I have good news, and I have bad news...

The good news is, I finally got a reply from someone at NDSU (after waiting about 2 months) and learned yesterday that I will be receiving credit for pretty much everything I did here this past semester. For those interested, here is the credit I will be recieving:

International Study Major (ISM) Elective Credits for: History of Christian Church Service (Geschichte des christlichen Gottesdienstes), 19th Century Novels, and History of East and West Germany (Geschichte der BRD und DDR im internationale Zusammenhang) - this course may end up being substituted for Political Science 220, which is a main requirment of my ISM major, but I'm not sure yet.

German Minor - I will be more than likely receiving credit for my Conversation, Phonetics, and general Language Course in the form of German 301 and German 302 at NDSU.

This is GREAT NEWS!

And I found out who to contact at Concordia, a private college close to NDSU in Fargo where I will have to finish my German minor (NDSU only has through the 300 level of German offered, so students have to go to Concordia and take two semesters of classes I believe, which is free thanks to an agreement the colleges have), in order to see about completing credits for the minor while I am abroad here in Germany... which if possible would be WONDERFUL.

So pretty much, if things work out as good next semester, I could:
1. Complete my German Minor requirements.
2. Make great progress in my ISM, and only have three to four courses left to complete.
3. Knock off the Cell Biologie requirement for my Zoologie major.

Which means, that there is a chance, I could graduate sooner than Winter 2007! Unfortunately due to the courses left for my Zoology major, I will probably not be able to mentally handle loading myself up on too many in one semester... therefore will probably still graduate in Winter 2007, but be able to take a few less classes each semester, be a little less stressed, and able to work a little bit more. Since I'm starting to really support myself next year, working more will be a good thing. :) I'm happy.

The Bad news is, my camera is broken. Remember: this is a 6 month old camera only: I bought it last September, after the camera my mom gave me broke. I spent 300 Euro for the camera, and a good memory card, plus another 50 Euro since then on a second battery pack for it. In order to turn the thing on, you have to push a cover on the front to the side. The cover is broken, and no longer turns it on this way, and there is NO OTHER WAY TO TURN THE CAMERA ON! I never sent in the warranty card/I don't have the warranty card or the original receipt to show how old it is, and so I can't use the warranty to fix it. So I have to pay. When I asked yesterday, the guy said anywhere from 150-200 plus a service charge of 30-50 Euros! THAT SUCKS! I'm trying to find another answer. The guy said, "Well, its no problem to send it in to the company, but it is very expensive, and we can't garuntee it would even fix the problem, since its complicated and tedious work. You should seriously think about just getting a new camera, because you can get a camera which is just as nice for about 250 Euros anyways.... and you'll be garunteed it works, as compared to not knowing if they'll be able to fix it." To which I replied, "Yeah, but I spent a lot of money on this NICE, NOT VERY OLD CAMERA, and have an extra battery pack to boot. I don't want a new camera."

So I'm going to check at another camera place today, maybe I'll luck out. I'm so mad at myself for not sending in the warranty thingie, and for putting the camera in my purse without shutting the outside cover... we think what happened is that the cover wasn't closed, and got pushed against something and broke it. The situation is made all the more annoying because I also paid my mom 100 dollars for "breaking" her camera which she gave me. I don't mind that I paid her, but honestly, I don't think we broke it, I think it was just old and finally gave out.... but I paid her... so I've spent overall about 425 EUROS which equals 506 dollars on cameras in the last 6 months, and now will have to spend another couple hundred it seems, no matter what I do just to take pictures of my ONE YEAR ABROAD! Seriously! I'm so annoyed at the situation.

Oh, and other positive notes: I bought a straightening iron for my hair yesterday, and tried it out, and finally got my hair to do what I wanted it to do, and it looked great. I can't use it everyday (unless I want fried to a crisp hair) but it is nice to now that my hair can actually look good when I want. I also got my eyebrows taken care of professionaly which cost me only 3 Euro, and looks great. I will probably go back to this salon in March when I get my hair rehighlighted and cut, they were super nice, and not so busy as the other salon I've been going through. I felt less like someone to be put through the line of hair, and more like a valued customer. And, I think I can get my make-up done free if I get my hair highlighted, which is cool.

Okay, I'm done now. I'll let you know what happens with my camera.