Strike 4

I just got back from what I thought was going to be a music history class. I was really excited about it, because it was the only class I knew I was allowed to take and I knew what it was, plus I had planned on cornering the professor after class to talk about all this other stuff and see if I could get some help.

Class was set to start at 9:20. I got there a little after 9, sat down in the room, and waited. And waited. And no one came. Finally a girl stuck her head in the room and said "oh, are you here for the music history class? Those lectures don't start til next week." I asked her how she knew; she said there was a bulletin board upstairs that had it all listed.

I'm so glad I am finding all this information in adequate time to actually DO something about it. Not.

I guess you're wondering what strikes 2 and 3 were. They were the two classes I attempted to attend yesterday, both of which were completely inappropriate for me, and both of which I was supposed to sign up for last week, neither of which I knew before I got in the door. Class 1 was a "just for fun" class - "Influence of Jazz and Blues in African-American Literature." Yeah....but when you're an American musician in a room full of German literature students who are trying to study American music, it's not as fun as it sounds. The class is taught in English but none of them speak it very well, so a lot of the time was me being puzzled trying to figure out what the people were trying to say, even though it was in my native language. I made a couple comments during class discussion, but I didn't speak enough to give away my lack of accent and the fact that I'm American. I'll admit, they speak English better than I speak German, but if they won't sit in on my German classes I won't sit in on their English classes. I also noticed a lot of interesting cultural stuff about how they seem to view the black/white relationship in the US, but I'll post about that another time.

Class 2 was an education class - I emailed the professor the day before asking if I could attend, but I hadn't heard from her, but I decided to just go anyway. It was a freshman intro seminar in a lecture class, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. But then when I got there, the teacher called roll, then called another list of names of everyone on the "waiting list," and said if we weren't on either one of those lists then there wasn't room for us in the class, too bad so sad. So I, along with about 20 more people, just got up and left. She has an email in her inbox from me, whether or not she chooses to read it and respond to it.

Still no word from the other professors and people I emailed, either. I do have an appointment with the music pedagogy professor on Thursday, and am trying to make an appointment with someone in the international office whenever she responds to my email. I have attempted to go to 4 classes in 3 days and none of them have been the right classes or the right times - I obviously need help, but I can't find someone who will help me.