It's been a rather quiet but interesting month since we returned from Manchester, U.K. It has also been cool, drizzly and definitely not summer anymore. :-(
A few days after we returned to Busingen, Andrew began feeling under the weather. It finally coalesced last week into a bad chest cold. He's been VERY fatigued, coughing a lot, not sleeping well and having a very runny nose. It's costing him time on the big paper he's working on which is due on Oct. 1, but he tries to keep plugging away, even sitting up in bed.
The day after we returned we also started up our German language learning again. The two classes per week have been very helpful in getting us over a grammar hump we had been stuck on since our last German classes in 2011. As someone who needs to be learning to be happy, I have been particularly energized by advancing in small steps in my German knowledge and speaking ability.
I had the chance to practice it on Sunday, when I met a young Swiss woman in Appenzell for coffee. A mutual friend in the U.S. connected us over email and we made a date to meet for the first time in the city of St. Gallen yesterday. I've heard that whatever language you start a friendship in is the language you will both stick with. Most of our German friends speak English with us. So I hoped to start out this new relationship in German. I managed to speak for about 2 hours in German, with my new friend filling in a lot of blanks and patiently responding in both German and English.
I've realized that while I can say most of what I want to say (with poor grammar) and read and write pretty well, I have trouble understanding what people say to me in German. My comprehension is very poor. This makes having a conversation fully in German almost impossible. My new friend took the tactic of saying sentences in German first and then translating them for me in English, so I could get used to hearing German but still understand what she was saying or asking. She has also offered to be my email penpal so I can practice writing with the words and grammar that I know, and she will respond with corrections. I'm pretty excited about this! It also gave me the confidence to try and speak more German with my German-speaking friends. I believe most of them will be just as patient with me.
I hope to improve my hearing comprehension by listening to some German learning CDs that I found in a closet here in my office.
In other news, we have been watching the flooding in Colorado closely through the news. We were still surprised when we got word on Friday that Andrew's parents' home flooded on Thursday night. Their ground-floor apartment is on the side of a hill, and apparently the torrential rains came gushing down the hill and directly into Andrew's sister's bedroom window. The family spent all night trying to divert the water with the help of five firefighters, and then trying to move furniture and dry out the room.
Since then we have learned that the damage to personal belongings was minimal, with the worst simply being the carpet. The landlord has brought over industrial fans and shop-vacs and shampooed the carpet to treat the dirt and smell. We hope they won't have flooding again, as 500-year rains continue to hit Colorado Springs.
We have been battling an invasion of wasps in our flat -- we think we have counted 36 so far. They seem to be coming in through the vent over our stove. We duct-taped every crevice but they continue coming in. I bought a wasp trap at a garden store to put outside and distract them from the buildling but it doesn't work. I then made my own wasp trap with a Fanta bottle and a little leftover soda and immediately caught one in our flat. We continue to use shoes. We called our apartment manager to look at the problem but they seem uncertain of what to do.
This week we are welcoming another new volunteer. A young woman named Zarah is joining our communications team for a year. She has expertise in video production and filming, as well as graphic design. We're excited to get acquainted with her and to work together in the next year.
A few days after we returned to Busingen, Andrew began feeling under the weather. It finally coalesced last week into a bad chest cold. He's been VERY fatigued, coughing a lot, not sleeping well and having a very runny nose. It's costing him time on the big paper he's working on which is due on Oct. 1, but he tries to keep plugging away, even sitting up in bed.
The day after we returned we also started up our German language learning again. The two classes per week have been very helpful in getting us over a grammar hump we had been stuck on since our last German classes in 2011. As someone who needs to be learning to be happy, I have been particularly energized by advancing in small steps in my German knowledge and speaking ability.
I had the chance to practice it on Sunday, when I met a young Swiss woman in Appenzell for coffee. A mutual friend in the U.S. connected us over email and we made a date to meet for the first time in the city of St. Gallen yesterday. I've heard that whatever language you start a friendship in is the language you will both stick with. Most of our German friends speak English with us. So I hoped to start out this new relationship in German. I managed to speak for about 2 hours in German, with my new friend filling in a lot of blanks and patiently responding in both German and English.
I've realized that while I can say most of what I want to say (with poor grammar) and read and write pretty well, I have trouble understanding what people say to me in German. My comprehension is very poor. This makes having a conversation fully in German almost impossible. My new friend took the tactic of saying sentences in German first and then translating them for me in English, so I could get used to hearing German but still understand what she was saying or asking. She has also offered to be my email penpal so I can practice writing with the words and grammar that I know, and she will respond with corrections. I'm pretty excited about this! It also gave me the confidence to try and speak more German with my German-speaking friends. I believe most of them will be just as patient with me.
I hope to improve my hearing comprehension by listening to some German learning CDs that I found in a closet here in my office.
In other news, we have been watching the flooding in Colorado closely through the news. We were still surprised when we got word on Friday that Andrew's parents' home flooded on Thursday night. Their ground-floor apartment is on the side of a hill, and apparently the torrential rains came gushing down the hill and directly into Andrew's sister's bedroom window. The family spent all night trying to divert the water with the help of five firefighters, and then trying to move furniture and dry out the room.
Since then we have learned that the damage to personal belongings was minimal, with the worst simply being the carpet. The landlord has brought over industrial fans and shop-vacs and shampooed the carpet to treat the dirt and smell. We hope they won't have flooding again, as 500-year rains continue to hit Colorado Springs.
We have been battling an invasion of wasps in our flat -- we think we have counted 36 so far. They seem to be coming in through the vent over our stove. We duct-taped every crevice but they continue coming in. I bought a wasp trap at a garden store to put outside and distract them from the buildling but it doesn't work. I then made my own wasp trap with a Fanta bottle and a little leftover soda and immediately caught one in our flat. We continue to use shoes. We called our apartment manager to look at the problem but they seem uncertain of what to do.
This week we are welcoming another new volunteer. A young woman named Zarah is joining our communications team for a year. She has expertise in video production and filming, as well as graphic design. We're excited to get acquainted with her and to work together in the next year.
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