The "No English" threshold

So 3 finals down, 3 finals remaining.
At this point I've learned a very good lesson. A night without sleep definately shuts off the abstract part of my brain. This means that I can study until late at night and still perform well for accounting, statictics, or calculus, but not for history, and especially not while speaking in German.

I'll get back to that in a moment. First was the adventures of the last weekend. Melanie, a great friend from the U of M who was studying at Barcelona, came to visit in Freiburg. Arriving on Thursday night, the next day was packed with an early morning tour of Freiburg and then an afternoon in Basel, Switzerland (which is just 40 minutes away by train). Then after a late night, Melanie flew back on Saturday.

Sunday was spent with a British friend, Lisa, who is fluent in French so we went to Colmar, France. A very small, charming town really close to Freiburg, but took over an hour to get there. There was an international music festival going on until that day and actually, Lisa's former flute teacher was the lead flutist with the Orchestra of Paris, the featured performers. So we met up with him and he invited us in to hear the rehearsal. Aside from having to leave early to catch the bus, the practice was fantastic as the orchestra is one of the best in the world.

So that was the weekend...

And now the story of the week... the story goes that I was supposed to have my Renaissance in Venice test last week and then this week just focus on History of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1945. But the Renaissance test was moved to this week and I had to cut my History study time in half. But the Renaissance test came and went without a hitch. The oral exam was made very simple by the professor and didn't require too much strain. That meant that I had overstudied for it, and consequently under-studied for the History. The next morning came, after a night without sleep, and my brain just couldn't say anything in German, or remember much of the content I had just covered.

So now I sit, gearing up for 3 finance finals this week and therefore declare it an English Holiday. I have to improve my German as these are now written exams which require as much explanation as calculations. Calculations are fine since math is an international language; the explanations are not.

Well, that's been the summary of my week and learnings. Hope you're having a blast back home and until then.

Later Days,
Rick