It is really cool to be in Austria, but right now I am really hating the homework.
Since I am studying through the university, I am in fact taking six credit hours worth of classes here. Each morning at 8 a.m., I have Sprachunterricht (language) followed by a contemporary Austrian culture class.
For the language class, we are reading “Das ewige Leben” by Wolf Haas. It is a detective novel set in Graz. That makes it interesting since I go by some of the places mentioned in the book during my morning ride to class.
But other than the setting, this book stinks. It is incredibly hard to understand and the author has a bad habit of rambling about nothing for pages. On average, it takes me between four and five hours a night to read a single 10-page chapter in the book.
My instructor told me it should not take that long to read and to “quit taking it so seriously.” But I do not want to read through it quickly then fail the final over the book. Come on, it’s homework. You have to take it seriously.
On top of the nightly reading assignment we also have exercises out of our grammar book to do. These are not as bad as the book, but they do take a fair amount of time nonetheless.
Anymore it just feels like all I get done anymore is homework. When I get it done. I feel as though I am spending too much time inside at my desk doing homework and too little time out experiencing the culture.
In short, I am really frustrated with my classes right now.