Bryce’s Notes

It has warmed up slightly after last week, and guess what the warmer weather brought? Snow, it’s snowing today! My first time experiencing the cold stuff falling from the sky. It’s really fascinating.

It is a strange experience to be snowed upon. You only start to feel wet after the fact. Needless to say, when you start feeling wet, you start feeling cold soon thereafter. Snow falls much slower than rain does, so that when you walk with an umbrella, it seems to jump under the umbrella to hit you in the face. Also, this first snow contrasts starkly with the green grass, making it seem unbeleivably green. It also makes the autumn leaves lying on the ground look like a picture. I am unable to catch snow in my hands, because when it lands on my skin it appears to melt instantly. Perhaps this is only because the snow that is currently falling is not a full blooded blizzard? I don’t know, but it’s interesting for me nonetheless.

I started writing a poem about the snow, but subsequently realised that I have forgotten how to write poetry. Oh, well.

The saga with getting internet into my room continues. My neighbour (Tobi), who kindly offered my use of his internet connection, has Windows 98 1st edition, which doesn’t have the functionality to share internet. Therefore we are going to upgrade his computer to Win2k sometime this week. To format, we need a boot disk using the floppy drive, but his floppy drive has subsequently been found to be broken. Also, the HausMeister (the master of the house, the fellow who religiously enforces the myriad of ridiculous laws in effect in Germany) has said that it is ‘Verboten’ to run a cable in the corridor, so we tried to run the cable outside the rooms through the windows. These windows are double glazed interlocking heavy windows, which lock into position when closed. I did a quick test, and found that while the cable wasn’t too healthy going through this, it wouldn’t have too much trouble when reinforced with masking tape. That was until it fell down into the locking mechanism and got cut. Ayayay! Why is it so hard?? Anyway, we are going to try again when I have a new cable, he has a new floppy drive and his computer has Windows 2000 on it. Good luck to us.

Missing you all.

Bryce.

It is very, very cold. The maximum today is -5. I had to walk from my bus-stop to uni, which is about a 10 minute walk, and at the end my face was as cold as ice and I couldn’t feel my legs. Not even any snow! Just small pockets of ice on the ground. What a waste of disgustingly cold weather.

Bryce

Gday,

My registration hasn’t been processed for my enrolment here. I have the student card, which is proof that I did what I was supposed to do, but nothing has been entered into the system here. That means I am not a student here and cannot take exams here. Woohoo!… I mean… bummer. No exams, no credit for my course.

Fortunately, one of my lecturers is really helpful (Dr. Roland Holten for prospective exchange students), and has arranged everything to be fixed for me. Hopefully German efficiency will be more prominent in rectifying the problem than in creating it.

In an unrelated incident, my neighbor 2 doors down from me (Tobias) has offered me access to his internet if I can get a network cable to run between my room and his! Perhaps one of my nerdy friends (you know who you are) can suggest to me a thinner option to normal CAT-5 cable that would fit under the doors easier, but still has the same connector to the network card.

Have to go to lectures now.

Cheers,

Bryce.