Goethe course B2.3

Whew.  Yesterday I finished my second intensive 4-week German language course.  This one, although at a slightly higher lever, felt less intense than my first -- mostly I think because our teacher was a little more relaxed (and enjoyed just having the class talk together about whatever issues struck us).  He was funny and I learned a lot from him, but we didn't drill the grammar and vocabulary quite as much as we probably should have.
   Anyway, it's over, and I passed "mit gutem Erfolg"  (with good success) which somewhat surprised me since I had missed the end-of-course test on Monday due to a 24-hour stomach bug (thanks to my son, I'm sure, who had a stomach thing all last week...).  But he said the certificate was based also on our homework, previous tests, and class presentation etc.
    My vocabulary is still not where I want it to be... the (or one of the) pathetic thing about the aging brain is that it doesn't remember new words!!  I look at a new word one day, think I've understood and "learned" it, then the next day I have no idea what it is... or I have an inkling that I should know that word, which makes it all the more frustrating.  Anyway, 10 steps forward, 9 steps back still means I'm getting somewhere I guess.  It is easier for me to converse, and our class went out for a very enjoyable Weissbier together last evening -- one of the many benefits of a course like this is meeting all sorts of interesting new people from all over the world.

Seated:  Alessa from Boston, Longxi from China, Aurélie from France, José from Spain.
Standing:  Sergey from Kazakhstan, Pedro from Spain, Antuanetta from Romania, Eirik from Norway,
Aleksandra from Poland, me, our teacher Berthold Kuhne, and Abdulelah from Saudi Arabia.
Missing that day was Peeter, a professor of law from Estonia.

Now, for what feels like the first time, I have lots of free-time on my hands.  Yahoo... I think.  During our first couple months here I guess I was busy "settling in" and discovering Munich, then I took the mid-October to mid-November intensive course (and we moved apartments), then I spent all December singing, and all of January with this course.  The family (especially Benjamin) is happy now that I'll be around in the late afternoon when the kids get home from school -- they've been latch-key kids all month.  Our grocery and dinner situation should improve too, starting now.

   When I'm teaching and on my "regular" crazy schedule at home, I would kill for more free time.  But, I'm finding, I don't sit still easily.  Today I find myself spinning a little bit about what to do.  Gym, groceries, OK, a little bit of house cleaning, and now what?  Blogging.  Still, it's only 1:45pm.  Luckily today it's beautiful out, so I'll go for a walk -- aiming for the library I think, and I'll try to attack some easy German novels.  I might just get used to all this free time...