Dong Qiangqiang's Story of Leaving Germany

Chapter 837

The car drove smoothly on the straight asphalt road, and the trees on both sides receded quickly.The sky is covered with a lavender robe, and the setting sun coats everything in the world with beauty like gold leaf. The rice fields stretching along the road and the surging rice waves are refreshing.

Du Lan lazily leaned against the car window, looking at the rice fields outside the window thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking about?" Dong Qiangqiang stared at the front and shook Du Lan's little hand at the same time, the tentacles were cold, "It should be almost (to the train station) in 15 minutes."

"Hey, it's true that people are more deadly than people. I was worried that you would find a strange landlord, but seeing the old lady's attitude towards you today makes me jealous." Du Lan said sourly.

"Hehe, I thought you wanted to bring the Luxembourg group." Dong Qiangqiang was amused by her.

"Didn't you see? When she left just now, she took the initiative to hug me and say goodbye. She didn't say my name, but she called me right." Du Lan changed her posture and leaned against the car window.

"The old lady's pinyin is really accurate." Dong Qiangqiang admitted, "But what is there to be jealous about?"

"I have been in Germany for a long time, and I have never seen such a hospitable German. You know that I have lived in this place for more than four years, but my landlord can't even pronounce my name. I must admit, you The landlord surprised me. You are still living in vain, and all the good things have caught up with you, and I am very unbalanced now."

"Unbalanced? Then why didn't you mention that your landlord asked you to install nets and let you use the kitchen to cook Chinese food?" Dong Qiangqiang retorted, "You can't just see thieves eating meat, you also have to see thieves being beaten." Dong Qiangqiang beat Turning the steering wheel, the car drew a wonderful arc and then drove into another road.

"It seems reasonable for you to say that." Du Lan smiled and tore open a bag of potato chips, took out a piece from the inside, dipped it in ketchup and put it into Dong Qiangqiang's mouth.

"Hey, there is something I want to discuss with you. You saw it just now. There are woods outside the door, and the environment is elegant. I want to let the parrot go. It's better than keeping it in a circle. It should belong to nature."

"I have no objection." Du Lan lazily replied, "I let it go before."

"and after?"

"It won't go away even when the window is open. Don't look at it as a bird, but you can tell whether it's full or not." Du Lan said with a smile, "You can try it. If it doesn't go away, you have to continue to take good care of it." , by the way, cultivate a sense of responsibility, and you will have to support me in the future."

"That would make me poor." Dong Qiangqiang pointed at Sang and scolded Huai.

"Are you talking about the parrot or me?" Du Lan put his face next to Dong Qiangqiang's and asked covetously.

Dong Qiangqiang smiled and said nothing.

"Hey, did you tell Lao Bai just now that you felt lost?" Du Lan shrank back to the window again.

"Of course it's true." Dong Qiangqiang sighed softly, "Just listening to Lao Bai's dictation, I can feel the energy of each of them working hard to live. Compared with them, I will have a feeling of wasting my time." Anxiety. Although I am still attending classes, reading books, and brushing up questions every day, I don’t seem to be doing anything. Sometimes I feel that I am not as fulfilled as I was in the preparatory school.”

"Did you work too hard before, and regarded 'going to a university in Germany' as the most important thing? As a result, after going to university, people have no new goals, and graduation is nowhere in sight. I was stunned and didn't know what to do. gone?"

"It's kind of like that." Dong Qiangqiang sometimes admires Du Lan's sharpness.

"I understand your feelings. Most Chinese students who have just entered German universities have similar feelings, but this feeling varies from person to person. Some people will take a long time, while others will pass quickly."

"How did you get there?" Dong Qiangqiang asked curiously.

"To put it bluntly, it's very simple, that is, you just go to class every day and get no results, and Lao Bai and the others are all outputting results, so you will naturally be anxious." Du Lan analyzed it clearly and clearly, and it was obvious that he had already gotten used to it, "In addition, before you In the preparatory school, there is a class like in China, and there is a sense of collective belonging, but now you are fighting alone, let me ask you, do you know all the people who attend the class with you?"

"That's impossible. There are hundreds of people in some classes." Dong Qiangqiang's words were irrational, and the number of students in the seminar was not that many.

"That's not considered a foreigner. Have you recognized all the Chinese students in the same class?" Du Lan asked, "There are not hundreds of Chinese students, right?"

Dong Qiangqiang smiled embarrassedly, Du Lan was really not easy to fool.

"So..." Du Lan had expected this result a long time ago, and put the remaining potato chips in the bag into his mouth with satisfaction.

"Finish?" Dong Qiangqiang waited for a long time before hearing the following, and couldn't help asking, "'So' what?"

"So you need to find a way to make yourself less anxious."

"Mr. Du, you are right, but you can't just talk about concepts. Do you have any good suggestions or measures?"

"Say yes, one suggestion is 50 euros, Mr. Dong, is it cash or credit card?" Du Lan had a smirk on his face.

