Gearing Up For Marburg: An Introduction

As the last post mentions, my name is Michael Gergely and I am currently a student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who is going to be studying this summer in (you guessed it) Marburg, Germany. What you may not know about me is that most of my friends call me Mikey. Actually, people only call me Michael when something is wrong (i.e. I’m in trouble) so let’s stick with just Mikey for now. I’m also new to WordPress, so bear with me as I continue to figure out how I’m going to format these blogs.

In terms of other important information about myself, I love basketball, but soccer is my favorite sport to watch. My favorite kind of food is probably fettuccini alfredo, but I feel as though any Italian dish could probably take that top spot. Bananas are a close second. You read that right. I love math. You read that right too.

I also love the movie “Inception,” but “21 Jump Street” and “Interstellar” both are movies that I hold pretty close to my heart despite being totally different. I have a younger brother who is a rising freshman in high school who I’m hoping will (but probably won’t) read these, and I dabble with some musical instruments like piano and acoustic guitar. Finally, my favorite show is “The Office,” so I’m really hoping that I’m able to get that on Netflix in Germany. Fingers crossed.

In Marburg, I will be taking an intensive German language course which will hopefully come in handy at some point, and a course on German culture, history, and politics. I also have two supplement courses which split up the 4 weeks of my stay. First, I will be taking a class on cultures of socialism in Western Europe which is definitely the class I’m looking most forward to. Then for the final two weeks, I will be taking another seminar on Grimm’s Fairytales in a European contextualization which also seems very interesting. Finally, I have two excursions planned through the University itself. The first is to Frankfurt for a weekend, and the second is a trip to Aix En Provence in France.

I’m looking at this experience as an opportunity to not only partake in an entirely new culture, but also to grow personally through the independence that is fostered while being abroad and the increased awareness and compassion that comes through understanding how other people live. I look forward to chronicling the next month of my life, and I’m blessed to be at a University which empowers its students to challenge themselves in new ways like this.

Signing off, Mikey

P.S. I plan on writing and uploading another post tomorrow that actually talks about what I’ve been up to for the past couple days before going to Germany. Hint: “It’s coming home; it’s coming home.”