Erasmus Malta 2022

Work At work, things continued as usual for the . Right now, I'm still unhappy with relying on others so much. Because my job entails a lot of delegating and using general knowledge of the system to help students with their requests, I often have to simply pass things on to someone else. While they do explain the context to me afterwards, there are many students who ask to speak in Maltese rather than English, making me miss out in witnessing the actual exchange.  On the flipside, I've gotten quite good at catching the right snippets in a Maltese conversation to catch onto what's going on. Usually when people come in and state their request in Maltese, I know what they mean and can simply continue with them in English. Sometimes, they don't even switch alongside me until an issue arises! This is quite fun and also reflects the culture here very well, as even natives are used to this kind of conservation. Even when speaking Maltese, there is a lot of English involved in ...

On Wednesday, I got my pc set up, together with email and Classter access. Work Classter has already come in handy many times, letting me check up on students, verify data and find contact information. For full-time certificates, this means I can now help students that neglected to properly fill out the consent form when having a certificate picked up by a third party -- which happens a lot. Verifying personal information, calling the student in question at work, and having them send me a filled out form to be printed out lets me handle a good percentage of cases I had to pass to someone else previously. For part-time and old courses, I can now actually help students remember when they did a course with us and what it was called, so I know where to start looking for the certificate they are looking to pick up. I've also been sent an overview of the hundreds of certificates from last graduation that haven't been picked up, and tasked with updating it to the current status so tha...

As routine sets in, I've decided to switch the blog posts to weekly. Work Even though this was my first week of work, there isn't much to say. Because it was my first week at work, there definitely isn't much to say about my leisure time. I suddenly find myself feeling almost at home, and that comes with a familiar lethargy. Going to the store after work, cooking a dinner sizeable enough to use the leftovers as lunch for the next day, showering and finally falling into bed. I did not get switched to a bottom bunk, so my space is a lot more closed off -- curtesy of various towels I've hung from the top bunk. The space however is much more limited, and I cannot sit upright. Together with the only window of the room being part of an extra alcove, the room is dark most of the day and lends itself to lazing around. In contrast to my travels last weekend, I've done absolutely nothing this week. Even the weekend, the weather is cold and windy, and I don't feel much li...

Monday marked my first actual day at the internship. I met up with my classmate in front of MCAST, and we headed inside together. Mr. Debono picked us up from the reception area we had signed into, and led us towards the building hosting both his and our offices. He gave us a short tour of the campus, followed by a lovely welcoming presentation about MCAST, Malta's history, and tips for living on and enjoying the island. He then introduced us to our respective offices. I was assigned to the office handling certificates, where they are currently primarily handing out said certificates to the corresponding students. I was introduced to the system and general workings of MCAST courses, and started helping out with finding the certificates, handing them out, checking all was in order and getting the required signature. I was also shown around once more, introduced to everyone nearby, and taken for a quick trip down to the cafeteria.  While I did also answer the phone a few times, there...

Not ready to spend the day hiking alongside my roommates, I stayed in and had a late breakfast. The weather was a lot nicer today; while there's always a cool wind blowing this close to the sea, today it was accompanied by sunshine. I decided to take the bus to Valetta, and potentially check out some recommended sights to see. The Upper Barrakka Gardens had my attention, so I headed straight for them. From there I got to enjoy a nice view, and really take in the sunshine. However I couldn't quite figure out if the ferry for the three-islands-tour was operating or not, so I chose to postpone the boat tour and lift ride till another day. I walked around the city a little, but found none of the tourist-attracting stores to be inviting. After grabbing pastizzi once more and sitting at the Triton Fountain for a bit, I took the bus back home to cut my day-trip short. Back at the hostel, I caught up on writing blog entries.

 My first full day in Malta, I decided to tag along with some of my roommates. We'd started chatting and getting along, and with their limited time they had a much more concrete idea of things to do in Malta. We chose to visit Mosta, as well as Attard. Unfortunately our bus decided to improvise its route, skipping the entire city of Mosta completely. This left is stranded on the outskirts of Attard, neither here nor there. We did a bit of looking through the stores in Ta Qali Crafts Village, which showcase ceramics, jewelry and goods made from stone and wood. Clearly off-season however, the place didn't hold our interest very long. So we decided to walk the way to Mosta, since we had little faith in the bus routes at this point.  The weather was cold, windy and rainy, but not enough for me to regret not bringing an umbrella. And with the only noteworthy thing to pass on our way to Mosta being the American Embassy, we were glad to finally arrive at the city for some food and sh...

I arrived at Malta international airport at about 12:40 on Friday the 4th. Knowing that the hostel I'd spend my first 3 weeks in had kindly informed me which bus would get me directly to where I needed to be, I checked the bus stop signs and the Tallinja app, distrusted my hostel's wisdom and waited. The bus slowly made its way through the thick traffic, and I got out at the completely wrong station to miss catching my transfer bus. So I walked randomly in the direction the busses left, found another bus stop, caught another bus, and eventually made my way to the correct bus stop that my original bus (the one the hostel had told be to use) would definitely have gotten me to. Quite beat, I arrived at the hostel and was handed a key by the hostess. After a short explanation I'd sorted out my belongings, precariously climbed and checked out my bed at the top of the bunk. With only ~31 hours since I'd last gotten any sleep, I abandoned the sanctity of my new home and set ou...