Meine Gute, Ich Bin Dumm!

So I'm thinking, four years of high-school German, two years in college, I can handle this, right? Guess what? Es ist nicht passiert (translation: "It ain't happenin")!

We're three weeks into the 12-week class, and already one third of the students have dropped out. I think I know why. We signed up, expecting to learn how to hail a taxi and order bratwurst, in the event our husbands really do take us to Austria, as they long ago promised they would. But what we're getting is far more difficult. We're conjugating verbs! And not just the easy ones, either! We're learning word order and negations and vocabulary words like das Anmeldeformular and das Nichtraucherabteil und all that other schtuff!

I am stunned at how much I've forgotten, and how slowly it's coming back. To Steve's credit, he's trying to lend a hand -- setting his GPS unit so it navigates in German, and shouting "Nein!" whenever he can.

We'll see how it all plays out. My first test is tomorrow, and I'm determined to hang in there. I've got to -- Herr Busch says es ist verboten to quit.