Groundhog Day!

Happy February, and happy Groundhog day yesterday!

I am so glad January is over. I seemed to have had a constant mild head cold and frigid fingers and salt-stained pant cuffs throughout the whole month. Now the balmy magic of my birthday month is here, and I say "amen." Today the high is 45 degrees, and we're supposed to get to 50 by the end of the week!!! Call me a MN rube, but this thrills me after a month of the coldest 'Furt temps in the last 12 years.

I am in my last week and a half of winter semester at Uni (WS: Oct-Feb, SS: March-July) so I have been a little busy giving presentations. But not really. I am shocked, after one semester, at how little work the German university requires from its students. I saw a guy in one of my seminars last week who I hadn't seen since November. Students come and go, and are able to audit as many classes they want per semester. Although I think this is nice as it promotes studying in other fields without the risk of a bad grade, it's also problematic as these auditors (who show up less than 50 % of the time) take up registration places. If you are taking a class to get a schein (grade) for your major, you must write a 25-page paper at the end of the semester and give one report. That's it. And to get a grade, you have to hound your professor to give you a piece of paper which you keep track of. There are no report cards! Needless to say the successful students have a LOT of self-initiative.

In other news we are planning a birthday trip to Ireland, namely Galway to visit some friends of Erik. I have never been to Ireland before, so any tips or recommendations would be greatly appreciated from blog readers. We have one full day in Dublin and two days in Galway. It's short, so perhaps just some "must sees."