"It's really dark! Let me tell you something first, and pay if it is really useful." Dong Qiangqiang added, "I don't have enough cash, so I ask for an IOU."

"It's okay to get an IOU, you can't escape anyway." Du Lan cleared his throat and said generously, "First of all, you should set some staged goals for yourself, but don't set long-term goals like 'passing the final exam' Goals, the kind that if you can’t persist for a few days, it will be abandoned because of fishing for three days and drying the net for two days. What you need is a small goal that can be achieved through your own persistence, and it must be a small goal with quantifiable results. It’s like you read the newspaper and morning reading to the old lady every day. Think about it, since you moved in, you have been reading for more than a month today, how do you think your speaking and listening skills are better than before?”

Dong Qiangqiang thought about it carefully: "I don't think the progress of oral expression is obvious, because the main thing is to read, but I communicate with Germans every day, and I am familiar with the normal speed and pronunciation of Germans. It is different from watching TV and listening to the radio. It is helpful for listening, and it also exercises courage, of course I am not talking about the courage of catching wild boars."

"What I mean is this. Your small goals should be closely linked to your studies. For example, if you plan to pass all the exams of the elementary courses this semester, how many reports do you need to complete in the seminar? Can you start writing now? If Start writing, according to your writing speed, when do you expect to finish all the reports? Can you finish it ahead of time? Besides, public law, although you printed out the lecture notes and old test papers, German professors will not give you the last class like domestic professors How do you plan to prepare for the exam? You must have a specific plan for each exam you will take at the end of the semester, and then break down the plan into quantifiable small goals. You have to tell each time you complete a small goal You have achieved a very big result yourself, you are amazing."

"You mean bragging for yourself? Putting gold on your face?" Dong Qiangqiang couldn't help but interrupted, "Isn't this self-brainwashing?"

"Self-encouragement and self-praise are not for showing off and bragging to others, but a psychological suggestion of self-affirmation." Du Lan corrected, "Every day someone keeps encouraging you and every day someone keeps hitting you, you prefer which one?"

"What is there to choose? People will like people who keep encouraging themselves."

"Study is a kind of effort. As long as it is effort, people will hope to gain something. The gain is the test results. The German test is usually held 5 months after the start of the school. During this period, you have to give yourself various affirmations and encouragements. , let yourself persevere, so that you will not feel depressed because of seemingly hard work but no results."

"Insist on self-affirmation and self-encouragement..." Dong Qiangqiang muttered, "Are you studying psychology?"

"Of course. This is the 'Dulan learning method' I summed up."

The car drove into the urban area from a quiet country road, and the number of residential buildings and pedestrians on both sides of the road gradually increased.

"Two reports, one large and one small, are handed in for the seminar. The small report has already taken shape, and it is estimated that it can be finished and finalized before the end of the year. The big report is more troublesome. The Germans in our group met him for the first time in class, and later on He disappeared, didn’t reply to emails, didn’t answer phone calls, and didn’t participate in after-class group discussions, and the other three of us had already started writing what we wanted to write, only his part we didn’t know what to do.”

"This kind of situation is quite rare. You'd better communicate with the teacher in advance, so as not to be troubled later." Du Lan suggested.

"Public law is said to memorize the old questions and brush the papers to pass, but it is not easy to get high scores. I have read the old test papers of public law. There are ten pages of A4, all of which are essay questions, and they are given four hours to answer the questions. Fortunately, I read them in advance. I realized that if I saw it for the first time during the exam, I would definitely die on the spot. Hey, speaking of it, the domestic exams in the past were simple, filling in the blanks, choosing, judging, and finally the essay questions, all of which were in Chinese.” Dong Qiangqiang finished speaking. A little sad, he never thought that one day he would miss the domestic exam so much.

"That's what I'm going to say next. According to my experience, the subject grades at the primary stage of the master's degree have no effect on the overall grades at the advanced stage and final graduation, so your focus should not be on seminars and public law. Get high marks in the class, because they are all passing exams, as long as you pass it, it is the same as the domestic English CET-100 and CET-[-]. No one cares whether your English CET-[-] score is [-]. You should spend more time on It is very utilitarian to say so, but everyone knows that the German school system is long, and your time is very precious. Some subjects you can’t pass the test once and even have to prepare for another semester. Let me ask this question: next spring semester will you How many quizzes and major exams are you going to take? In order to pass these exams, what kind of small goals do you plan to set?"

Dong Qiangqiang scratched his head: "At present, I feel that it should be no problem to enter the advanced stage in the next semester, but I haven't decided how many exams to apply for next semester. I don't dare to think about the big exam yet, and I can't take the exam. I haven't listened to the class. The small exam We have to wait for the next semester to start to know which subjects are available for final exams."

Du Lan waved his hand: "What courses will the university offer each semester? You can usually go to the university examination center to check the historical records. You can infer from the historical records. For example, the course schedule of the spring semester of 2003 is likely to be the same as that of 2001 and 2002. This year's spring semester course schedule is close to or even the same, so you don't have to wait until the next semester starts to know."

