IBSEN Meeting

Anna and Tuula (Finland), Giovanni (Italy), Angels and Pere (Spain) on the left
Right---back to front---Tara (Canada), Dong Gyu (South Korea) Vincent and Betty (France)



Official IBSEN photo, taken by my former student Tanya Danielski. Tanya took both my courses in Bielefeld; she is a "work psychology" (organizational behavior) student. Tanya works for a photographer in Paderborn. She became quite interested in coming to NMU but the Int'l Programs office here told her she couldn't come, that the spots were reserved for international studies students. Rainer and I, and Riza to some extent, had a 2 day somewhat heated discussion about this. I told the men that who they choose to send to NMU is not my business but that I didn't think it was fair that only international studies students could come. Due to some clerical bobbling, I'd ended up with NO international studies students in my courses, and of course students in my classes were interested in coming to NMU. So, the men decided that we should tell Tanya that should could compete with everyone else. She took TOEFL classes with my friend Helen (my weekly tutor at the schnitzel place) even though her English is already quite good, and based on grades and her motivation essay (why did she want to come to NMU), she won 1 of 3 places.

IBSEN (International Business Student Exchange Network) had not met for a year because the previous president suddenly changed universities. Riza, Betty (from Tennessee, worked in Peace Corps in French-speaking part of Africa and has lived in France for at least 20 years) and Angels (I'd gone to both their universities in the fall while here on sabbatical) decided that I should be president, and they pulled that off!! The last time this group met was in Marquette with only Betty, Angels, Clemens (previous president), and Susan Morgan from NMU present, and no minutes exist. During the meeting here, many of the representatives from "old" universities were new to the meeting and the group, and we had representatives from 3 universities who would like to join (South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey). So, it was a matter of figuring out where things were, how to pick up from here, and how we want to go on. Thank heavens Betty, who has been an IBSEN rep for a long time, was here at the meeting and could provide the history and explain some of the original thinking. We've planned a November meeting for Vic, Spain, and a May meeting in Mikkeli, Finland. Meetings are always supposed to be on the campus of one of the member universities.

Vice President's Home---Art for 50th Birthday

On Friday evening of the conference, Riza took us to the home of a vice president of the university. This man's family owns a home, of which the first floor is an art gallery, and they live in the upper two floor. The fellow's 50th birthday is this month, and he requested 50 friends and artists to let him display something of his work. The art gallery is open at almost any time for viewing, and he has made a trifold description of the gallery. This is the front page.


We were treated to a reception. This is Tara from Canada, Angels from Spain, Dong Gyu from South Korea, and Pere from Spain. This table was made by the wife, solid glass with steel construction underneath. This was done partially to contrast with other materials in the room, including a new wood floor. Part of this home was destroyed during the war, and rebuilt.

Nina from Bielefeld and Gerardo from Mexico (serving as a guest foreign faculty this semester) on the other side of the room. The red painting represents cloth simply dropped. The wood carving next to it imitates that swirling, but in this picture is covered by a page of information the homeowner put on it to refer to for the lecture he gave later.

The mobile swirled slowly in the air, and contains a laser pointer. It was interesting to follow the pointer to the different art pieces in this foyer and to listen to the ways in which these pieces were connectied.

The small exhibit room. In the lower left is a block of wood on which a craftsman had placed other pieces to be cut, finally decided that the block of wood itself, with all the various cuts into it, was its own art work. The pictures of the woman and man on the wall, and the picture of the deceased man on the table, were also in a book that a student did, interviewing and photographing people in hospices during the last years of their lives. I didn't much enjoy the book; some people's appearances changed drastically.

This is on the other wall in the small exhibit room. Wearing the 3D glasses resulted in the picture right of center turning into a splendid 3d piece with a skateboarder riding a pipe, coming straight out of the picture toward us. There is a skateboard on the floor that also showed in 3D. Interesting to me, this is some branding for Carharrt, that we know as work clothing. Kurt would like this!

Another wall in the small exhibit room. The piece on the right is all straight vertical lines. I don't know the name of the artist, but apparently he has made his life's work painting vertical lines. My goodness!! The piece on the left was very interesting in that within each square you could see variances in the color---each was color upon color...

Another view of the foyer

Clockwise starting with the orange chair---Patrick Ostendorf from Bielefeld, Betty Beeler from France, Wynn Teasley---guest faculty from Florida, Anna Kahkonen from Finland, and Giavanni Marini from Italy, all in a small eating room off the main kitchen. This room was full of windows and looked out into a small garden with sculptures.

The large working kitchen, set up as a buffet

More of the artwork in the main room. There was some "art" playing on the television even!

The woman is a student who came from New Zealand, I believe, and has studied in Bielefeld for 5 years. She did some translating as need. The man is the vice president whose home we were in
in.

The vice president giving information about the art. I have to find out his name again!

