"Branching Out" and Other Endeavors

I've added a new goal to my list of goals toward which I'm striving in an attempt to occupy my non-working hours:  I am going to re-learn German!

I used to be high-school-fluent in German:  I aced all of my quizzes and even did very well in multi-school language competitions, but after I took all of the German classes in high school I never had any opportunity to speak it again.

What good were all of these language courses (I also took one semester of high-school French and two semesters of college Spanish) apart from padding my GPA (and, in the case of Spanish, working in the Chinese food business)?  Sure, I can throw out phrases here and there, whether to lament my Heimweh or exclaim, "Ach! du Grüne!" in exasperation with someone, but I've never needed to communicate much in German.  I think my wanting to re-learn is fueled by my plan/hope/idea to travel through Europe next summer.  This way, when I go to Germany and Austria and the non-French parts of Switzerland, I can speak the native tongue.

I don't want to learn the traditional way, though, because I did that for three years in high school.  To be sure, I need to brush up on grammar, and I have a "German Verbs" book for that, but I'd like to do it through immersion, by reading things in German.  Too bad the Harry Potter books are way more expensive in non-English.  I guess Max und Moritz it is!

Cautioning children everywhere that if you misbehave, you'll get eaten by ducks.

In other branching-out-related-news, I bought a bus pass today!  I did this because I want to branch out and potentially do things after work, and also because my roommate with the car wants to branch out and do things after work.  The Hawaii bus system and I are on speaking terms now, so I'm optimistic that I'll have some pretty interesting adventures this month, or at the very least, some fun trips to the mall.