The car drove smoothly on the straight asphalt road, and the trees on both sides receded quickly. The sky was covered with a pale purple robe, and the setting sun gilded everything in the world with the beauty of gold foil. The stretches of rice fields and surging rice waves beside the road made people feel relaxed and happy.
Du Lan leaned lazily against the car window, looking at the rice fields outside the window thoughtfully.
"What are you thinking about?" Dong Qiangqiang stared straight ahead and shook Du Lan's little hand. His tentacles were cold, "We should be almost there (at the train station) in 15 minutes."
"Hey, people are really worse than others. I was originally worried that you would have a weird landlord, but seeing the old lady's attitude towards you today, it really makes people jealous." Du Lan said bitterly.
"Haha, I thought you wanted to lead 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 goodbye and called me by my name without saying it, but she actually said it correctly." Du Lan changed his position and leaned against the car window.
"The old lady's pinyin is indeed quite accurate." Dong Qiangqiang admitted, "But what is there to be jealous of?"
"I have been in Germany for a long time, and I have never seen such hospitable and enthusiastic Germans. You know I have lived in the current place for more than four years, but my landlord can't even call me by my name. I must admit, you The landlord shocked me. You still live in vain, all the good things have happened to you, and I am very mentally unbalanced now."
"Unbalanced? Then why didn't you mention that your landlord asked you to install the Internet and also let you use the kitchen to cook Chinese food?" Dong Qiangqiang retorted, "You can't just see the thief eating meat, you also have to see the thief beaten." Dong Qiangqiang said. Turning the steering wheel, the car drew a wonderful arc and entered another road.
"What you say makes sense." 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, I have something to discuss with you. You saw it just now. There are woods outside the door. The environment is elegant. I want to let the parrot go, which is better than trapping it. It should belong to nature."
"I have no objection." Du Lan replied lazily, "I've let him go before."
"and after?"
"It won't go away when you open the window. Even though it's just a bird, you can tell the difference between a full meal and a full meal." 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, you will have to support me in the future."
"That won't make me poor." Dong Qiangqiang pointed at Sang and scolded Huai.
"Are you talking about the parrot or me?" Du Lan put his face close to Dong Qiangqiang's face and asked eagerly.
Dong Qiangqiang smiled and said nothing.
"Hey, is it true that you told Lao Bai just now that you felt lost?" Du Lan shrank back to the window again.
"Of course it's true." Dong Qiangqiang sighed lightly, "Just listening to Lao Bai's dictation, I can feel the energy of each of them to work hard in life. Compared with them, I will have a feeling of wasting my time. Feeling of anxiety. Although I attend classes, read books, and answer questions every day, I don’t seem to have done much. Sometimes I feel that I don’t have the same sense of accomplishment as I did when I was in preparatory school.”
"Have you tried too hard before and considered 'going to university in Germany' as the most important thing? But after going to university, I had no new goals, and graduation was far away with no end in sight. I was suddenly confused and didn't know what to do. Already?"
"That's a bit of it." Dong Qiangqiang sometimes admired Du Lan's sharp point.
"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, and some people will get over it quickly."
"How did you get there?" Dong Qiangqiang asked curiously.
"To put it bluntly, it's very simple. You just go to class every day and get no results, and everyone like Lao Bai is outputting results, so you will naturally be anxious." Du Lan analyzed it clearly and clearly had long been used to it. "In addition, you have been When you study in the preparatory college, you still have a class like in China, and you have a sense of collective belonging, but now you are working alone. Let me ask you, do you know all the people who attend classes with you?"
"That's impossible. Some classes have hundreds of people." Dong Qiangqiang's words were arrogant. The number of students in the seminars was not that many.
"That doesn't count foreigners. Do you recognize all the Chinese students in the same class?" Du Lan asked, "There are not hundreds of Chinese, right?"
Dong Qiangqiang smiled sheepishly, Du Lan was really not easy to deal with.
"So..." Du Lan had already expected this result, and put the remaining potato chips in the bag into his mouth with satisfaction.
"Have you finished talking?" Dong Qiangqiang waited for a long time and couldn't help but asked, "'So' what?"
"So you need to find ways to keep yourself from being anxious."
"Teacher Du, you are right, but you can't just talk about concepts. Do you have any good suggestions or measures?"
"Say yes, I suggest 50 euros for each item. Mr. Dong, should you pay in cash or by credit card?" Du Lan said with a smirk on his face.
