Study Study Study

Did I mention it is more work to be a student than it is to have a job? I am very sympathetic to my brother in law Kaley who has been working full time and taking classes for years.

This semester is reaching is peak and will stay at level until the end of December, as long as Torrey keeps doing the majority of the cooking and grocery shopping, as well as putting up with "no fun Claire" I think I will make it. I have to say that he has been incredibly understanding and helpful, despite him not living up to his own always so high expectations.

One group project will be behind me by the end of this week (presentation and report), two more group projects to go. I'm not a fan of group projects as they take so much longer and I don't usually add to what you learn. Also as the only person with English as a first language I have the job of editor. I tried to leave that behind at my old job, but alas it continues. It is sometimes entertaining to read what my fellow students write, other times I have no idea what they are trying to say. In one of my group projects one of the girls' English is incredibly poor I am amazed that she is even taking a Masters in English. She is also not really pulling her weight in the group project. I oscillate in being annoyed and relieved by this.

For one of my group projects we are looking at "Does the Application of Artificial Snow Negatively Affect Fens in the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch?". This is for my Environmental Assessment and Evaluation class. We were given a data set (an incomplete data set), and told to determine if there were any negative effects. Well there are (based on literature) but our data set isn't great, so it is hard to tell. This is supposed to help us understand a "real life" situation. It is the dataset that our professor (who I am sure is younger than me by a number of years) had to deal with when he started managing the Biosphere.

Snow cannon, for "artificial snowing" as my German classmates call it.  I have stopped correcting it as it is longer to say it properly in English, even the professor says it this way.  

Here also is my favorite book (if you judge this by the amount of time I spend with it). I like it so much that I even get Torrey to read it, for hours, even on a Friday night. Did I mention he is also relearning physics and math? Him helping me with physics is going better than I expected, I guess after 7 1/2 years of marriage we get along well enough.

I consider this Alzheimer prevention, I think I have added years to my mental stability.

 This is the ONLY thing that is cheap in Switzerland, tuition. Subsidized by the government for all students including international students.  However, there has been discussion of changing this over the last few years.  Just in case you can't read it it says 659 CHF which is about $740CD per semester.  I looked a graduate programs before we moved and this is about how much is costs for 1 credit, and would cost about $12,000 per semester if I went to the University of Washington.

Invoice for my first semester.