My second birthday!

Finally ... finally ... finally! I declare the 24th of August as my second birthday. One week ago, I was surfing a little on eBay looking for some nice posters, as all of a sudden I found a screenplay. To be more precisely, the screenplay of Fight Club. For all of you who are not in the picture right now why I'm that excited about that - Fight Club is my favorite movie! Anyhow, I found it and it was not only the actual shooting script, which they used on the set, but it is also personally signed by actor Brad Pitt, yeah that's true baby! And now guess who won the bid on eBay! Yeah that right - me! This is the most precious thing I own I guess, cause it doesn't have any material value to me rather than emotional value. I was so excited when I found it today in the mailbox. It's soooo fucking awesome! Yeah!

Still try to orient ...

So second week of orientation and things still change. We finally moved in to our apartment. (more information on that will follow shortly with pictures and roommate description). We also started registering our courses which was a bit of strange 'cause we had to wait until this week. Unfortunately, most of the courses were closed already so I need to go to professors personally next week and ask them if there is room for one more student. Currently I have 12 credit hours which is enough to be a full time student here but I want at least 3 credit hours more which means one course. At the moment I'm registered to the following courses:

* Introductory Writing (English Course)
* Introduction to Film
* Film I: Cinematography
* Digital Tech & Film

I try to get in either Script Analysis or History of Film. I also got the list of books I need for my courses and they are insanely expensive. I pay for my 3 books for Introductory Writing 150$.

I also plan on starting a short film project outside of courses, for which I contacted a professor via e-mail. He is pretty nice and told me that I should come to one of his office hours because he wants to get in touch with me and he will support me with knowledge and equipment - so I'm going to start writing the script soon which will be a short movie in length of 5 - 10 mins. The movie is going to be character driven, this means it won't contain a lot of action, otherwise it would get too complex, Yeah well, I'm curious about that.

Yesterday Martin and I have been too Wallmart with the two asian girls because they have a car and they drove us. I just can tell you that buying grocery or whatever in the US is insane. Everything is soooooooo big, they are just family sizes and like 10 different brands for each product. I thought I drive crazy. We have been there for 2 and 1/2 hours to get our stuff and I was just exhausted afterwards - Unbelievable. I really need get used to it.

BTW: We found a piece of home in the middle of Ohio:

This week all the freshmen came to Campus. Finally, the town gets crowded. There are several events this and the next week. Yesterday, was the welcome bash at the baseball field. You can see Freddy and Frieda at the picture above which are the mascots of BGSU. We got free food and beverages. It was also a band playing. It was quite fun.

Today, I spent my day with Andres a guy from Costa Rica. He is also an international student. We played for 2 hours Playstation 3 which was pretty cool and headed to a dodge-ball tournament. Afterwards we went to the arcade and had some pizza. I also noticed that since I just spoke english the whole day that this somehow exhausts me a lot. My english gets worse and worse and I simply can't talk properly anymore - it sounds like school english, just worse. You can even see it right here in the post. I guess I just need another couple of weeks to get used to it.

Anyhow, that's it for today, I added some more photos in the orientation week set. Just click Orientation Week on the right hand side.

My Precious ...

Today - Finally! :) I woke up at 8:45 and got up. Took a shower, shaved myself and get all cleaned and nice - because I got my MacBookPro today. Fred arrived at Founders Hall 9:30 with his roommate. The three of us drove up to Michigan which is approx. one and a half hour from Bowling Green. Since we were to early we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and headed to the Apple Store.

It was 11:10 when we arrived at the Mall and it was like heaven - hehe! They had everything you can imagine - unbelievable. One of the employees headed to me and asked me if he could help me. I told him that I want my MacBookPro today and told him everything I wanted started with the configurations of the machine to the software I wanted. 10 minutes later he was back with all my stuff inclusive an iPod nano which I received fro free - yeah! :) We took the stuff and drove back to Ohio - stopped at a BestBuy which is something like Saturn or Media Markt and at Burger King, gettin' one of those tasty veggie burger.

