Ugh. Those two sentences seem to be all this humble English speaking mouth can utter these days. I have found that I've been quite delusional in thinking that I have a slight hang on German communications with natives. Ha! What was I thinking?

So far the other students have slowly filtered through in preparations for the new semester and my small interactions have gone pretty well. I carried on a small basic conversation (yet still a conversation!) with one of our neighbors and she was extremely nice and patient with the language barrier. So after these brief encounters, I felt pretty confident that I could at least understand to a degree what was happening around me.

That was until this morning.

This morning the hubby and I were supposed to meet with one of the directors here along with one other new student for a tour of the building. We were introduced to different members of the staff who were all friendly and engaging. My job was easy as I just hung back while the staff questioned the two actual students about their work. At the end of the tour, one of the librarians, Frau Hoffman, gave us a tour of the library.

Now this is where my confidence in my understanding of the German language completely chickened out and dashed away like a frightened school girl. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Frau Hoffman is one of the most friendly ladies I have met. She's always smiling and very approachable. Nevertheless, being in her presence was so overwhelming that I felt I could have used a break 5 minutes into her tour just to process all that she was saying! Like most Germans that I've encountered so far, Frau Hoffman spoke very quickly and her words seems to flow together like a constant stream. I couldn't pick out more than a few small words here and there.

But the worst was then she started to quiz us! Oh, my goodness. I felt as though I'd pass out. She was explaining that the library was split into two sides. Side one faces the garden and has all of the Religion books, while side two faces the street and houses all of the history books. This much I could understand, but then she quizzed me on which side I might find a certain book! With my heart racing, cheeks flushed, shortness of breath, I answered her which side I thought the book would be on. Correct! Whew! Dodged that bullet.

She went on to explain more rules, how to do this, where to find that, look up your books on this website, and who knows what else really! She could have been talking about what to do in the case of a fire and I would have had no idea! Just nodded by head and hoped that the hubby would interpret when we got back to our room. Then suddenly, she had another quiz for me. Ah! If I wanted to find a book in the library, what was I to do? Um, er, um....help!? Silently pointing to a hint on a pamphlet we were given, my hubby tried to help but I still wasn't sure if I had the information correct. Once again, heart racing, cheeks flushed, shortness of breath, I answered her in half German half English. Correct again!

At this point I was getting frustrated. Frau Hoffman was so nice, but I felt like a complete idiot. Here my lack of knowledge was embarrassing and I was growing exhausted from trying to figure out the 99% that I didn't understand. I was ready for it to be over and increasingly made less eye contact in fear of another pop quiz.

After the tour I was beginning to feel defeated. Here I had taken 9 months of German in a course, lived 6 months in Munich, and still had the knowledge of a beginner. Blah, blah, blah, and a little bit more self pity.

Well enough of that. No more self pity. While I'm a little discouraged, I'm trying my best and still forging onward very determined. One difficult day down and I'm better for it!