One Year

Today marks the one year anniversary since I left the States, tomorrow will be one year since I entered Germany.

In my first post, dating back to July 12 of 2009, I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in Germany this year. What follows is the progress I've made 365 days later.

1. Become conversational in Deutsch
-Well, to be honest, I'm not exactly there yet. One year later, and I still manage to speak more English than German on a daily basis due to my surroundings, my job, and the fact that Germans are pretty awesome at speaking English. While I'm better at German than when I came, this goal still remains to be accomplished.

2. Read & Write as much as Possible
-I've definitely read a lot, thanks to the Amerika Haus giving me access to some 10,000 books in English, and I've been writing, but clearly not as much as possible, or else I would have been able to produce several novels by now (an exaggeration, but you get what I'm saying). I managed to start a writing group and win my first short story competition, but this year I'm going to try to take it up a notch.

3. Keep a blog :)
-Check!

4. Find a job, make money & start paying off student loans
-This is more like three goals, but check, check, and check! I've managed to find work at three different private language schools, plus an English language camp for children and last but not least, working at the Christmas market in NBG last December. Not bad.

5.Travel
-Not as much as I've wanted, but managed to go to Italy twice (although the first time, as you may remember, was not so succesful thanks to mono) San Marino, Berlin, Regensburg, Bayreuth, Frankfurt and Munich. This year I want to travel to the north of Germany and check out some of Deutschland's neighbor countries.

6.Strengthen my physical and spiritual health
-Using public transportation and now having a bicycle has forced me to use my feet more than I did when I had a car, as for the latter half of the goal, its a never ending process. So half-check.

7. David (open to interpretation)
-One year later: still learning, still growing, still good :)



Here's to a strong start to year two.

:)