Book event was really, really good & interesting!

I didn’t get the chance to interview both authors we had invited properly, but I talked to T. for a while—actually, we sort of extended the official break by about half an hour, I think, by just mucking about outside the venue; whoops—which was great (not so much because he was casually smoking his spliff while I was casually quizzing him—don’t do the drugs, kids, even though getting weed in the Bremer Viertel is like popping ‘round to the newsagent), and I’m just going to email A. my questions later this week, I hope he won’t mind. I had no idea what the hell I was doing half the time, but it was fun!

This is the big project for which I’m supposed to write up a report about to send to the Robert Bosch Foundation we’d applied to about some financial backing—they like knowing where that money went to, so I’m compiling reviews of the event, and the interviews and stuff. That’s why I was really nervous about this thing, and about meeting the authors, but they were both brilliant. Yay!

In the Classical Detective Story in English Fiction seminar today, we’ll be having a Creative Writing Workshop with Dr Watson.

Like, seriously. He’s a retired lecturer and still close to the faculty. I groaned a little at the obvious title, but our regular lecturer seemed so proud of it that I can’t help finding it adorable anyway.

Let’s see if I’ll manage to get any proper writing done. Stay tuned.

It was all just a misunderstanding. Ottawa is accepting my language proficiency certificate after all.

WHICH MEANS: I’M IN. NO NEED TO TAKE A TOEFL OR SOME SHIT. GOING TO CANADA IN SEPTEMBER. YES.

My seminar selection is seriously random this semester—but awesome!

I’m doing ‘Culture and Communication: Cultural Topography in Film,’ ‘Hemingway Revisited,’ and ‘The Classical English Detective Story’ for English-Speaking Cultures. I don’t have to do anything for my minor degree (Cultural Studies) this semester, so I’m doing loads of General Studies courses: ‘Introduction to Political Theory,’ ‘Foundations and Models of Multilingual Education,’ and a sort of mentoring programme for female students of the Humanities, exploring professional job opportunities and the glass ceiling. Also, I’m tutoring first-year students in ‘Introduction to English Lit’ again, should be fun.

I scored 100% on that English reading comprehension exam (C2).

Me:

Then I thought, ‘this puts me so squarely on native speaker level that anyone at the U of O who decides that my CAE isn’t good enough for them can kiss my royal German arse.’

DONE WITH THE PAPER.

Oh, God, yes.

I am SO finishing that paper tonight. Yes.

GOD DAMMIT.

Aha. So the U of O won’t readily accept my CAE.

Well, F U. We’ll see about that.

I need to finish that paper and write two reviews over the weekend.

I am so screwed.