Dong Qiangqiang's Story of Leaving Germany

Chapter 839
A few biting autumn winds packed away the few remaining leaves on the trees in the yard as if they were relieving themselves from the autumn rain. It suddenly dropped by nearly 10 degrees overnight, and the last month of 2002 appeared amidst a gloomy and solemn white and the German media advertised that "this is the coldest winter in Germany".

When Dong Qiangqiang was in Hannover, he had already experienced the long and cold winter in Germany, but it may be because there are not as many windy days as BJ, so compared to BJ's dry and cold, Hannover showed more of a delicate wet cold.Trier's latitude is lower than that of Hannover, and guarding the moist and long Moselle River, the temperature is much warmer than that of Hannover. Only after the snow falls, Trier will be cooler in the morning and evening.

Dong Qiangqiang thought that when Germany entered winter time (usually the last Sunday in October), the old lady would heat the heating, but he didn’t know that from the end of October to the end of the first week of December, the winter tires of the pickup truck were changed for two full months , the row of old-fashioned radiators under the windows in his room are still cold to the touch.He told the old lady that the heater was broken and needed to be repaired. Unexpectedly, the old lady told him calmly: the central heating of the whole house has not started yet.

Seeing Dong Qiangqiang's astonished expression, the old lady explained with a smile that she had passed the winter like this since she was a child. This way of life will firstly reduce the waste of fuel, natural gas or tree resources, and be more environmentally friendly. Second, it will prevent people from coveting indoors. He chooses outdoors more, which directly increases the contact time between people and nature, strengthens the resistance and immunity of the human body, and especially comforts him. Although his room is large, the windows are all triple-glazed. The airtightness is good, the heat loss is low, and living on the second floor is much warmer than the first floor.

The old lady’s theory made Dong Qiangqiang dumbfounded: Even if Germany has a temperate maritime climate, Trier is warmer than Hannover. After all, it is still winter in the northern hemisphere. Christmas is coming in a few days. waste?Is it necessary to be so exaggerated?The previous landlord, Sasha, seemed to have never said such a thing.Besides, one of the disadvantages of a large room is that it is easy to get cold in winter, especially in the morning, and getting up has become the only criterion for testing willpower.Except in the morning, after returning from the library at night, he often has to continue reading until late at night, and a room that is too cold is not conducive to studying.

Seeing that Dong Qiangqiang hesitated to speak, the old lady continued to explain with apology: almost 20 years ago, she used natural gas heating facilities in the basement to centrally heat the entire villa in winter, but later because she lived alone in the villa all year round, Add a few animals at most and unconsciously get into the habit of spending most of the time in the kitchen with the fireplace, and the central heating starts later and later, sometimes until mid-January of the following year Heating every day.

The sadness and loneliness in the old lady's words touched the softest part of Dong Qiangqiang's heart: when the once happy family became a lonely family, the coldness in the heart may not be inferior to the coldness that the body can feel.

He suddenly remembered the old Bai he saw in the hospital at the beginning of the year.

Dong Qiangqiang didn't know that he had unconsciously developed empathy for the old lady, but he also probably understood that the reason why the old lady didn't want to turn on the heating prematurely might be because she was afraid of touching the scene.

Since it was impossible for the old lady to change her habit because of him, he also put down his insistence wisely, and chose to end the awkward conversation with a few words: "Well, I'm still young, so it's up to your habit whether to burn or not. "

It’s easy to talk cheap, but you have to bear the cold and cold by yourself. Thinking that there are still two months to take the exam, Dong Qiangqiang dare not worry about it. After dinner at the university, he didn’t go to the library to read for the first time. Electrical appliance supermarkets Saturn and Media Markt are planning to buy a "little sun", electric heaters, electric oil heaters and other electrical appliances for themselves.

But what surprised him was that apart from air conditioners, electric appliances supermarkets also did not sell these domestically popular heating equipment.

Dong Qiangqiang was depressed.

In the end, he followed Du Lan's advice and spent 400 Euros to buy a "wolf claw" sleeping bag that claims to be able to withstand temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees. The solution has also been found: under the warm water bag and the laptop, the heating issue has been turned over.

