Well, I'm inordinately excited today, because I started my German class. Since I have ten hours a week that is no longer taken up with commuting, I have come up with 30 hours' worth of stuff to fill it . . . and German class is the first of the items on my list. The class meets from 10-12, so it gets out right before my 12-1:30 class. During German, I kept thinking, "Wow! This instructor is really good! I'm not nearly this good!!" So I vowed to be cheerful and upbeat when I went to class. Not sure I succeeded . . .

I think German will be the perfect language for me to take because [a] I know a lot already, although not in a systematic way and there are big gaps in my knowledge (which is a really second-language-classroom way to think about it, really; what I know of German I came by from being immersed in it at various points. In that context, everyone's knowledge is unsystematic and partial), and [b] I really want to learn it. So it's going to feel like I'm getting a big payoff for relatively little effort. Plus, I just learned that we have some sort of exchange program or cooperative program with a business school in Stuttgart, so who knows? Maybe I can wrangle a trip or a teaching exchange!

Ah, well, I'd better get home . . . I'm pretty exhausted after my weekend. Yesterday I woke up at 8:00, cleaned and packed the van until the open house at 11, hung out with my friend Brenda while we had our open houses - consecutive, with the same realtor - then drove to Lansing where we unpacked the van, then unpacked the boxes we'd just unloaded, then sat around with the Millers (and the O'Connell) for a while, then went over to Charlie's to take him his portion of the van contents, then we returned the van to K&R, then Em and I went to Meijers. I started moving at 8 am and didn't stop until 11:30 pm. (It sure was nice to be able to sleep in until 8 today!)

So now I'm ready to go home and try to find a corner ohne (sans/sin) boxes and just sit and stare a while . . . or maybe I'll polyurethane my bookshelves, so maybe some day soon I can actually unpack my books.

More tomorrow, with any luck. Until then, tschuss!