"It's so bad! Let me tell you something first. If it's useful, I'll pay you." Dong Qiangqiang added after finishing his sentence, "I don't have enough cash, so I ask for an IOU."
"It's okay to make an idle note, but you can't run away anyway." Du Lan cleared his throat and said magnanimously, "First of all, you should set some staged goals for yourself, but don't set long-term goals like 'passing the final exam' Goals are the kind that you can’t stick to for a few days and will be wasted because of three days of fishing and two days of drying the net. What you need are small goals that can be achieved through your own persistence, and they must be small goals with measurable results. Just like you read newspapers and magazines to the old lady every day and read in the morning. Think about it, you have been reading for more than a month since you moved in. How do you think your speaking and listening are compared to before? "
Dong Qiangqiang thought about it carefully: "I don't think the improvement in oral expression is obvious yet, because I mainly read, but I communicate with Germans every day, and I am familiar with the normal speaking speed and pronunciation of Germans. It is different from watching TV or listening to the radio. I'm sure It’s helpful for your hearing, and it also exercises your courage. Of course, I’m not talking about the courage to catch a wild boar.”
"That's what I mean. Your small goals should be closely linked to your studies. For example, if you plan to pass all junior course exams this semester, how many reports do you need to complete for the seminar? Can you start writing now? What if? Put pen to paper. Based on your writing speed, when do you expect to complete all the reports? Can you complete them in advance? Speaking of public law, although you have printed out the lecture notes and old test papers, German professors will not give them to you in the last class like domestic professors. To determine the focus of the exam, 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 the plan down into quantifiable small goals. Every time you complete a small goal, you must tell You have achieved a very big result yourself, you are amazing.”
"You mean bragging to yourself? To put money in your own face?" Dong Qiangqiang couldn't help but interrupt, "Isn't this self-brainwashing?"
"Self-encouragement and self-praise are not to show off or brag to others, but a psychological hint of self-affirmation." Du Lan corrected, "You prefer to have someone who constantly encourages you every day and someone who constantly discourages you every day. Which one?"
"What's the choice? People like people who constantly encourage themselves."
"Studying is a kind of effort. As long as you make efforts, people will hope to gain something, and the harvest is exam results. German exams are usually held five months after the semester starts. During this period, you have to constantly give yourself various affirmations and encouragements. , let yourself persevere, so that you will not be depressed and hesitant because you seem to be diligent but have no results.”
"Insist on self-affirmation and self-encouragement..." Dong Qiangqiang murmured, "Are you studying psychology?"
"Of course. This is the 'Du Lan learning method' I summarized."
The car drove from the quiet country road into the city, and there were gradually more and more houses and pedestrians on both sides of the road.
"There are two reports, a large one and a small one, for the seminar. The small report has already taken shape. It is estimated that it will be written 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 then he He is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t reply to emails, doesn’t answer phone calls, and doesn’t participate in after-school group discussions. The other three of us have already started writing what we want to write, but we still don’t know what to do about him.”
"This situation is quite rare. You'd better communicate with the teacher in advance to avoid getting into trouble later." Du Lan suggested.
"It is said that you can pass the public law test by memorizing the old questions and brushing the papers, but it is not easy to get high scores. I have read the old test paper of public law, which has ten A4 pages, all essay questions, and four hours of answering time. Fortunately, I read it in advance Yeah, if I saw it for the first time during the exam, I would definitely have failed on the spot. Hey, speaking of it, the domestic exams in the past were simple, with fill in the blanks, selection, judgment, and finally 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 exams in China so much.
"This is what I want to say next. According to my experience, the subject grades in the junior stage of the master's degree have no impact on the overall grades in the senior stage and final graduation, so your focus should not be focused on seminars and public law. Get high scores in English classes because they are all pass-through exams. As long as you pass them, it’s just like the domestic English CET-4 and CET-6 exams. No one cares whether your CET-4 score is 100 or not. You should spend more time on Preparing for advanced-level courses. It’s very utilitarian to say this, but the German academic system is well known to the world. Your time is very precious. If you can’t pass the exam in some subjects, you may even have to prepare for another semester. Let me ask you this: What will you do in the spring semester next year? How many small and large exams do you plan 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 next semester, but I haven't decided how many exams to take next semester. I don't dare to think about the big exam at the moment. I won't be able to take it, and I haven't listened to the class. As for the small exam We have to wait until next semester starts to know which subjects can be tested at the end of the semester.”
