Rosetta Stone is for overachievers. Yeah, I said it.

This feels acutely familiar. I’ve been here before. Packing my entire existence into an embarrassingly telling number of small, disheveled brown boxes and loading them into my beloved Trooper. Then, just an unsophisticated 17 year old, rough around the edges at best, with a hoop dream and something to prove, I left home certain about little and impossibly naïve. 5 years later, little has changed I’m afraid. I loaded that same dependable Trooper yesterday struck by the fact that my brown disheveled boxes seemed to have shrunk in number, unbelievably. And yet somehow, I am leaving with so much more—none of which could fit into a box. I feel like understanding at least that much, means the past 5 years haven’t all been for naught.

It has only been a little over a week since my first entry and since I began working out, but it’s amazing, though not entirely surprising how quickly it all comes back. Unfortunately, here, I am not referring to the proverbial "it" as mentioned previously. It has only been about 9 days, I'll have to ask you to at least be realistic with your expectations of me. No, I am referring to the anxiety. It's amazing how quickly it begins to consume my thoughts, dictate my actions and overwhelm my nerves. I’ve barely signed my contract and I can already feel the unmistakable pregame butterflies accompanied by its old friend, nausea. Oh how I’ve missed it. Seriously...I have. There's nothing like a good dose of nausea to really jump start my day. Am I right?

The first thing everyone has been asking me upon hearing about my German news is "how well do you speak German?" First of all, unless you are following that question up with an offer to buy me Rosetta Stone, this is a lousy first question. Regardless, it's not without some relevance. So, as I prepare for my foreign getaway, I thought it might be smart to begin familiarizing myself with the language. So after careful consideration, I made choice selections of phrases I anticipate using copiously. I have included some:

1.     Sie kochen fur mich? à Will you cook for me?

2.     Woher kommt Dirk leben? à Where does Dirk live?

3.     Nein, sie konnen nicht meine telefonnummer. à No, you can’t have my phone number.

4.     Ja, ich bin beruhmt. à Yes, I am famous.

I think you will agree that if I can master these, I will be on my way to self sufficient in no time at all. 

I have amazing friends. I know everyone says that, but this week was rather illustrative of this fact for me. And not just the kind of friends who will tell you that "you don’t look fat in those jeans", but more importantly, the ones who will tell you just how fat you look! The kind of friends that remember your birthday (without the convenience of facebook reminders) because they’ve surprised you with inappropriate gifts each year. The kind of friends you laugh with till it hurts and cry with till it doesn’t. The kind of friends that occupy a piece of your heart. I’ve undoubtedly made such friends and this past weekend we said goodbye. For now. But that is the beauty of these kinds of friends—goodbyes are always temporary, though never less difficult. Fortunately, my friends know how to make difficult a little more fun. Bow chicka wow wow. Just kidding.

If that doesn't scream fun, well frankly I just don't know what does.

So this post has been really long, lucky for you. I will end with this: here is a link to my team website...in German. Ha! The second link down on the website includes an article about me and another girl the team signed. Basically it just says how great we are. Feel free to do what I did though and copy and paste the article into a german-english translation website. Nifty things they are. Chemcats website: http://www.chemcats.de/home.html. Stay classy.