Almost the rest of the day, I was in front of my Mac installing programms and configuring everyting. I like it pretty much. It's awesome! :)

You can see the whole story told in pictures here:

The Apple Story

By the way, it was also the first time that I had the chance to try out the new Apple iPhone. Oh my got - I just want it. It's sooooooo cool! Yeah, maybe some time in the future. We'll see! ;)

This week orientation week started on Thursday. On Thursday we had some presentations from different people on what they expect from us and what rights we have concerning the university as well as the united states itself. The most funny presentation was on how to act properly in relationships. Meaning in relationships with authority like professors as well as personal relationships and romantic relationships. It was not that new to us since we almost have the same rules, but it was funny when people from eastern country asked things like why man sometimes hug man or why it's normal that a girl can kiss you on the cheek for saying "Hello". It was pretty interessting since we are so used to our way, that we sometimes don't see other perspectives on the world.

On firday we finally got out Photo ID cards. You can see mine on the top of the page. We also finally got our BGNet-Accounts with which we can log-in on computers on campus or as well join the BG-Network on facebook - hehe. You can find several interessting people on there. We also had some presentation on the health care system and on insurance. We already bought insurance in Austria, but since we are not sure if it covers everything the B.G.S.U. requires we had to let it check by the insurance department. If worse comes worse, I have to buy a seconde insurance from B.G.S.U. If that's the case, I swear to god I will go mad and jump from every roof I found, since I can afford it then! :)
There was also a very boring presentation on tax income, which I propably have to do when I intend to work on campus for the TV station. Anyways, I will worry about it when it's going to be serious. Concerning working, since I just have a F-1 visa, I'm only allowed to work on campus and not more than 20 hours a week, otherwise I could get in big trouble.

Today, we had to get up early, 'cause we hade to do our english exams, written and orally. Since, they had problems getting into Hays Hall, we had to move to another building with no computers - meaning we had to do the written exam by hand. It was not that difficult, I wrote an essay on the topic "Can the character of a society be meassured by the heros, men and women chose". It was pretty fun. We had exactly 60 minutes to write the essay. The second part was the oral exam, it was a conversation of 10 minutes with someone of the ESL (english as a second language) department. The person with whome I had the conversation reminded me so badly on Lorelai Gilmour. It was pretty funny. I also told her that she looks like this very actor and she took it as a compliment. I guess it can't hurt my "grade". Based on this test we are going to be placed in classes to improve our english skills, both orally and written-vise. I'm so curious how I did on the tests. We are going to get to know on tuesday how we did on the test and where we are going to be placed.

That was pretty much it for today. We also had a picnic lunch sponsored by the Enclave, the appartments we are going to live in. We are going to move in on Wensday, sooooo looking forward to it. Finally, we also got cellphones, so we are reachable and can make phonecalls whenever we want. It gives us a bit of the freedom back we were used to in Austria. I got actually a pretty fancy phone from Verizon. I also had some credit card problem today which I got fixed instantly, so that there could be nothing in the way to get my brand new Apple tomworrow. I'm soooooooooooo badly looking forward to it, 'cause I haven't had a notebook since more than a week now. I just need it. I promise, I will document every step of the trip to Michigan to the Apple Store! Hehe

Writing-Mode of the Cellphone

Speaking-Mode of the Cellphone

Cinema ...

This evening we've been to the cinema. Actually it was the first time to watch a movie in theater since I'm in the states. We decided to watch "The Bourne Ultimatum" with Matt Damon. It's actually the third part of the Bourne-films. It's were everything resolves and we get to know what's behinde the whole Bourne conspiracy. The resolution was not that bad, I have to admit.

The only thing I really have to criticize is this new trend in Hollywood when it comes to camera work. Some directors and their DoPs (Director of Photography) have the urge to add realism to their movie by using a documentary-like camera work. We know this from films like "Miami Vice", where Michael Man used it quite good. At the Bourne Ultimatum, it was used to much as I think with all the handheld camera and the zoom-ins and zoom-outs. It's getting really exhausting and distracting after some time.

