Moving and Summer school

Hello!

I am incredibly sorry that it has taken me over two weeks to post a new entry- as a said before, I’ve been moving, taking finals, and saying goodbye to friends. None of those tasks have been finished yet, but I have a few minutes, so I thought I’d write an update.

I’ve moved! I now live in South Wedding/North Tiergarten, which is in North-West Berlin. It’s still about a half hour trip to school every morning, but really makes a difference when I want to hang out downtown- I’m already there! My roommates Jens (37) and Friedericke (25) are very nice, but I haven’t had much time to enjoy my new place. Since moving in, I have had to really buckle down to get ready for finals. We had out German final last Thursday, which I think I did quite well on, and have my content course finals on Tuesday and Wednesday!

The only thing is, this week is also the first week of my Summer Semester! Sooo in addition to studying for finals and getting ready to say goodbye to most of the friends I’ve made this past four months, I have class Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at the real university, with real students! Ach! I’m taking a German language class about current politics and culture, a language class to improve my vocabulary, a class in English entitled Peace and Conflict and then one or two classes in German, one about American foreign and security policy and the other about Democracy in post-war democracies. I’ll be honest, I’m incredibly intimidated- especially by my classes in German, with Germans, but thankfully I haven’t had any time to dwell on any feelings of self-doubt.

Another reason I’ve been a bit busy is that I started working a bit. Not a real job by any means, but I have begun babysitting at least once a week for my German teacher. I really like her and her family is adorable, so I certainly don’t mind going by a few mornings, maybe one night a week and watching over her three kids. As I was putting her 7 year old to bed last night, she asked me to sing to her. Having never learned any German lullabies (pretty sure silent night in inappropriate in April), I asked her if I could sing in English. She said no and tried to teach me a lullaby- It was basically Sleep, baby, sleep, which I’m not entirely sure I could sing in English anymore, but was even harder trying to learn from a whispering 7 year old. Eventually, she was like, eh. You’ve done enough. You can leave now… hhaha. Will have to study up for that one!

I also wanted to put a few poems that I wrote up here. They were both assignments for my German language class, but I figure that you will mostly be impressed- simply because they’re in German. ☺ I’m ok with that!

I will get those up in the next few days! Until then, I hope this finds you in good health (unlike myself- I have the black plague) and enjoying the sunshine!

Love,
Tess