Wednesday, May 5---The apartment

Here is the building my apartment is in. The first part, 56 Wildhager, is a large apartment. I believe there is a small apartment next in the line. Then, there is my apartment, 54. Wildhager. At the end of the walkway is my landlord's apartment, Stefan Zollendenz. Notice that 56 is on the rock on the right-hand side.


Beginning of the walkway. My door is about halfway down the higher level

My front door; metal and very solid

View when you step inside the door. From this direction, the kitchen is to the immediate left, the bathroom to the immediate right. Straight ahead is the living room which looks out onto a garden, with the bedroom to the right.

Looking back from living room entrace to the front door

Kitchen as seen from the doorway into it. The refrigerator is on the bottom right. There is a two-burner stovetop built into the countertop but no oven. The cabinets below the countertop contain metal shelves which roll out smoothly, and the kitchen is well-equipped with glasses, cups, dishes, pots and pans.

Kitchen looking to the left a bit. That crank on the wall works the outside shade, which will roll down. The frosted area on the glass is some type of adhesive paper which gives some privacy even though the curtain is up.

Living room, looking to the left. I'm using a computer stick that gives me access to internet via cellphone towers.

Right side of living room with door to the bedroom on the right. The glass door on the left of the pictures opens by lifting up a gizmo on the right of the door, then using the latch to open like you would a European window from the side. However, note the metal gate. Stefan will not allow me to go out into the garden, which was disappointing. However, he took me down to their large apartment and I could see why. Their apartment has basically a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows at right angles to my apartment, so anyone in the garden looks directly into their apartment. As the Germans here would say "What a pity", but given the weather, this has proved not to be a big loss. At least I have something pretty to see out the window!

Garden view from my window. There are birds singing constantly, most types of which I haven't seen before. There is a bird that is all gray with a robin-shaped body that has a very pretty song

Bedroom, taken from the door. I have used my old trick of taking the cover off the duvet and using it for a top sheet. Using the duvet over me is too hot, and the cover itself is just right!
The mattress is wonderful, somehow firm but not hard. Those are my mysteries on the shelves, and the "Dogopoly" game I'm giving Wolfgang's family as a belated thank you for caring for Brandi on my last trip here.

Bedroom looking from the headboard wall to the apartment. The storage unit is wonderful with a closet rod on the left, shelves on upper right and drawers on lower right. The curtains are somewhat sheer but also have those privacy screens, and there is a curtain that rolls up and down. I'd seen those in houses before but didn't know how to work them. The curtain is pulled up with a wide cloth tape on the right; to let it down, you pull it out at the bottom and control it so it doesn't slam down.

Bedroom windows; curtains are blue and mauve

May 3-4 Trip to Germany

Things started out a bit badly with an hour delay leaving Minneapolis because the plane "isn't here", then a further half hour delay while we sat on the plane and were rerouted more southerly due to cloased air space due to ash over Ireland.

That delay made me miss my connection in Amsterdam. I had some extra time and used it at an internet cafe, then flew to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. That plane was slightly late landing and I used every minute of the 30 I had to walk from one end of the airport to the opposite end, or at least it seemed that way. I found out as I got on the small bus to be driven to the plane, that I was one of six passengers who were supposed to be on the flight from Paris to Dusseldorf. Only I and one fellow who showed up a few minutes after me actually made the Paris-Dusseldorf flight.

In Dusseldorf I paid extra attention to how I got from the plane to the sky tram and then to the train station so that I could send an email to the 5 NMU students who are coming to Bielefeld for the summer school. My own cellphone wasn't charged and working, so I borrowed a phone from a woman on the train and called the student worker, Nina Fischer, who was going to pick me up from the train station and take me to the apartment. The woman was a teacher of kindergartner

teachers; my first interpretation was that she taught kindergarten. She actually started with 32 people in her class, and she thinks only 10 will actually become kindergarten teachers.

Nina met me at the train station and drove me to the apartment. We stopped quickly at a nearby grocery store for muesli (cereal), milk, bread, meat, and cheese. The apartment is very nice, but it is on a bus line where the bus only goes once every half hour, and the last bus is at 8:30 at night. The bus goes a long way to the ubahn station, which is the end of the red line, Linie 4, the same line I took all fall. I only travel 1 stop from that station, Lohmannhoff, to the university, so the whole thing from bus stop to here takes only 20 minutes. It's the timing of getting the bus that is the problem. I can stay on the same ubahn and go downtown, so that is nice. I'm going to look around this weekend and see if there would be a shorter way to get to the ubahn stop; maybe I can rent a bike for a month or something.

I met the landlord, Stefan Zollendz, and paid him the rent, the deposit on the key, the cleaning fee, and the rent for the stick for the computer. This stick allows the computer to access internet over cellphone towers; I never remember the initials of this stick! So, I have internet in the apartment, which is very nice.

After a quick supper of a sandwich and milk, I went to bed, waking up at 3:15 a.m. At that point, I took a sleeping pill and slept until noon on Wednesday.