I’m hurtling towards the end of the semester, and I can feel the pressure increasing. There’s final papers to write, suitcases and boxes to pack and mail, friends to spend time with.

I’ve written 2 out of my 4 Hausarbeiten, my final papers, so far. Those were the shorter, easier ones, and now I have two monster 10 page papers to write. I’m hoping they won’t be too difficult. One of them I’d done a presentation on the same subject earlier in the year and won’t be starting from scratch as far as research goes, and the second one I can write in English, as the studies I’ll be analyzing are all published in English.

But even if they’re not incredibly difficult to write, they’re still going to take time. Although there are plenty of places I could visit within Hessen on my semester ticket, I doubt that I’ll have the time, which is unfortunate.

I just wanted to put this short post out while I had a break between final papers, since I finally caught up to the present with my last post. But first, here’s the video from June:

One Second Everyday, the app I had been using to make these videos recently updated to where it doesn’t work on my phone’s iOS, so I’ve had to switch to Leap Second. Unfortunately, it’ll just make putting a one-second compilation of my time in Marburg since November more difficult, but it’ll work out.

Sommerfest

A compliment to the Winterfest party the castle threw back in November, there was a Sommerfest in June. It had an interesting theme — everyone was supposed to dress up in a costume relating to their major or future career. My costume was hurriedly put together, and consisted of a newspaper hung around my neck. I also used the party as an excuse to bake rhubarb-apple bread, which was great. I don’t have too much to say about the party here, because I ended up feeling unwell and left somewhat early to go to bed.

So. Jimothy Died, RIP

I will never not find it amusing that the literal day after making a post where I talked about my Dnd character Jimothy Holiday, he died during an encounter. That’s the first time I’ve had a character die, but I don’t feel too broken up about it. I found him a little difficult to play at times, if I’m being honest. And anyway, I got to make a new character who I’m excited to play. She is a tiefling named Memory Fairchild. She’d trained to be a doctor, but was kind of bad at it, and accidentally killed a patient while her supervisor was out of the room. In her panic, she discovered she could do magic and brought the patient back to life, just not quite alive anymore. So she’s a wild magic sorcerer who’s better at necromancy than she is at being a doctor, but is fairly determined to keep the necromancy bit a secret.

The other players haven’t found out her backstory or the fact she’s a necromancer just yet, as we didn’t have a long session this week (and I don’t think any of them read the blog, so it’s fine to share here). Another player died last session, after rolling a critical failure with inspiration on her death saving throws (for non-players, that just means she had extraordinary bad luck). My character brought her back to life at the start of our most recent session, but they think that was just Niklas hand-waving rules. I mean, he pushed the rules on the wild magic stuff, but they think she just had a good medicine check.

I’m going to be so disappointed if she dies next session after this post.

A Cookout and Trip to a Lake

The last Saturday in June, one of the other BCA students, Steven, invited us all over to have currywurst that he was making, and we all brought various sides and drinks. I bought some cherries I bought from a stand in Marburg. The food was fantastic, and we decided to go spend the afternoon at Seepark Niederweimar, a lake that’s a couple of train stops away from Marburg. I’d seen this lake from the window of the train often, when going to and from Frankfurt, but I hadn’t realized it was a place you could go and swim.

It was super busy, since it was the weekend and there was beautiful (but hot) weather. The water felt so cool, it was probably the first time the entire week I actually felt comfortable in my own skin. We swam around a while, hung out and talked. At one point, while standing/treading water in a circle together, I picked up a rock from the bottom of the lake, and started passing it around. Then, Sarah picked up one and started passing it around in the opposite direction. We ended up passing around five rocks around in circles. It’s hard to capture the humor of the moment in words, but half of us were cracking up, and the other half were hopelessly confused about why we were passing rocks around.

Eventually we got out of the water and went to go sit where we had set out our towels which was half in the shade and half in the sun. I read for a little while, but ultimately ended up falling asleep for an hour or so. It was a nice nap, and it’s also a wonder I didn’t end up with my shoulder and back sunburnt.

Fourth of July

The BCA students and other friends of ours decided to have a grill party to celebrate the Fourth of July. It almost didn’t happen, since we started planning the details of who’s-bringing-what rather late.

I made the burger patties with an onion soup mix and Worcestershire sauce. I probably could’ve made them a little bigger, as the buns another person brought were huge, but it turned out alright in the end. We also had chicken and veggie kabobs, chips, salad and grapes, and strawberry shortcake. One of the resident halls had a large grill and picnic table behind the dorm, and that’s where we held the party. It ended up being a lot of fun, and I was lucky enough to be able to take home some leftover burgers and shortcake.

However, I don’t think I can mention the Fourth of July without also bringing attention to the atrocities being committed in America by the current administration. The conditions in which people are being held at detention centers are inhumane. These are children, these are asylum seekers (which, reminder, seeking asylum is not a crime), these are people being locked up for who they are, not for anything they’ve done, and they’re being denied access to clean water, toothbrushes, medical care, blankets, the list goes on in overcrowded, standing-room-only cells. These detention centers fit the definition of what a concentration camp is, and that term shouldn’t be taken lightly. One thing to remember is that the Nazi’s didn’t start with building death camps, they started with camps like these that existed long before the death camps, and we need to recognize the warning signs for what they are. Regardless of what you’re calling them, they’re a violation of human rights, and they need to stop. America is on a very, very dangerous track right now, and it never should’ve gotten this far in the first place. This isn’t about politics, this is about human lives. Do not look away.

What I’m listening to this week: Animal Tracks by Mountain Man.