Das Vaterland ruft: Sorry

An apology for not writing in a month and a quick look at what I've been up to here since then.

Sooooooo. I haven't updated this in over a month. There's no really good explanation as to why that is because I've done plenty of unnecessary stuff and had plenty of time to post something, but really my life has been so frantic since I got here, I just haven't felt motivated to try to write about it. But I have been keeping a journal so I do remember most everything that I've done in the last month or so eventually I will post something longer...and with pictures. That's another reason I haven't posted anything: because I can't upload any of the pictures I take without my uplink cable which I forgot in America and am anxiously awaiting my parents to send.
In order to get everyone up to speed on my situation here: I am not allowed to start my masters here in Germany for probably another three semesters at least. The problem is: In America, teachers (at the high school level) only teach one subject whereas here, every teacher must teach at least two. Having only studied history in the US, I basically need to pick up an entire major's worth of classes in another subject, namely: English. That will last probably around three semesters but perhaps even more. I also will more-than-likely have to re-do my entire pedagogical studies because the UniDortmund is so weird. Basically the way it was explained to me: It doesn't matter that I came from the US, I could have also done my bachelors in education at the Ruhr Universität in Bochum, 20 minutes away, and I would still probably have to re-do all of the pedagogic classes. Also, to teach at Gymnasium level in Germany, I need to pass a Latin exam. In order to this, I have to study Latin because I've never had it before. And because you obviously cannot take Latin II parallel to Latin I (and why would you want to unless you're a masochist?), I will need at least three semesters before I am even ready to attempt that test...I don't even want to think about how hard I will have to study for it, especially given that it's in German and not English (as are the classes). So I'm beginning to doubt that I will be able to start my masters here in Dortmund before April 2012. That really sucks, huh?
But, apart from all of that stuff, I'm doing really well and I am happy. I lucked out and found a job tutoring English at a Gymnasium in Dortmund after school. It hardly pays anything and it's only until August but at least it's something. It takes care of my loan payments that I have to make for my studies at Western at any rate. It's ridiculous that I owe over 60,000$ for four years of college but if I had studied here beginning directly after my high school graduation, I would have finished my bachelors in February 2009 probably and would be halfway done with my masters right now and would only have paid about 3,000€ for tuition. Fuck the American Education System. So yeah today was the first official day of the semester and I had Latin at 8AM. Apart from that, I will have an pedagogical seminar tomorrow and also one for my job that teaches me how to be a Fördelehrer;-). I am also going to do one history seminar in Bochum because I doubt even the massive amount of history credits I accrued at Western is going to cover the 90 necessary credits here because American classes are so easy, sometimes a three-credit course only transfers over as a two-credit course. Of course I still have no idea what is going to be recognized and what I'll lack because I'm waiting on my official transcript from the states so I can take it to Bochum to get it recognized. Where was I going with this "I'm doing swell" theme I had...
The new exchange students are pretty cool. There's a couple guys here that I hang out with a lot and we're planning on drinking a shitload of Brinkhoffs and keeping the bottle caps to return to the brewery and get prizes:-D. There's also three girls here from Buffalo and they just happened to be planning a trip through the Balkans this summer. I showed them the waterfalls in Croatia that I wanna see and I think I'll be accompanying them should the waterfalls be included in the trip. I spent one weekend with my Aunt and Uncle earlier in the middle of March but I haven't seen the rest of the family yet, though I plan on it soon. Not this weekend though because I'm going to the stadium for the BVB:Hoffenheim game. I spent Easter Weekend in Anne's hometown. She and her friend had a big party for both of their birthdays and a lot of people came, even from Dortmund. It was a lot of fun. We drank and ate wurstchen and played singstar until almost 7 in the morning.
So yeah apart from the crazy-ass run-around I'm having to do to make this education thing here work, I'm having the time of my life! I promise I will try to post again soon with some more information as to what I'm actually doing here but I might also just wait until I get that uplink cable for the camera (then I won't have much of an excuse anymore, at any rate). I hope everyone in Asheville is doing alright; gimme a shout, I do get bored here sometimes;-).

