Back to School

My language school (middle)

After a blog hiatus, I thought it would be nice to update everyone on The Swiss Life. My German course in the city of Luzern which lasted 3 weeks, has come and gone. I passed, which means I can successfully tell the time, ask how much the bananas cost, and name every room in the house! Truthfully though, the German course helped a lot. Though I already knew a lot of words beforehand, I wasn't able to properly form sentences. Now, I can successfully do so. Being bilingual was a great advantage to learning the language. I was able to adapt easily to the new sounds, such as the classic German Mid-Word Throat Clearing Sound, and of course ä, ö, ü. I can actually say I have exceeded my own expectations in terms off the language so far.

My second home for 10 months, Kantonsschule Willisau.

That being said, I'll admit I went into regular German school with few worries. Many people were surprised I only had 3 weeks of German course, which is a good pat on the back and awesome motivation to keep getting better. Another ego booster was that I don't have to go to English class. There's no better feeling than being too good for English class in a foreign country, I tell 'ya. French class is a hoot, too. I honestly thought I would have a hard time, but turns out French class is a great way to make easy money. Now, every other subject is a different story, but I'll adjust. So far my other favourites are Philosophy and Psychology. I can gather most of the concepts of class discussions, I'm just not quite good enough to give my input yet. Stay tuned. 

The timetable here is something else! I belong to one class, 5d, and we all move together like a little herd to all our mandatory classes: Math, German, French, physics, philosophy, sport, history, and drawing (are you thinking woah? cause I said woah). But then sometimes we split into our majors and minors. My major is economics and law, and my minor is psychology. And then every week the class is split in two for physics and drawing. So if you go to physics one week, you don't have to go the next week. For drawing, one half goes in the morning, bright and early (me), and the other half can sleep in and go in the afternoon (I would pay big money to be in this half). 

There's an app for that!

I also bike home everyday at lunch, which is worth it. Lunch is a full meal, whereas dinner is usually bread, cheese, and sliced meats. I'm content with both but who wouldn't bike home for a home cooked meal. In preparation for this blog post I timed my bike ride which is about 22 minutes. I bike about 90 minutes everyday which is not so bad if you ask any of your parents and grandparents (you know what I mean millennials and gen z). 

The first week of school was a huge lifestyle change, but over these 5 days I've learned countless new words and the muscle on my legs is unreal. But maybe that's just in my head. Unfortunately, I have no back to school picture that you would usually find on my mom's Facebook. My apologies.

What I, and every other student, like to call level B3.

Funny moment: Many funny moments spur from the times I don't know what someone is saying to me and my natural instinct is to say "Ja". Apparently that's common thing with exchange students.