See that picture above?
I took that picture in December 2007 in Duesseldorf just by the Rhine river. Now two years later:
Yup. Looks the same except for the trees with the leaves and what not.
As you already know, I haven't been updating my blog quite often. Things have been going ok here in Germany, and I know that things are going to get better than they are. I think the only major problem that I have/face here would be the language. Back hope I would be so 'begeistert', looking for every opportunity to speak german I could. Here, after already almost a month living here, I feel lazy, and I feel tired speaking in German. Whenever I want something I would have to form a presentence, not forgetting grammar checking it as well in my head. It always is embarassing saying something wrong or grammatically incorrect, but yea I keep trying. Nevertheless I still dread going to places where a higher level of German would be required. For instance, the Bank. My classes at the Goethe Institut never prepared me for unblocking blocked accounts, or requesting for a Bank statement. Heck I had to look it up in the dictionary. Basically I really hate going to the bank.
My first bad experience: Requesting for the receipt/ Quittung for my study fees. Without the Quittung I couldn't collect my student ID. Well, this lady at the Uni said this as I was there to collect it from the International Office. I couldn't use the internet for free without the ID and a that time I was paying 0,80Euros an hour at an Internet Cafe. I also couldn't use the local public transport for free and I really wanted to go to Ikea for free and not pay 4 Euros for a return trip. So I happily went to the bank and asked for my Quittung. Lady says 'noch nicht abgebucht'. At that time I had no idea what that meant. A friend of mine said that when he went to pay his fees the lady just canceled the quittung and gave it back to him. In my case, on the other hand, the lady just tore it out from the paper and never gave it back to me. Back to the lady, after she told me that, I simply told her that a friend of mine got back his Quittung the same day he came to pay for his fees. Lady stares at me and gives me a fake smile and says that this is impossible because the earliest my konto will be abgebucht would be wednesday (it was a monday). So I waited till wednesday, lady was there smiling fakely again, checked my Konto details and then she said 'Ja schon abgebucht.' and printed me some bestaetigung not a Quittung. So I went back to the Uni hoping it would be the correct one. As usual there was a long line of people, and the lady there just asked me what I was there for, (it was a different lady) and I told her that I was there to collect my ID. She gave me my ID without even looking at my Bank paper. This means if she was there the other day instead of the other lady I could have collected my ID and avoided going the bank and all that shit.
2nd Bad Experience: To extend my visa all I just needed from the bank was a simple bank statement. In Malaysia it's so simple. I go to the counter, I ask for my bank statement, bank operator smiles and happily gives me Bank Statement. In Germany, I go to counter, I ask for bank statement, lady questions 'Why do you need bank statement for?' I answer 'for my meeting at the Alien's office to extend my visa' Lady says 'No you cannot just have a bank statement like this...' and she goes on in her German bla bla bla bla bla, that I couldn't understand her at all and finally she turns the computer monitor towards me and shows me my account details. I says 'Yea I just need to show them how much money I have in my account' Bank lady shakes her head in disbelief prints out the Bank statement and doesn't say anything with her arrogant german face. Next day went to the Alien's office, and no problem with my meeting, and I have my Aufenthalterlaubnis which is valid for a year.
3rd Bad experience: The next day after my meeting at the Alien's office, a friend of mine wanted me to help him at the bank to get the bank statement cuz his German is bad. I says I'll try my best because my German isn't so good also. So went back to the bank, same lady was at the counter, showed her the printout that she gave me yesterday and before I could say anything, she starts telling me off 'See I told you it wouldn't work, you can't just simply print this out and go and do whatever you like with it.' I says 'No, it was ok...' Lady interrupts 'You are only wasting your time coming here and asking for this for your university...' something like that, at this point she was yelling out nonsense, I honestly don't know what she was talking about so I yelled 'ES HAT NICHTS MIT DER UNI ZU TUN ES WAS NUR FUER DIE AUSLAENDERSBEHOERDE!!!!'in english, it has nothing to do with the university, it was only for the alien's office! I swear everyone was staring. Lady stares at me and then whispers over to her colleague at the next counter, 'Is this true? can one do this?' I yelled back 'Ja ich hab alles schon gemacht. Ich bekomm schon mein aufenthalterlaubnis, ohne probleme bei der auslaendersbehoerde, alles erledigt, alles klar!' The two of them still discuss quietly and after awhile lady says 'ok I will get one for your friend also.'
