Bonjour!

Je m'appelle Sabrina et je viens des États-Unis.  J'habite a Münster, Allemange.  Je parle anglais, allemand, et....FRANCAIS!

Yep, that was French from yours truly.  Most of you know that I work a very strenuous and taxing twelve hours a week, so I don't have a lot of time for frivolous activities.  Oh wait...got that backwards, didn't I?

I work twelve hours a week, so I've got more time than I know what to do with.  I've managed to fill up some of it with exploring every cafe in Münster to drink coffee, studying for the GREs (coming up on December 1!), beginning my half-marathon training today, and taking an intro to French class!  I'm enrolled at the University in Münster, but unfortunately, there is only one Französisch für Anfänger class, and it was overbooked the first day of registration back in September.  This happened in Heidelberg as well- and we could usually go to the first session and manage an override, but unfortunately again, I missed the first session because I was still in Ireland (secondary school schedule is quite different than the Uni schedule).  I went to the second session though, and there was a German girl in my exact situation, so she talked to the teacher and yet again, another unfortunate event- the class was absolutely too full and she couldn't let us in it.

But here's where things became fortuitous!  This girl I had just met, Kristina, told me about an intro to French class being held by the Interkulterelle Zentrum (like the intercultural center of the city), that was also once a week, and we just had to pay about 70 Euro for the semester.  I went to the first session a few weeks ago and the next Thursday was a holiday, and we just had the second session last Thursday and I'm immensely enjoying it!  The class moves a bit slowly, considering we're all university students and taking this class not for credit, but because we just really want to learn French, but it's still nice to exercise my brain in a classroom setting, where I'm not standing in front of the class.

Towards the end of my undergrad, I was so ready to be done with school and studying, and had decided that I was not going to go to grad school, but now that I'm back in a classroom learning, even if for just two hours a week, I realize that I really do miss it!  It's also quite an international class- an American (moi), a guy from Greece, a girl from Poland, a girl from Spain, and then the other four are German.

What's even more noteworthy though, is that I'm learning French...auf deutsch.   This facet is the one that most truly exercises my brain and really forces me to think and to pay attention!  Learning French in German though, has made me more confident in German, because it has made me realize just how much German I actually do know!  I give myself a lot of shit for my crappy German, and am constantly comparing myself to the other foreign speakers around me.  Yes, my speaking is not the greatest, but only because I am always too afraid to practice (although I'm already speaking more German this time around in Germany than I was when I was abroad in Heidelberg, because I would never say anything in class).  Anyways- I'm not constantly translating from French to German to English, but rather, am content with the German.  Granted, this is intro-level material, but it still makes me feel at least somewhat accomplished!  Also, just because of the fact that, even trying to form the most simple sentences in French causes me to draw a blank, and I end up thinking of the words in German, instead of English.  All of these points combined is making me a bit more confident in my German- if I think of what I want to say....I can say it usually without a problem.  Sometimes I may take a roundabout way to reach my point and mess up some verb orders, but I am able to express myself!

So here's to my French adventure!  And now when I visit Mollie at the end of March I'll obviously be fluent and we can go traipse around France.  Jokes.  But I'll at least know more than I did the last five times I visited France.