But the cold in the room is not the only problem he encounters. He stays up late at night to read, and often after 22 o’clock, he will be so hungry that he can’t sleep. He would wander to the kitchen to serve himself a bowl There is another poached egg next to him, but now he can only eat snacks.After a long time, Dong Qiangqiang also felt boring, so he simply changed his biological clock to sleep at 22 o'clock.In this way, when you get up early, you can simply clean up the yard, and then run around the path outside the forest. By the way, you can help the landlord walk the dog. When you come back from the run, you have breakfast. Read a newspaper or magazine before going to college.

To his surprise and joy, walking the dog every day deepened his acquaintance with "Radar". You can count how many whiskers "Radar" has.

Seeing that "Radar" got Dong Qiangqiang's acquiescence, the rescued cat also took the initiative to find it.Most of the wounds on its body have healed, and its coat color is getting smoother and smoother day by day.It was lying not far from Dong Qiangqiang's sleeping bag, and occasionally stepped on Dong Qiangqiang's face unscrupulously in the middle of the night. Usually, Dong Qiangqiang was huddled in the sleeping bag like a mummy and couldn't move. The sleeping bag cannot be covered over the head like a quilt, and one can only watch the cat helplessly without doing anything.

Sometimes he would be very tired after reading for a day, and he would not want to do anything at night, so he would nestle in his sleeping bag early, turn off the lights, open the curtains, look at the stars outside the window and talk on the phone with Du Lan, while imagining himself after graduation What could he do? Falling asleep while holding the phone, sometimes he would directly play the recording of the public law class, and the hypnotic effect was unsatisfactory.

Of course, these bits and pieces are episodes and tidbits, and his real focus is still on his studies.

Although Dong Qiangqiang's public law class is not over, even after carefully previewing and listening to the class recordings repeatedly, he still can't understand.He thought of Du Lan's advice, decided to follow her advice, stopped obsessing over lectures, and consulted Zheng Chunhua's opinion, then prioritized the practice questions and old test papers, and made 3-5 sets per week. The old test papers and the classic law questions that appear frequently in the old test papers are taken as small staged goals that must be completed. For the large essay questions that need to be memorized, he also began to enter the program of repeated reading aloud every day to promote the formation of short-term muscle memory.

Although public law is incomprehensible and boring, in all fairness, it doesn’t take a lot of brainpower, as long as you keep reading the questions step by step. If you don’t understand, you should first check the lecture notes and then read the book. Instead, it’s a Pro Seminar, which is much more troublesome than he expected .

Because his small seminar report was mainly written based on the content corrected by the preparatory teacher, he prepared it very quickly. He also spent money to find a German to help revise and revise, so there is no problem in completing it as required before the end of December.

The trouble is with the big presentations of the seminars.

Seminars are not held every week, and during the limited few sessions, none of the three have seen Ellen.

According to the teacher's request, the big report was completed as a team. The three of them successively determined the outline of the thesis and the content they were responsible for writing, but the Germans still did not contact the three of them until they all started writing.

Among the three, only Joanna had Ellen's phone number, but no one responded when she called. None of the three had encountered such a situation, so they had to go to the teaching assistant.

The teaching assistant is a tall German girl, and she promised the three of them that she would communicate with them after understanding the situation. As a result, she gave feedback to the three of them before noon: the German had joined before the second class The other study group was no longer a member of their group.

The three of them were taken aback, and asked the teaching assistant: It was said before that you can't change groups casually, and you must get the approval of other team members. How could Ellen change groups without the knowledge of the three of them?Doesn't each group have to have four people?Ellen left the group and didn't find another person to replace him, so what?
The teaching assistant said: Ellen was transferred from other groups by the teacher when he was divided into groups for the first time. After class, he directly told the teacher that he would return to the original group because he could not adapt to the learning atmosphere of Dong Qiangqiang’s study group. And doubt the learning ability of Dong Qiangqiang and the others.The teacher agreed to his request to change groups, but asked him to find another person to join the group instead.Judging from the feedback of the three people, Ellen didn't know whether it was intentional or not. He neither found his replacement, nor informed the other three, and left Dong Qiangqiang's group without saying hello.

The teaching assistant's explanation made the three of them feel unheard of and incredible.

