Finland is Europe's Third Most Sparsely Populated Country, With About Seventeen Inhabitants Per Square Kilometre

This past week has still been hectic despite my hopes for things to maybe calm a bit going into week 3. I have to finish a novel for Wednesday, complete a take-home German test, and doing some other reading otherwise as of now! Yay, homework! I am glad that some of the reading is really interesting and engaging; the two short stories I read for my English course today were amazing. Despite being a late class that causes me to freeze to death, I’m having a grand time listening to the discussions and hearing what everyone else thinks. Since I just got back, I'm still rather on the chilled side and hoping that a little blog update will return the rigor of my fingers, if not my limbs!
Last Thursday I attended my first Stammtisch (the German department dines with students, speaking primarily in German)!! Before I’d always worried that being late might be awkward since I’ve always had sword club during the first part of it, but Professor Wolber said that such a thing should be considered no problem at all, so I came! It was rather fun; we ate in Ham Will since the usual place (Smith hall) has been closed for remodeling. Some students brought their own food while others just grabbed something in Ham Will itself. We chatted about various things, and I even got my translation project approved! I’m taking Medieval text from the swordsman Meyer and translating it into English for MARRCA! A considerable amount of the spelling is different, but I’m familiar with a lot of the sword-specific terms and rough concepts of what is going on, so I hope this will prove a worthy adversary that is neither too easy nor too frustrating!
Saturday night a group of my friends and I wandered down to the Mean Bean for some coffee and a sandwich. The Mean Bean serves great coffee, and their chicken salad sandwich is rather impressive. (Did I mention the cookies the size of your head???) The cold tried to mock us and our fun, but our group refused to let some wind, ice, and snow belie our enjoyment! Below you’ll find some pictures from our little adventure~ do enjoy them!

The cookies ARE the size of one's head!!!

Today’s entry also features the first installment of something I’ve been meaning to include for two or three entries now!! The German Word of the Day!! Today’s word is…. Der kämpfende Bischoff! The battling bishop! (I thought I should at least connect one or two of these things with OWU!)
Pronunciation guide:
Der (masculine form of ‘the’): think ‘there,’ but with a ‘D’ instead of the ‘th’
kämpfende (the verb to battle used as an adjective): something like ‘kempf-end-uh’
Bischoff (bishop): pretty much how it looks; ‘bisch-off”