Now, I'm going to have a mega post on this later I'm sure, but I wanted to photo dump what I took while at the Sundance Film Festival this past weekend! I was lucky enough to travel there with a bunch of really great people from the WUD Film Committee and had the time of my life. 27 films and 5 hours of sleep over 3 days. It was such a whirlwind, but all my planning paid off and everything happened without a hitch. I can't wait to bring back some of these films to Madison.
There's a bro version of this pic, but I gotta get it from Bess ;]
One of the sponsors had a photobooth set up with props. Tom and I went for 1) American Gothic 2) trees as guitars 3) climb them 4) throw trees at camera. Phil and I were just confused as when the pictures were even being taken XD
Pow. Iconic
The director of my favorite U.S. Dramatic film, Concussion, at the Q&A following the screening. I got to speak with her afterwards and tell her how much I loved the film!
Two of the actors from Concussion
So this is what a Sundance screening typically looks like. Here's the screenwriter/director and two producers of Newlyweeds during their Q&A.
The Newlyweeds director who I'm totally in love with. He said he'd love to come to Madison with the film!
Part of the WUD Film member description: giving MUBA members back walks as they please.
Park City at night.
The two directors of the doc Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
Jason and I saw so many films at the Holiday Theatre!
Prepping box office requests at the house one night
We haven't even taxied out of the runway, and Huppert was asleep. (In his defense, it was 6 am and we hadn't slept for >26 hours).
If you don't already know, I would love to be a high school German teacher one day. Who knows what path I'll take to get there, but right now I have the pleasure of student teaching at Leopold Elementary school in Madison. Last semester I helped out with a 2nd grade dual language immersion classroom with hands down the most lovely, funny, caring group of kids I've ever met. I used to not be able to stand young kids, but they just cling to you so quickly, you can't really help it! My amazing amazing mentor teacher sent me a couple pictures she took of us in the classroom, and I thought they were pretty cute.
Lizbeth and I working on some math
The gang! So many things in this picture crack me up
I just started a new semester at Leopold last Monday. Now I'm in a 4th grade and 5th grade classroom, and I'll be teaching for 45 minutes in each every Monday and Wednesday starting in one week. I still have so much to think about in terms of lesson planning. Should the students call me Frauline Rayna? How much Deutsch is too much Deutsch? There are so many questions, and I think the only way I can tackle this thing is to just dive right in. I'll be with them until June, and some of the kids have specifically requested German because they want to take it in middle school, which makes me really happy.
I'm going to try to restart this once study abroad blog into an outlet for photo sharing, musings, and documenting my life. I figured a proper intro entry would be my list of 2012. I've been compiling one of these the last few years and I find it a really enjoyable way to see all I've accomplished the past year, and it motivates me to go above and beyond during the upcoming year. Last year was pretty major for me, and I gotta say, it kicked a lot of ass.
-2012-
Went to England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Croatia, and the Czech Republic.
Dyed my hair purple, blue again, then brown.
Saw Beirut, Kanye, Jay-Z, Flobots, Astonautalis, Scroobius Pip, the Hard Lessons, Sleigh Bells, and G. Love and Special Sauce.
Became WUD Film Director.
Got into the UW School of Education.
Cohort I.
Got a tattoo.
Adult Swim at the Children's Museum.
Marched in an LGBT rally with AHA.
Moved out of Bromansion 2 and into the Eleanor.
Quit CVS.
Started student teaching.
Adventure Time/Pixar Halloween costumes.
Saw local Madison play Opiate for the Missus.
Voted for Obama, our re-elected president.
Got third place at the College Improv Tournament.
The Avengers, Yid Vicious, RENT singalong, Lori Berquam at Reel Love.
Manet exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Got my ears pierced.
Shaved my head.
I leave Germany tomorrow morning. I wonder where the time went (it's nearly August? I've been here since February?!) but then I remember all the crazy and amazing things I've done and seen the last five months. Seven countries, and even more cities. The longer I'm here, the less English I seem to be able to speak. Random phrases or words escape me, and some German lingo has engrained itself into my vernacular (looked that up, it's Mundart. What a great word! Right up there with sloth being Faultier, meaning literally "lazy animal"). I keep wanting to type 'es handelt von..." to describe anything and apologies if I let out a "böah!" now and again. This semester, I celebrated my 21st birthday, got a tattoo, and went back to brunette. While I never want to leave this country, I'm so excited to begin UW's German Education program, and come back here as soon as possible.
But most importantly, I'm glad I got to become friends with so many awesome people. We've laughed, travelled, explored, learned, and danced our butts off.
Worte können die letzten fünf Monate nicht beschreiben- die Menschen die ich kennegelernt habe, die wunderschöne Städte die ich besucht habe, die Sprache in der ich verliebt bin.. Ich werde alle meine Freunde um die Welt wirklich vermissen und hoffentlich kann ich euch ein Tag besuchen! Badgers, Gott sei dank, dass wir dieses Jahr mit ein ander haben ;] Ich hab' so viel gelernt, und ich konnte nicht für ein besseres Semester gewünscht. Grüße <3
Ah, summer, when the day of the week doesn't matter, plans are made the day of, and sunshine and a book is all I need to be entertained for hours. I'm having a super fun last week in Bonn. Went to the Deutsches Museum and tried to learn about inventions and Herz in German, spent two days in a row at Melbbad, the single greatest public pool I've ever been to, had a couple grill outs and roof top sunset watching, star gazed, went to Cologne and chilled on the steps of the cathedral.. pretty awesome, gotta say.