"It turns out to be like this." Dong Qiangqiang suddenly realized, "You reminded me too timely! I will go to the official website of the test center to check, if not, I will go directly to the building of the test center to ask tomorrow. Hey, no, why did you Why did you tell me such an important thing before school started?" Dong Qiangqiang was a little puzzled.

"You haven't felt it yourself. Even if I told you earlier, you wouldn't take it seriously. It's better to say it now."

Du Lan's words made Dong Qiangqiang feel enlightened and benefited a lot. Just as he was about to continue asking, he suddenly remembered something. After a few seconds of silence, he asked: "I think what you said is very important to freshmen, but why? Will the students here popularize these useful knowledge to the new students?"

"Either it's because the level of the student union is not good, there are not enough people, and they are too busy, or they don't want to talk." Du Lan shrank back into the chair vigorously.

"There shouldn't be a shortage of staff. Before school started, they gave a safety lecture." Dong Qiangqiang recalled.

"That's the second case."

"Then why?" Dong Qiangqiang felt unbelievable, "The student union doesn't want everyone to graduate early?"

"Sometimes you think too much about human nature." Du Lan suddenly threw out a sentence.

"I don't understand."

"What's so hard about that? What good does it do students if too many people graduate?"

Dong Qiangqiang stopped asking this question, he really didn't think about it.

The car turned a few turns, and the roof of the train station could already be seen from a distance.

Neither of them spoke, and the atmosphere in the car was a bit delicate. At this moment, Dong Qiangqiang's cell phone rang suddenly.

"Pick it up for me." Dong Qiangqiang said to Du Lan.

"You haven't saved this (mobile phone) number." Du Lan glanced at the phone screen, turned on the speakerphone while connected, and said politely in German, "Hello. Who is it?"

"Oh, hello, are you Dong Qiangqiang?" A slightly immature male voice came from the phone, but he spoke standard Mandarin, "My name is Feng Chong, and I am from the Chinese Department of Trier University. I have a few questions for you."

"Wait a minute." Du Lan looked up at Dong Qiangqiang. Dong Qiangqiang shook his head and whispered, "I don't know him. Ask him what's the matter."

"Hello, I'm not Dong Qiangqiang. He's busy now. Do you have anything to do?" Du Lan relayed, "You can tell me, and I'll tell him for you."

"Oh, aren't you him? Then I'll call him later." Feng Chong hurriedly hung up the phone after speaking.

"Feng Chong, Department of Chinese? I don't know this person." Dong Qiangqiang hurriedly drove the car into the parking lot outside the train station, parked, and walked side by side with Du Lan to the platform.

The wind on the platform was a bit strong, and Du Lan's windbreaker was blown up. She tightened her belt, and the windbreaker immediately deflated like a deflated ball.

"Don't be too confident about the textbooks you've read, and think that you really know what you've read." Du Lan kindly reminded.

"I know, do more questions."

"Sometimes you can see it with your eyes, and you can even do the questions correctly, but you will definitely forget after a while. This is very normal. To understand the concept, the best way is not to repeat the questions repeatedly, but to do it properly. Topics plus giving lectures to other people.”

"Speaking topic?"

"Yes, in addition to reading the book to summarize the main points and participating in every practice class, you'd better join a study group, and everyone in the group will have to take the same class exam at the end of the semester. But Chinese students generally don't This kind of study group is for each student, and I feel that participating in the group is a waste of time, but German students are more likely to accept this form (study group). Everyone discusses with each other what they didn’t understand while reading. On the one hand, you Telling others about you is also a process of re-learning, because if you don’t read carefully, you will be easily questioned, which forces you to read more seriously. On the other hand, it also exercises your social skills. It’s also a skill for people to make connections.”

"I've heard from Duanmu. I asked Zheng Chunhua specifically before, but according to her, I don't seem to have heard of such a group here. I also considered whether to build one myself, but the forum posted a No one pays attention to me."

"There are many study groups at Technical University of Munich, most of which are foreign students. But it's really useless for you to worry about this matter. It might be good to know more classmates when you enter the advanced stage." Du Lan comforted.

The rumbling sound of a galloping train can be heard in the distance, and as the train approaches, one can feel the strong vibration under the feet even standing on the platform.

Looking at the direction of the train, Du Lan showed sadness: "The train is coming."

Knowing that it might be Christmas when we meet again, Dong Qiangqiang hurriedly stepped forward and hugged Du Lan tightly, and at the same time gently kissed her forehead: "Thank you."

Dong Qiangqiang was both moved and grateful for Du Lan sacrificing his personal interests to come to see him and give advice tirelessly, but he didn't notice Du Lan's strangeness today, thinking it was just an ordinary day.

Du Lan put his arms around his waist, but he was thinking about another thing.

(End of this chapter)