I am sufficiently occupied with school. But I still like to stay creative, so I have a few side projects:

I am learning French by listening to French music and drawing vocabulary pages. Each page groups 40-60 words into a scene (“the beach”, “my bedroom”…). Back in high school I was bad at French, but now, I am surprised by what I still remember. Passive memory, guys. You know more than you know.

I also like to work in the garden. We just refinished one of our raised beds and planted it up with tomatoes and other produce. The grapes in the greenhouse already are producing fruit, the roses are blooming, it’s beautiful!

Then, this afternoon, a surprise project came up: My car (actually my parent’s car that I use to drive to college) hadn’t been driving for the past 3 months. We finally tried to jumpstart it today, which initially worked. But as soon as the car parks, all the power is gone. In short, the battery is worn out and needs to be replaced. I was lucky to not get stuck at a busy intersection or something. I had taken the car to go for a walk with our dog in the woods. The car stalled, and I had no phone reception. But there were other walkers there, they let me borrow their phone (which for some reason worked fine). A chain of fortunate circumstances or I would still be stuck in the woods. I had what Germans call “Glück im Unglück” (“luck within bad luck”). It makes me grateful amidst “inconvenience”. What “Glück im Unglück” moments have you had recently? I know there’s a lot of tough things going on right now. Things we need to address. But even still, gratitude can change your attitude for the better. Leave a comment if you like, and stay safe.