Snowy Days in Athens

I have been in Ohio for two weeks now. Orientation Week was easy-going. It was more about having fun and getting to know the beautiful campus of Athens. Aside from the fact that Athens is a small town, the campus seems rather huge. Since my sense of orientation is pretty bad in general, I was really confused the first week I got here. Compared to the University of Leipzig where we have the main campus in the city center and smaller buildings are spread out in the whole city, the Athens campus is more condensed. I really like that because you don’t need that much time in between your classes to change buildings or class rooms. And if you have a lot of time in between your classes, you can just go to one of the small coffee shops or restaurants right next to campus. 

 
During Orientation Week we had several social events where we got to know some Americans, as well as other International students. It was really interesting to talk to them since I’m very interested in other cultures and languages. I met students from West Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and Indonesia. We ate ice-cream, had Jimmy John’s sandwiches, and played games like Jenga or Uno.

The first week of school was a little bit busy but still not too bad. I got registered for all of my classes which are mainly about American history and politics. The Global Leadership Center class is one of my favorites so far! My class mates are all really nice. They were all excited about us Germans, because they knew we would come and join them this semester to work together on projects. Also, we will tell them a lot about Germany, our culture and the University since some students might go to Leipzig in May.
 

I am also very excited about the “Politics and Film” class that I am taking. We watched the short film Elephant. It is definitely not one of my favorite movies, but it was interesting to talk about the political aspects of it. The director Alan Clarke produced Elephant as an answer to the troubles and shootings in Northern Ireland 1989. I am planning on watching the remake of the film from 2003 which is based on the Columbine Massacre. I am not sure if I will like this version better but I think it will be very interesting to compare both versions.