Willkommen

Welcome to my blog. Here, I will attempt to post descriptions of my life in Germany. I created this mainly to keep in touch with the people I left behind in the States but it's also a journal and a travelogue of sorts and anyone is welcome to read and comment. I moved to Germany because I felt it was simply what I needed to do with my life (please read "My Story" below). At the present, I am studying to earn my masters degree at the Technische Universität Dortmund. Where my life will take me after this particular segment is done, I do not know. But this is the record of this part of my journey. Of my adaptation to the German life, my explorations of the continent that drives my interest and my pursuit of higher education. But most importantly: my pursuit of the equilibrium my soul flirts with while I am in Germany relishing in the vast history and culture of my heritage. If you choose to read this, I thank you deeply for your interest in my life for that truly has value to me. I’d love to see comments and to hear from you all so don’t hold back.

My Story

My name is Michael Pude and I am a college student currently working on my masters at TU Dortmund. I was born and raised in Western North Carolina. My mother's family are of Italian descent and hail from Buffalo, New York. My father immigrated to the US from Germany in the 70s and when I was younger we took a couple trips to Germany to visit my relatives. I think I was too young at the time to understand the significance but I think I like that because ever since then, when I thought about Germany, it was quite intriguing. Not quite a mystery but more like a fuzzy picture in my mind. And as I grew up I felt a desire to see the picture clearly.

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I became very interested in my German heritage and German culture, history and eventually the language. I took four years of German in High School but sadly never practiced with my father. In college I found my passion in History. I loved learning history at the collegiate level. I found it so awesome I wanted to tell other people about the stuff I was learning. I decided I wanted to teach history. This double-major of History and Secondary Education which I took on, often led to me having to fill out paperwork to allow me to take more than the maximum number of credit hours each semester, in order to graduate in even five years. This unfortunately left no room for German and I only took one semester of it in college. I quickly, however, directed my entire focus on European History. I learned a great deal about Germany as well as the rest of Europe and I imagined myself later in life, traveling Europe and doing historical research. There was only one problem: I was imaging something that I hadn't actually experienced yet. It was clear to me then: I needed to get to Europe to figure this out for real. In my last year as an undergraduate, I was given the opportunity to finally study abroad. Germany was of course my first choice but I was open to all possibilities. I almost ended up in Estonia, actually. I dare you Americans to find Estonia on an unlabeled map. But as I thought more about it, I grew apprehensive. Everything I wanted in life hinged on this starting point and I feared I would fail in Europe. I felt I needed to go to Germany where I at least stood a chance because of my background knowledge in the culture and most importantly the language, which I had always struggled with by the way. I looked at the list of cities available to study and found Dortmund among them. The professional soccer team from Dortmund had always been my favorite because when I was younger I liked their black and yellow color scheme. I spent almost six months of 2009 in Dortmund as an exchange student and cataloged the time in another blog entitled Püde Abroad. While I was there, I met Anne, my amazing girlfriend. She is from a small town in the mountains about two hours east of Dortmund that reminds me of where I grew up. She is also studying at the university to be a teacher and we simply understood each other very well and began to hang out. She informally taught me the vast majority of my language skills. By the end of the semester, I was one of the two Americans that had found a significant other in Germany and I really, really didn't want to go back to North Carolina. From August 2009 until March 2010, I spent most of my time talking to Anne per Skype or ICQ and putting in a lot of hours at Ardenwoods, the retirement community I work at. I also used this time to slowly come to terms and prepare myself for the inevitable life alteration that had been looming since I got on a plane to leave Germany that August. I had to go back. This time for good. I decided to return to Dortmund to study History and English at a post-graduate level and earn a degree with which I could teach those subjects.

1 comments:

Felicia 21/4/10 00:02: Yay! I don't know why the link disappeard on Facebook, but at least the link you sent me works.

I'm glad you are having fun. Sorry about the Latin tho and all of the school chaos going on right now...but look on the bright side...at least you're not in a dull environment while you're stressed out. You always have new places to go that you've never been to before and you always have new things to see to get your mind off of everything. I have just 2.5 weeks left of this semester and I'm so ready for the summer. I just learned that WCU offers a counseling masters program. My advisor said that would better fit me than doing a psych masters because unless I want to just do research or teach, a psych masters wont get me anywhere. Whereas a psych BA and a counseling MA will look much better and leave me more qualified for a wider variety of careers.