4th Bad Experience: so my parents told me to get another bank account to keep the money that i have so its easier for me to get it when i need it. like for example my primary bank account is with the Deutsche Bank and they have a limit of the amount of money that i can withdraw monthly. So i went to Sparkasse. I told them I would like to open a current account. Two ladies greeted me and the were shaking my hand and all. They brought me into a room and one lady helped me fill out the form and the otther lady typed the details into the computer. Everything was ok, the lady asked me about malaysia and why I had such a long name. I thought hmmm maybe I should shift all my savings to Sparkasse after all, since they are all so nice. Untill the part came when they asked me about where the money for this account would be coming in. I says from my parents and if i work I would put the extra money in this account and not the one at the Deutsche Bank. Lady says'you already have a current account at the deutsche bank? why do you need another current account, that doesnt make sense!' I tried to explain like if i find a job or if i have extra money from my account in Deutsche bank I would deposit the money in this current account. both ladies stare at me at this point. 'no it is nonsense. why does one have to have two current accounts? we are going to lose money if this happens. nobody not me not her has two current accounts. das ist ja bloedsinn...' and she went on for another 5 minutes or so nagging to me about how dumb it is to have to current accounts and how the bank would lose their money. I didnt know what to do at that time, I thought, they've already filled in the forms I can;t just leave this place cuz I would only have been wasting their time. so i ask, 'how is it with a normal bank account?' lady says 'then you will get a bank book not an atm card and you cannot apply for credit card. but you can only choose one current account either with us, or with deutsche bank.' i says 'yea i would like a sparkonto then.' and everything was settled. i just didn't get why they couldn't just tell me 'oh you cant have to current accounts, but instead of a current account with us we can recommend that you have a normal sparkonto with us' instead of telling me of and making me feel dumb. for the record i have to current accounts in malaysia. one with Standard Chartered and one with CIMB and when I applied for CIMB for a current account, one of the questions in the form was if i have another account at another bank in malaysia, and i said yea. lady at cimb didnt say anything at all.
Basically things in Germany are complicated. I miss how simple things are at home. Even the post office here doesn't sell stamps! You have to get them from a machine that doesn't tell you the postage price for overseas. One has to look it up on the internet or something, but thats what I did.
Classes are going boring. I haven't really started studying much either and I think I should be worried cuz from what the Malaysian seniors say, people here work hard just to pass. Some of them are in like their 8th or 9th semester still repeating previous subjects that they fail. I really don't want that to happen because my parents are hoping on me to do well. Will start studying soon. Like tomoro cuz tonight Im meeting the Malaysians again for badminton. Its really a bad 'habit' meeting with the malaysians cuz we speak malay and english and that is bad for my german. Haven;t started my german classes yet and I can't wait to. Russian is another important language cuz I hang out a lot with the Russians!
Well untill then, Things are working out for me ! Except the bank issues urggggggggghhhhh
First of all, this is what I usually have for dinner. :P Boiled potatoes, brussel sprouts, and wurst. All cooked by myself :)
Last weekend I was in Muenster. Cool city, waaay better university town than Duisburg. We had a Planungswochenende at the Aasee in a Jugendherberge which was sorta like a YMCA. It was sorta like them training workshops that we had in Malaysia. At this camp we started out with discussing everyone's idea for the CHapter. The one thing about my chapter is that it is probably the only chapter where the older volunteers are involved actively in the chapter in germany. Later in the evening on Saturday this lady came in and gave a talk about visualization and how it can make a presentation interesting. Well I thought the talks were pretty ok. I learnt quite a lot about how a chapter works in Germany besides meeting a lot of new people. :)
Me and Pierre, returnee under the PPP program from the US.
The AA See.
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On my left is Teresa, returnee from the US. She is pretty active in the chapter.
This lady here is wonderful. The chapter leader of AFS Komitee REN. She hosted a Malaysian girl before, her name is Sherene I think. 
