As I wrote my earlier blog entry this afternoon I was interrupted by a familiar sound in our apartment, the SKYPE “ring” coming from our computer. It was my mother calling from Armenia. We chatted for 20 minutes about nothing particularly important. Between SKYPE, Google chat, Google video and Google phone our home computer is used more as a telephone than any other of its applications.

After speaking with my mother I thought how nice it was to be able to speak about “nothing particularly interesting”. While I’m living far away it’s nice to have chats with my family members about the simple day-to-day activities that we commonly shared when I was living at home. It also reminded me of the year 2000 when I moved to the United States for a year of study. At that time the above mentioned computer applications were simply a ripple in some computer geeks mind.  During the year I spent in Texas I spoke with my family once a month for no more than 15 minutes. In Texas a 20$ (16euro) calling card only bought 30 minutes of time to Armenia. Last week I bought a 5 euro card (my grandmother doesn’t have a computer)  that allows me to speak to Armenia for 300 minutes or the US for 660.

In short, it is nice for all of us that moved across oceans (or maybe just the Oder River) to immerse ourselves in German language and culture while still having multiple ways to stay engaged with our families and culture.

Prepositions in German can get confusing, just like in English. But you will remain confused until you take time to memorize them and then you just know them!

Yesterday in class we were discussing the various prepositions that go with ’schlafen‘, ’steigen‘, ‚reisen‘, etc.  Since today is Friday and I didn’t have anywhere to rush I slept in.  Well, the question now is „Did I ‚ausschlafen‘, ‚verschlafen‘, ‚einschlafen‘ or what?“. I had to open my notes from yesterday for clarifications. Turned out ‚ausschlafen‘ was the one! Whereas ‚verschlafen‘ is ‚to sleep through for example  the alarm cloack‘, in short, unintended sleeping to wake up and see that you missed something.

Well, I’ve dealt with the struggle of learning preposition for a long time in my life. Many times I have managed to make a fool of myself in English by saying, „Oh, I can’t remember anything after I passed away…“ (instead of passed out) or „I can’t make out….“ (instead of make up)“. This list of this embarrassing situations is rather long. And it’s a matter of time and practice before you learn them and don’t have to think about them any more.

I think that’s what I am going to spend a few hours of the Friday doing – memorizing verb prepositions. Not exciting but helpful!