There was one thing which surprised me a bit. I was sitting in an american movie theater, expecting to watch an american action movie and after 10 minutes or so german actor Daniel Bruehl appears on the screen. It was quite strange, because I didn't expect someone like him to be in such a movie, but why not. He just played a quite short part in the movie, but he did his job good, even with the english! Hehe

So all in all, it was quite a action-loaded movie, with a bit of hidden american heroism. Anyhows, it was entertaining with some nice staged scenes.

By the way - at the beginning, they screened some trailers. One struck me pretty much. It's the new movie from "Saw" director James Wan (Saw 1). It's name is "Death Sentence". If you are interessted in the trailer, just click the play button an enjoy it! ;)

Waiting and Exploring ...

Now we have been two days and 14 hours in Boring Green. No, it's not a typo, it's aword play. We are bored out of our minds. Really! We are still currently living on campus, meaning little bedrooms with nothing included. :) We have been at the mainstreet three times so far an tried to find something interessting, but that's quite impossible here. It's a big area actually, but nothing to do. I hope but I'm confident that this is going to change when the actual courses starts.

Yesterday, we have been at a shopping mal. It was pretty big, with an H&M, Pottery Barn, ... and a lot more. I just got some nice magazins dealing with filmmaking. That's pretty cool here, 'cause you won't find such magazines in austria or germany. Afterwards we went to Fred's house watching television and I was as happy as a child on christmas, because I watched a epsiode of House M.D. (Dr. House) of the third season which is not coming to europe untill this fall - but the best thing is that at the end of august Fox is going to show the fourth season of House, so I will donwload the third season via iTunes, watch it and catch up with the fourth season in fall. Live is good! I'm also looking forward to Nip/Tuck. That's going to be a blast. ;)

After having lunch at Subway, Martin and I were wandering around campus. We haven't been there, I don't know why because it's sooo awesome. It's like you would imagine it ... it's like you are on location of the Gilmour Girls or one of a romantic teenie comdy movie - Haha. You need a lot of time to go around the whole campus once. Never try to compare it with the area of the Salzburg Univertsity of Applied Sciences. We even found a large building in the middle of the campus which has a bookstore with all the books you need for your courses as well as a Starbucks, a Wendy's (a huge fast food company like Mc Donalds or Burger King) a supermarket, an arcade, ... it's so awesome. I'm pretty looking forward being here every day. I think it's going to be cool.

By the way. I knew it, the whole pregnancy stuff is all a big hoax. Yeah right, stork and female human being - this is were babies really come from:

Tomorrow starts our orientation week, it's for all new undergraduate exchange students. They prepared a whole lot of thing for us such as information events, an english test, a TB test but also some fun things like ice skating, movie night and a barn dance (pretty curious about that). So there are a lot of things ahead of me I'm going to write about the next days. Check back to see how "Boring Green" turns into "Bowling Green". ;)

The 1st day ...

The first day started with the humming noise of a ventilator. Yeah, we better get used to it since we are really going to need them for the next months. Ohio is in the north of the states but since they haven't any gulf stream the weather is more extreme. Currently it's pretty hot here. High temperatures and a high humidity, but I'm sure we get used to it. If not, next week we are going to move in, in our actual appartment which has a pool. Yeah!

After we got up today, we moved from Fred's house to campus. Precisely - Founders Hall! We got our rooms for the next week which are okay for a week I guess. Martin and I have seperate bedromms with a desk and a closet and we share one bathroom together. After putting our stuff in the bedrooms, we checked out the surrounding and found a nice pizza-pub opposite of the campus where we decided to get a pizza. The pizza was just 9" but neither of us could eat it entirely, so we had to take the rest with us. We looked a bit around and found a nice advertising in a shop-window which proves some of the views we had of america.

