Time For Anustart (A New Start)

It's been about one week since I've moved out of my apartment in Huntsville and back home to spend 2/3rds of the summer in Birmingham, AL. One of the most stressful weeks I've had in awhile seeing that I had to pack up my life and move it to the nearest city. In a sense, I will be doing the same in just 54 days! Time is racing and I feel like I'm being left behind, although it's my friends and loved ones I will be leaving behind. :/

Between packing, preparation, and planning, I'm swamped. I also am trying to be in the best shape of my life by the end of this summer. Granted I'm already pretty healthy (just lazy), but staying in this house staring at Deutsch and YouTube videos ALL DAY EVERYDAY kind of takes a toll on you eventually. Therefore I declare it's time for a new start.

Last summer I was pretty active with all the workouts, road trips, random flights to Chicago/LA/NYC and wherever I saw fit, as well as balancing working on software tools for my engineering division out in Texas. This summer (for the first time in 3 years) I'm job/intern/co-op free! All by choice of course. I needed more time to study and prepare and interning this summer would really interfere with all of that, besides I worked 5 jobs at once last year AND was in school full-timeso I think I could use a break!

A few weeks ago we took a language placement test which is "allegedly" suppose to show where we are currently in our knowledge of the German Language.

I scored in the A1 range which means I can understand everyday expressions and the basic phrases. I'm content with that (for now). I'm hoping to be at B1 by the end of the year so that I can hold a decent conversation with locals.

The closer it gets to July 29th (day of orientation), the more anxious and nervous I get. It's so nerve-wrecking anticipating such a long stay in a foreign country especially it will be my first time out of the country...

I'm very critical when it comes to preparation. In the next post I may go into details about my packing list, following suit from the other participants. Over the years I've developed a knack for adapting to my environment and always being prepared. I hate that feeling of cluelessness like when you were a kid and would get lost in a department store (happened to me a lot when I was younger, especially with the popup of more and more Walmart Supercenters). Once I arrive in Deutschland I hope to have a sense of calm, rather than panic. For the record, this is MY definition of "calm". Lol