Oh look, there's me flunky balling!
This sunset was insane. Clouds are probably the most beautiful thing to me
Ok, warning, I took a lot of pictures that night, but apparently ruined nearly every one with my franticness (I wanted pictures with EVERYONE) and by turning off the flash XD
We'll miss our Germans so. much.
AY.
aww
Grilling out in the Ferdi backyard
hey girl hey
Giant lily pads at the Botanical Gardens!! Apparently they're stable enough for young kids . Point, nature.
There's a little swimmable obstacle course for the turtles
Schloss
Our heat map at the Deutsches Museum
A cool random Reservoir Dogs mural in a cafe's bathroom in Köln
We ran into the Hari Krishnas outside der Dom! The men..
and the women
Beautiful people, beautiful weather, beautiful music, lots of dancing
I spent the day on Thursday in Maastricht, Netherlands with Amy, Karissa, and her dad. Of the things I will miss most of living in Europe, it's the Rhein River and traveling to countries like driving through states. Two trains, a bus, and a couple hours and bam, you're in Holland! We had a super delicious lunch in the city center, then explored and walked around for the day, grabbing some great dark beers at an outdoor cafe. Summer has finally come, so it's been hot the last week (except for today, where it's of course raining off and on endlessly).
Real honest to goodness wooden clogs! Can people actually walk around in these shoes?
The river Maas
Other side of the Maas
De Stadhuis
Eternal flame man
A gothic church from 1351!
Street art I liked
A cold glass of Abdij Dubbar, perhaps my new favorite beer. It was delicious!
Well, that was the most bizarre and easy exam week I've ever had in my life. But they're done, and who knows exactly how to transfer grades back to UW, but we'll figure that all out as it comes, yes? We watched a newer German movie called Vincent Will Meer after our Medien test. Kids with tourettes, OCD, and bulimia steal their mental hospital's boss' car and drive to Italy. There's lots of car exchanges. Oh, when looking for the trailer, I found that the whole movie's on Youtube! So highly recommended. I liked Alexander haha
After class on Thursday I caught a train to Köln and met people at Metroplolis to see the new Spiderman in English. I gotta say, as someone going into this film apprehensive (Avengers stole my life and I need to save the rest of my fan-girling for TDKR) I was impressed! It's not great script-wise and it's not groundbreaking or anything, but the casting was inspired (Martin Sheen and Dennis Leary were amazing), Andrew Garfield has perfect hair, Emma Stone is always awesome, and I liked it. Thank goodness it wasn't in 3D, I could see myself hating it then. I took the Strassebahn back to Bonn instead of the speedier train because I wanted to enjoy the countryside, and get through another chapter of my book. Sometimes you just need to force your butt outside to a place where you just have to read! It's fun. That night, everybody (allll the Europeans, accents, and North Amerikans basically) spent the entire night chilling at Alter Zoll, which was pretty glorious, and I still managed to go for a run!
Friday morning we have breakfast with our Intensiv Kurs which was lovely. Frau Lüdenbach took a photo of us all and printed a bunch out and we signed them for everyone <3 Love it. That night was a Schifffahrt along the Rhein with our program. It rained, but we got open faced sandwiches and silly music, so I say it balanced out in the positives. But Saturday was absolutely amazing. First was Trevor's going away dinner, which was delicious, and tons of people I love were there :] Then I went to the World Beat Party at Nyx with three girls because everyone else is a straight fool, the only explanation for why they missed one of the coolest nights in Bonn the whole semester. I mean that figurative cool, because we probably sweated out a couple kilos by the end there. The DJ played African, Indian, Turkish, Portuguese music, electro-swing.. oh it was so awesome. I spent the rest of the night hanging out with some roommates in the kitchen. We decided while Football and Futbol are both cool, Rugby is completely different and we don't really know how it's played.
Now that's I'm just bumming around Bonn for the last week and a half, soaking up this beautiful, damp, 65 degree weather, I'm trying to use as many Gutscheine wie möglich! Yesterday, I went to the Kunsthalle for the Pixar Exhibit with Kevin, Erin, and Helene. It was AWESOME! 25 years of Pixar animation history, with storyboards, sculptures, character art, this amazing movie about sound design..
I don't know if I can pick a favorite Pixar film without rewatching them, but Monster's Inc and A Bug's Life will always be near and dear to my heart. Then we popped into Haus der Geschichte were there's a brilliant exhibit featuring the work of photographer Herlinde Koelbl. All of her stuff was beyond amazing. Beautiful, real exhibits!
Today I'm going to finish up laundry and continue deep cleaning. It's never to early to think about packing! :( It tears me apart to throw anything away, but I'm going to have to part with my towels and some shoes just because they're old and gross and won't fit, but I'm a hoarder! Skyping with Maurissa really made me excited to get back to Madison though.
Another (old) soccer pic with Katie :]
Becky water fall braided my hair during Kaffeestunde! I loved it. Now I need to watch Youtube tutorials until I figure out how to do it too.
Rachel and I front row waiting for Beirut! What a beautiful day for a concert
