Working On My BACHelors

Good morning, good morning, and good morning!

This is the first weekend since I can remember (okay who am I kidding...I don't often forget dates...SINCE FEBRUARY) that there has been nothing on my calendar. It would seem fitting to go ahead and "take it easy", but alas my friends, this is the time I need to buckle down and propel myself forward into the next few weeks. I sort of feel like this year has been a TV episode, and as the end of any series approaches, so do I watch the end of my german life and I think..."What will this look like once it's all come together in the end?"

But perhaps it's more of a cliff hanger ending. Perhaps I will get to see the characters again.

You just.
Never.
Know.

I think my german abilities have come further than I want to admit, because I'm modest. While walking with a classmate to a cafe the other day, I realized myself saying, "I don't think this year is supposed to be one where you come back fluent. I mean, I'm not saying you couldn't. But I think it's sort of a make-or-break year. It's the end, or it's just the beginning."

Surely "fluent" is a relative term. Can I get by? YES. Can I order food? OF COURSE. Do I know when I'm being yelled at? OH YEAH BABY. But can I always say exactly what I desire to? No. Can I do this in English? No....I simply can not. So I will leave here in 39 days with the stronger foundation of this language. Apparently I'll also leave with a Bavarian accent--at least that's what a native in my Kommunikation class said. I said, REALLY? WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE? And he said you can't explain it...it just...is.

Oh...the things that you can't explain; the things that just simply "are". Those are the best things to me.

Last weekend I enjoyed four-day weekend with a trip to Leipzig--home of Bach (Composer J.S. Bach). I think when I write it out, people know whom it is I mean, but every time I tried to tell someone with my voice, I think they thought I had something in my throat. ("Who...?") I went with my beloved friend Christianna and my beloved sister met us there for a portion of our stay. It was lovely to be as far north as we were, but strange to recognize a sense of Munich pride. And not so much pride, as the way it sounds, but moreso just acknowledging that yes, things are different. We're so used to our "Grüß Gotts!" that it was strange to put the muzzle on them.

We heard lovely music and singing and enjoyed a concert in Bach's church, where he played the organ. It's always so strange when you're somewhere in life recalling historical events. The same experience, though it evoked drastically different feelings, happened while I went to Dachau last Tuesday with Lynn, Gillian, and Tina. Walking through the "shower room" was a horrible thing. To see myself as a unknowing worker, led to believe I was about to take a shower, then dying moments later. There, I recalled events. No, I wasn't there when it happened. But I was legitimately creeped out. And my inner being was grieved. And I just wanted to get out, and offer thanks that my life was not so.

You can tell in life when you are ready to move on from something. In the same way, you can tell when you're not quite ready. Lately I've been experiencing both, and to the extremes. Mostly it's a sense of, "Okay, I am done with this." I am done with dreading u-bahn rides, that a strange man will begin speaking to me. I am done with going grocery shopping and being hit on. Done with my submarine room. Done with cooking for one.

I am not done with the relationships. Some of the faces I see regularly. I am not done with Latte Macchiatos. I am not done with real bread baked that morning. I am not done with the personality of a city. I am not done with throwing German words into my English vocabulary.

Actually I'm not even done here yet.
....so what am I talking about?