Dong Qiangqiang carefully recalled what happened before, and he became more and more convinced that Ellen did not tell it on purpose in all likelihood, and the teacher forgot to remind him for some reason.It’s halfway through the semester now, blaming the teacher and Ellen won’t help, and it’s too late to find someone to join, so the three of them can only write Ellen’s part. He’s actually not worried about writing, but he’s disgusted by the Germans’ behavior. I don't understand, and if the final speech can't be done well, he has to say it.

After leaving the teaching assistant's office, the three of them bumped into each other, and what happened next was exactly the same as Dong Qiangqiang's guess: Although Dong Qiangqiang thought that the spoken German of the two girls was better than his own, Sophia and Joanna thought his spoken German was fine. Both of them had other courses in the primary stage of master's degree to prepare for the exam, so they had no time to take care of the final speech, and the heavy responsibility of the speech fell to Dong Qiangqiang.

Originally, he only needed to write a small part, but now he not only has to write more content, but also prepares speeches, which means that he has to spend more time and energy.If it was in this situation before, Dong Qiangqiang estimated that he would complain to some extent, but now he is unwilling to waste time and emotions on complaining about such things. As the only male in the group and a Chinese student, he feels that Not only is he responsible and obliged to do a good job in the final speech, but he also needs to get a high score in the speech, so that he can face Ellen who looks down on him.

There is still half a month to Christmas, the sun is still playing and disappearing every day, the weather is cold and humid, there are a lot fewer people in the campus and classrooms, even the people eating in the cafeteria have become empty, the only thing that has not changed is probably the books The students in the library who can't be shaken and read books are gone.

Apart from regularly meeting with two girls to discuss the content of the big report, Dong Qiangqiang was busy brushing the questions while copying the reference books assigned by the professors to prepare for the next semester's exam. His life was monotonous and regular.After some research, he found that the university's audio-visual education center can make copies cheaper than other places in the university, and can save hundreds of euros. Although he has the sponsorship of Duanmu and Lao Bai, he still maintains thrift.At the same time, he asked his father for help to buy some Chinese reference books in China and send them to Germany. He read Chinese first and then German to speed up his understanding.

Many times, just after he and his father finished talking on the phone, Dong's mother would grab the phone and greet him before he had time to hang up, and the content of the conversation was the same.

"Qiang Qiang, when will you finish your exams this semester? Can you go back to China during the holidays?" Ever since Dong Qiangqiang entered university, Dong's mother always paid attention to when he would return to China, "That little Qin from my friend's house, you see Yes, that girl in Paris, she will be able to come back during the Spring Festival."

Dong's mother is like many parents in the world. Before his son goes out, he looks forward to going abroad every day, and when he really goes out, he looks forward to his return every day.

"Hey, you are a real person. My son has just started on the track, so why did you let him come back?" Dong's father said with a serious face, "I didn't blame you, and I was dragging my son back. Can the universities in France and Germany be the same? It’s like playing the piano randomly.” Dong’s father is most afraid/annoyed that Dong’s mother will call his son back to the country, and the two will come and go with each other every time.

Dong's mother didn't care about that: "I haven't seen my son for a year and a half. If you don't think about it, I still think about it. Qiangqiang, (2003) New Year's Eve is the last day of January, can you come back?"

"Mom, I haven't started the exam yet."

"Then when will you take the exam?" Dong's mother was both distressed and unhappy.

"The time has not been set yet, I think it may be February or March." Dong Qiangqiang felt guilty for some reason.

"It's so late..." Mother Dong sighed in disappointment, "The Lantern Festival is over. What about April?"

Although Dong Qiangqiang misses his parents very much, and knows that his mother wants him to go back to China, he doesn't want to go back to China. Firstly, he wants to use the winter vacation to study suddenly, and secondly, he plans to use the winter vacation to do more part-time work.From the summer vacation to the present, he has only spent money and has not entered the account. Although there is a lot of money in the account, he does not want to sit and eat.To increase revenue and reduce expenditure, we must first increase revenue.

"School will start in April..." Dong Qiangqiang was quite helpless.

Dong's mother was chattering about homework on the other end of the phone, but Dong Qiangqiang heard a voice chanting in his ear: parents are here, if you don't travel far, you must travel well.

If you don't go back during the winter vacation, will you be too selfish?He asked himself softly, but found sadly that this matter, like many things, has no correct answer.

(End of this chapter)