Freitag!

Every Friday, Herr Richter picks up the wireless mic and says in his very boomy Deutsch voice,

"Heute ist Freitag!"

and everyone cheers because we're just so darned glad that it's Friday and that means we get to sleep late tomorrow after going to the weekly Tanzparty and shaking our respective groove things until all the stress is gone.

I'm told that the four week mark is usually the breaking point for people in the Deutsche Schule. I happened to be a few days ahead of schedule, so I actually cracked today. After my disastrous grammar test this morning (okay, perhaps not disastrous if I remembered everything correctly) I sobbed into the shoulder of my German high school teacher suitemate about how I suck at German and I can't write and I can't speak and I'm a disappointment to my heritage because I'm a German girl who speaks French. Two hours later, I lost it again in my voice lesson. That always seems an opportune time to be emotionally vulnerable. You're reading incredibly beautiful poetry, listening to Schubert, trying hard to breathe normally and not get all clavicular and huffy so you won't cry, you take one breath to sing and it's all over. Yeah, that's pretty much standard. But the furry eyebrowed man is wonderful and has a daughter of his own, in addition to the countless female students who also cry in their voice lessons, and he's prepared with the kleenex and he pats my head like he's my grandfather and tells me that he's so proud of how much German I've learned in three weeks and not to freak out and that even though I'm crying I still sound wonderful. This is why I'm uprooting my life and going to Boston to continue studying with this man - not only is he a great teacher, he's a real human and that's something strangely lacking in many voice teachers.

And if anyone needs a suggestion for their weekend listening list, here it is:

Wanderers Nachtlied - Franz Schubert

Hope everyone has a good weekend, I'm going to drink my red wine and sit by the fan.