Anyhow, after we checked out the surrounding, Fred left work at about 3 o'clock pm and we drove to Enterprise which is a car rental company. You really need a car here because without a car you can't do nothing here. Unfortunately, to rent a car you need an international driving licence which neither of us posseses. So, since we wanted to know how to get such a driving licence we drove to the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicle. They told us that we could get an international driving licence (idl) via AAA which is something like OEAMTC in Austria. Unfortunately, it's just the oher way round, so that american citizen get the idl from them. So, the only possibility of driving a car here in Ohio is to get an american driving licence for which we have to do a computer-based test and a practical test, this means driving on a parcour as well as driving on the actual street. Since, we are not permanent residence of Ohio untill the 20th of August, we can't take the tests. This means, we will be carless untill that and propably rent a bike. Well, at least we do something for our fitness. Hehe :)

After that, we went to the Enclave II Appartments. The one we are going to move in next week. We just wanted to see, if everything is okay with ouer leases and took a tour since we were there. Honestly, I only can say - Jackpot Baby! Hehe ... it's going to be soooooo cool! But more on that when we move in next week.

Yeah, that was pretty much the first day in BG. Not to bad. Let's see what the next couple of days, weeks and months are going to bring. :)

A Red-Eye ...

So the day actually cam when my flight to the states departed - so my journy beginns. I took an airport-taxi from vienna city to vienna Schwechat (the airport) where my flight to London-Heathrow left. There were actually 2 connection flights ahead of me. So, Ieneterd the flight and since there were no internet access at the airport or the plane and since I was travelling without any technical equipment but a digital camera and my phone, I couldn't blog from there. This is why I invented time-delayed-blogging which means I wrote the blog manually with a pen on paper and I'm going to post it in here. The advantage is, it's not a summary of the situation which I remember it, but it's right from the spot with all the emotions and impressions I had at that very moment. I call this section RFOL (right from on location). They are specially marked so that you can identify them easily. I also provide the place and the time on location. So here comes the first RFOL-Entry:

1:00 pm (+1 CEST) / Vienna
Finally ... the plane took of. We had a one-hour delay because of luggage problems. We had to sit in the plane, not knowing exactly what was going on. that was not the biggest problem we had to face. I really don't want to exeggarate here, but it was way mor hell than any terrorists hijacking the plane, well it's a BABY on board. Dear god, I now officially commit: "I do hate babies from now on and shall never have one of my one" - that's my contribution to a quite and relaxing future. I mean it's unbelievable. They are as small as a football, can't even concentrate on one thing for more than 10 seconds but cry like there is no tomorrow and that for an insanely long time. After 45 minutes, I kind of passed out or dose off, or whatever. Seems to be an evolutionary technique to pass out before crossing the line to insanity. However, we are currently 37.000 feet above the earth, the embodiement of Satan, young Damien, asleep or whatever an I just got a a cheese sandwhich with orange juice - life seems to turn around to the bright side. I really need to use the chance and are going to focus solely on my cheese sandwiche now.

So, that were the first impressions from the plane. The flight turned out to be quite okay the baby slept for the rest of the flight. I read some magazines and chilled and we arrived London Heathrow, where the real and pure horror was waiting for me. But more in the RFOL-Entry I wrote right after surviving it:

4:45 pm (0 CEST) / London
I'm pissed and I'm fucking angry! This can not happen. I don't understand it, I'm not quite a fan of bad expressions but if there is nothing other than that to express it precisely so please allow me to use one: FUCKING ASSHOLES!
Okay, here is the story. Since we had an one-houre delay in Vienna, we arrived one hour late in London, but I still had two hours an 45 minutes to get from terminal 4 to terminal 3. The lady in Vienna explained it quite nice to me:"It's just a short bus ride, another security check and that's it." Well, the bus ride was indeed short but the security check turned out as 700 people (no jocking, it was for real 700 people) in front of me and one-fucking dedector you walk through. Can you imagine that? One-fucking dedector for 700 people?
Someone told me once, staying calm and positive thinking brings you further than any stress - well, it doesn't bring you past 700 people to one dedector. I guess that's lesson number one on my journy to adulthood. I talked several times to the herd-observers, as I called them, that I really need to catch the flight but they assured me that it's going to be okay. As there were only 30 minutes left, I asked them one more time and then, finally they brought me to the front. 30 minutes before my flight departed!!! Then, it took me another 25 minutes to fight for getting through this fucking dedector so that I had only 10 minutes left to get to the gate. I ran as fast as i could and of course the gate closed already. I knocked like crazy against the door because I really needed to get to Chicago on time, since I have abnother connection flight from there to Detroit. Thank god, a flight assistent opened the door and checked for me to get a seat on the plane, since they gave away my original seat already.
Finally, I entered the plane all sweaty and gasping for oxygen 5 mintes before take-off. This is simply not exceptable. I'm going to complain about this for sure and I do want at least an excuse. Assholes! However, while I was searching my seat 36A, there was a man starring at me, saying:"I know exactly how you feel". At least I'm not alone on that. Anyhow, I'm waiting for my meal now, watching a movie on my little private screen in front of me and afterwards, I'm going to sleep to get at least some energy back for the last part of my journy to Bowling Green.