Du Lan waved his hand: "You can usually go to the university examination center to check the historical records of which courses the university provides each semester. Inferring from the historical records, it is almost the same. For example, the course schedule for the spring semester of 2003 is very likely to be the same as that of 2001 and 2002. The course schedule for the spring semester next year will be close to or even the same, so you don’t have to wait until the start of the next semester to find out.”
"So that's it." Dong Qiangqiang suddenly realized, "You reminded me too timely! I will go to the official website of the examination center to check it out. If it is not there, I will go directly to the examination center building tomorrow to ask. Hey, no, why did you Why did you tell me such an important thing before school started?" Dong Qiangqiang was a little confused.
"You haven't even felt it yourself. Even if I told you earlier, you wouldn't take it seriously. It's better to tell you now than it will be effective."
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 being silent for a few seconds, he asked: "I think what you said is too important for the freshmen, but why?" Will the students here provide the new students with knowledge that is useful for their studies?"
"Either the student union is not good enough, there are not enough people, and it is too busy, or they don't want to talk." Du Lan shrank back in his chair hard.
"There shouldn't be a shortage of manpower. They even held a safety lecture before the start of school." Dong Qiangqiang recalled.
"That's the second scenario."
"Then why?" Dong Qiangqiang felt unbelievable, "Doesn't the student union want everyone to graduate early?"
"Sometimes you think too much about human nature." Du Lan suddenly said.
"I don't understand."
"What's so hard to understand about this? What good does it do to students to graduate too many people?"
This question immediately stopped Dong Qiangqiang. He really had not thought about this question.
The car turned a few corners and could already see the roof of the train station from a distance.
Neither of them spoke, and the atmosphere in the car was a little subtle. At this moment, Dong Qiangqiang's cell phone suddenly rang.
"Help me pick it up." 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 at the same time, and said politely in German, "Hello. Who is this?"
"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, I am from the Chinese Department of the University of Trier. I would like to I want to ask you a few questions."
"Wait a moment." Du Lan raised his head and glanced at Dong Qiangqiang. Dong Qiangqiang shook his head and whispered: "I don't know him, what do you want to ask him?"
"Hello, I'm not Dong Qiangqiang. He is busy now. Do you have anything?" Du Lan relayed, "You can tell me and I will tell him for you."
"Oh, you're not him? Then I'll call him later." Feng Chong said and hung up the phone in a hurry.
"Chinese major Feng Chong? I don't know this guy." Dong Qiangqiang drove the car into the parking lot outside the train station in a hurry. After parking, he and Du Lan walked side by side 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 rubber ball.
"Don't be too confident about the textbooks you've already read, thinking that you know it just because you've read them." Du Lan reminded kindly.
"I know, I need to practice more questions."
"Sometimes you can see with your eyes and even do the questions correctly, but you will definitely forget it after a while. This is very normal. To understand the concept, the best way is not to repeat the questions over and over again, but to practice them appropriately. questions plus giving lectures to others.”
"Lecture topic?"
"Yes, in addition to reading the book to summarize the key points and attending each practice class, it is necessary for you to join a study group. Everyone in the group must take the exam of the same course at the end of the semester. But Chinese students generally do not Everyone in this kind of study group thinks that joining the group is a waste of time, but German students prefer this form (study group). Everyone discusses with each other what they didn’t understand when reading. On the one hand, you Telling others what is right about you is also a process of re-learning, because if you don’t read carefully, you will easily be questioned, which forces you to read more carefully. On the other hand, it also exercises your social skills. After all, you are talking to strangers. It’s also a skill for people to make connections.”
"I heard Duanmu say it. I asked Zheng Chunhua specifically before, but according to her, she didn't seem to have heard of such a group here. I also considered whether to build one myself, but there were many posts on the forum. No one pays attention to me.”
"There are many study groups at the Technical University of Munich, and most of them are foreign students. But there is really no point in worrying about this. It may be better to get to know more classmates when you enter the advanced stage." Du Lan comforted.
The rumble of a speeding train can be heard in the distance. As the train approaches, you can feel the strong vibration under your feet even when you are standing on the platform.
Looking at the direction of the train, Du Lan looked sad: "The train is coming."
Dong Qiangqiang knew that it would probably be Christmas when we met again, so he quickly stepped forward and hugged Du Lan tightly, while gently kissing her forehead: "Thank you."
Dong Qiangqiang was moved and grateful that Du Lan came to see him at the expense of his personal interests and took the trouble to make suggestions. However, he did not notice anything strange about Du Lan today and thought it was just an ordinary day.
Du Lan hugged his waist, but he was thinking about another thing.
