I must admit I have been slacking off with my school work. I am behind on reading and I have two presentations coming up and it is all making me a bit nervous. I also realize that somehow this semester feels really busy although I am not taking that many classes [five] and not working that much [about 10 hours a week]. This is what I have to get done before Christmas break:

• Read book and prepare presentation for my Spanish Lit seminar. The presentation is on December 3rd. Meaning I only have two weeks left before I have to have prepared the presentation [as we have to hand in an outline early]. I am also doing this presentation with another girl, so I cannot do it last minute as we have to talk about what each will do and for that it would be helpful to know what I’m talking about, i.e. to have read the novel. Thank God I found a German translation at the library.
• Prepare presentation for my English Lit seminar. I actually really like the topic, “The character of Briony and the events at the fountain as described by her”, and I have read the novel [Atonement] but it is still work and it has to be done by next Sunday, as the presentation is on the 27th [and again the outline has to be handed in early].
• I have to catch up with reading in my Italian Lit seminar. I am not that far behind anymore as I just read a bunch of chapters on Thursday, but still not completely caught up.
• I have to read another book for my Spanish Lit seminar. It will be discussed in the class a week after my presentation, and we might have a test on it, so I definitely have to read that one. In Spanish. It’s 360 pages.
• I have to read a 250-page novel for my American Lit class by Wednesday. I haven’t even started.

But then I often meet up with friends after class and by the time I get home I am too tired to do anything but let House entertain me for the night, and on the days off [Tuesday and weekends] I either hang out with friends or manage to waste all day doing lots of things that are not school work. I think I really need to get off my butt and start with all these assignments. But today, I have a friend coming over in about 1.5 hours to have dinner together and then catch a movie playing at the film festival here.

After Christmas I only have two more weeks [technically three but I will leave for Munich a week early] of classes but I still have two more books to read, and a presentation and a final coming up in those two weeks.

Not to mention the 20-page term paper I meant to write during this semester, another one in the semester break [which with working full-time I don't know how I will do] and another one right after the semester break. Then I would actually be done for good with classes, and start my thesis in the fall. I hope it all works out.

I started university in October 2002. I started out with English and Economics as my two majors, and a year later I switched from Economics to Romance Literature [Spanish]. I have generally not regretted that choice, but sometimes I do wonder. No way would I want to study Economics, and I actually really enjoy studying Spanish.

But for my Spanish major they also make me take some classes in Italian, and well, that regulation does not make any sense at all as the level of classes is advanced but we never had to take the basic level classes. One of my classes went pretty badly today and left me feeling so incompetent, and it made me really worry about how I am going to pass this class.

It made me think about how I have been in school for six years, and I don’t really have anything to show for it. When I graduate I will have an MA [a German MA is about equal to a masters] but before then, I do not have a degree, so if I somehow fail or something, that’s basically six years completely wasted. And that is so intimidating, especially on a day I am so discouraged about my abilities like today.

I enjoy going to university, and I am looking forward to starting to work, but the inbetween is just terrifying me.