This was the last quater of the 700 people in fron of me.
There were another four hallways full with people around the corner in the front.

I know, there are some expressions in it I woulnd't have wrote afterwards. But, since this were my feelings at the very moment I thought I'm not going to cencore it, since it should be honest and authentic. Well, the rest of the journy turned out to be more relaxing than the beginning. After the meal, I had a little chit-chat with my seat/neighbour who was I business man from asia who travells several times a year to the United States. After that, I took a sleeping pill and slept for 4 hours, which was pretty recovering. We landed in Chicago, where I had to go the the immigration service, since this was my port of entry, as well as to the US costume with my luggage. I had also to switch the terminal and stuff, but it was all way more comfortable than in London. I had even a little time to grab a bite at Mc Donalds. The last last part of my journy was then the connection flight from Chicago to Detroit, which lasted approx. 1 hour. I didn't remember a lot because I was sleeping for 50 minutes or so, I even slept away the take-off. :)

In Detroit, Fred ( a formerly exchange student in Salzburg from Bowling Green) picked me up. We also met Martin, at a different terminal and drove then to Bowling Green - which lasted another hour and some minutes. I have to admit I really was relieved to arrive in Bowling Green on time, after the problems I had to face at that day. Anyhow, we drove through Bowling Green to Fred's house. It's a quite and so typical american neighbourhood which everyone knows from shows different Tv-shows. We saw some raccoons, squirrls and rabbits running around on the street - it was kind of strange. hehe We went for sleep early, because Martin and I was pretty exhausted and we anted to prepare for our first day in Bowling Green.

On friday the 3rd of august, I had my fare-well party back home in upper austria. I must admit it was quite a bad time for a fair-well party, since so many people were on vacation or had to work, but some of my closest friends took the time to party with me a last time. The whole thing started at 9 o'clock with a little chit-chat and nice drinking.

A little later, they all surprised me with presents like cakes decorated with fruites like the austrian and the american flag. That was such a nice idea ... and such a tasty one too! :)
They also made a kind of a friendbook, where a lot of them wrote personal stuff in it with photos and letters and little presents. I was very overwhelmed by that, and allready read it severl times so far, and I will open it another dozen times the coming year, that's for sure.

After that the whole party actually started, we drank booz from a bucket through straws or sniffing snuff, the switzerland tradition which keeps Jonas alive. We partied untill 6 o'clock in the morning - and it was such a nice end. It really was. Thanks to all for coming, I really appreciated it.

Here, you can find the pictures of the party:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fincher85/sets/72157601208780212/

The day after, we cleaned the house and Astrid drove Manuel and me to the train station in Linz, since he was going to London this day and I drove to vienna for a last night out. I met Michael there. We watched the Simpsons movie, in english of course, and went out in vienna - unfortunately I was pretty tired from the party last night, that we went home at 2 o'clock am and went to sleep in order to be full of energy for the journy to the United States of America the next day.

Going Abroad is Good

Well, there are several good reasons why to study abroad. To learn another culture, to get independent - but one very good reason why everyone should go abroad is to learn the language of a country. There are some people who I think should go a abroad - yeah well - and some of them should stay there too! ;)