Here are six out of 22 pics of the photo shoot with the Erlangen connection. The photos are part of the big project and were used to explain how my fictional organization functioned. I think it'll all become clearer once I upload some images of the work, hopefully sometime next week.

After a short stop at home to take a shower and rest for a few minutes, I went to Kate's and Rebecca's place for an extreme chilling session including lots of red wine (took me all day today to get rid of the headache), some good ol' sheesha smoking with nice melon flavored tobacco sponsored by Ege and some classic drunk games like 'Who Am I' and 'Chinese Whisper' (Stille Post), the latter being especially funny with the high number of foreigners present.

Also kinda sad as maybe the last night I spent with that many people from my class all at once, as they're now all off to their internships and we – the exchangies – will be joining up with the other half of the class, who is now coming back from theirs. We'll see how that goes. Everyone keeps telling us, that they're the more 'serious' ones and not as fun as the people we've been with now...

Anyways, at two, about the time everyone started falling asleep, I left, dragged my drunk ass back home – luckily not being stopped by any police, I heard they're tough here – and finally got my 12 hours of straight sleep :)

After my friends left I took the Saturday off to relax a bit more and gradually shift my focus back to school work. After all, I only had six days left to finish that large scale project of mine and even though my concept was finished and I knew what I had to do, there were still thousands of little things waiting to be done.

As we didn't have any classes anymore last week, we were forced to work the final stages of the project completely on our own, without feedback. Risky business for those who still weren't sure where exactly they'd be heading. Anyways, I slowly got back into the groove over the weekend and starting Monday I was working at least 12 hour shifts each day to get my stuff done. As usual, pushing all important decisions back way too far, which then resulted in having to deal with them all at once. But it worked out. Even though the last two days were maybe two of the most intense since the Meloni-panic-nights, I had to drop a couple of details due to lack of time, I actually got blisters on my fingers from cramping up too much on my pen and my lungs almost gave up to the combined forces of spraypaint, fixativ, glue fumes and a cold virus, I finished my maybe most well-structured and thought through conceptual/visual project up to this date *blingbling* (pics will also follow). Honestly, with this thing my time here at KABK has already payed off :)

The presentation on Friday morning was quite an experience. Everyone was overfatigued, tense and edgy like hell. Some almost snapped prior to their turns and several of the girls actually broke down crying after their presentation. But to be honest, it's understandable given the fact, that this showing of their work determined if they would pass the third year or if they'd have to repeat it. In addition, it is quite intimidating to present your work to a total of 7 (!) profs all at once, plus a changing number of students in the background – the quality of the work by the way varying but overall quite high.

For me it all went down relatively smoothly – despite a horrible start, skipping almost 20% of my concept and sometimes taking ages to find the right words (but hey, like everyone else I was just tired and exhausted). Still, maybe it was a little easier for me simply because I didn't have the same pressure on my shoulders as everyone else. Plus, I was already so happy with my project, I think not even a bad critique could've brought me down. Luckily that didn't happen, all the teachers really liked it (except one of the typography girls, who didn't quite get it and thought it wasn't 'serious' enough) and I got lots of good feedback. And unlike Copenhagen where everything was always 'good', it actually means something here – believe me, the dutch teachers don't spare with tough critique and harsh words if you didn't reach their standards or they think you haven't worked hard enough. And they also don't go easy on the exchangies as Cecile and Ege had to experience painfully...

After everyone was done. We had to wait for two hours for the teachers to finish the evaluations (I went home to catch an hour of desperately needed sleep) and then everyone was called to their table to get their results. Some more crying, some people getting small extra projects which they now have to finish in order to pass but also lots of smiles and sighs of relief. Again, I only got to hear good things about my stuff – the only problem now being, that I have to live up to everyone's expectations for the upcoming projects ("Looking forward to what you'll be doing next." – aaaargh!!) At about 8 in the evening it was all over and we could finally go home. Here some impressions of the work chaos I had left there.

Shiiiiiiiit. Sorry my blogging hasn't really been too frequent lately but damn, those were two busy weeks.

As you know, I had some friends from Germany over the week before last week. It was very cool seeing some familiar faces for a change and being able to talk in mother tongue – totally worth the absolute chaos that five people lived in over the course of five days (with only one 2sqm bathroom!). And even though I still had to go to university on two of those days, it all worked out and we/they were actually able to cram quite a program into that week:

sightseeing in Den Haag – unsuccessful searching for a cool restaurant and instead settling for dutch fast food – a visit to a big ass water park that was supposed to be relaxed but ended up somewhat unnerving due to hordes of little kids, german tourists and outdated facilities (we would've left after one hour, but we payed 12 bucks each so we better damn enjoyed it for two!) – a day trip to Amsterdam – a surreal but fun photo shoot – a very wet and windy beach walk – chilled out cooking sessions, even though we had way too little space to eat – and three nights in a row of relaxed Texas Hold'Em, repeatedly ending in everyone getting their asses beat by either Tim or Saskia

All in all, even though it threw me back a bit in my school work, I was kicked out of my own bed for four nights and it took me almost three hours to restore order in my room ;) it was really cool having the guys and girls over to take my mind off things for a while. See ya'll in May!