of returning.
I'm starting to accept the reality: 5 weeks left. For better or worse, I'm going to have to leave Freiburg...for now.

Germany
Tuition: thousands...
Plane ticket: $1000
Living expenses: >$110/week
Trips to Berlin, Köln, Bonn, London, Paris...and more: Trips to Berlin, Köln, Bonn, London, Paris...and more: $>1200
gt;1200
Lost phone: $200
Lost Camera: $ lots. TBD
Living in Germany, and learning that some things in life are worth every mistake and every penny: priceless

I wouldn't trade a moment here for anything.

Bis Bald,
Sara

pictures: compliments of my Mitbewohner, Martin (Zorro)