Language project

Yes, I'm busy again! :) Sounds stupid, but I'm really enjoying working again! As most of you know, I'm involved in a project developping a new software which will be used in language lessons at grammar schools. One of my former teachers who has now become a good friend of mine has initiated the project and now our team consists of five people who could not be more different: my friend and another young teacher (the two women were at university together, studying Italian if I'm not mistaken); a boy from my old school who is our specialist for information technology, programming the whole thing; a latin teacher; and me, somewhere between school pupil and university student and with the likely prospect of becoming a teacher myself one day... it's so interesting to work together with these people, to learn so much about languages and to get an insight into the world of teaching!
With our teaching software we are trying to show the pupils the connections between the different languages they are learning, in order to facilitate the process of acquiring new languages, learning new vocabulary etc. To me personally, this means a lot and it is also my main motivation for starting my language studies at university - I really think that languages can be extremely fascinating once you somehow find out how they "work" if one can say that... I understand that some students hate language subjects because they just see pages full of vocab and books filled with grammar rules which all seem to have no connection whatsoever! But then, in my opinion, it's a teacher's job to show them that there is so much more to a language than "just" grammar and literature... each language is part of a family, is related to others, has its own history and only with understanding what it has gone through, what has influenced it and how it is related to other languages can we ever get hold of it and see the interesting aspects of it...
Sorry, I just realise that I'm talking about language as if it were some kind of religion! If you're not interested, just forget this text, it's a madman (madwoman!) talking about her future "dream subject" and getting carried away by her own enthusiasm... :)
But to come back to the project: as it is some kind of competition organised by the government (there are about 60 projects but ours is one of the biggest), we have a very restricted budget, which means that we are all working so hard just for ideological reasons - which again makes sure that those who participate in this project are really highly motivated and want to see a good result and therefore it's a great atmosphere to work in! And the idea that with our help, maybe some students learn to appreciate languages, are more motivated and get better grades, gives me more satisfaction than any money in the world ever could! Not to mention how useful this experience will be for me at university!

Sorry, but now I have to stop, I'm so tired from working all day long, I really want to go to bed... I'll try my best to write something again soon, promised, Isa! :)

Catching up...

Oh my goodness, could someone PLEASE stop time???
It's absolutely incredible how time is flying! Ever since I got back home, so much has been going on! Everything about the Football World Championship (believe it or not, Switzerland has been going mad...!!!) was already enough to fill my days, but besides that, a lot has happened...
My mum recently "complained" that she didn't notice any difference now that I'm actually back from England because I'm constantly out - but hey, there are so many people who I just HAD to see again as soon as possible! And apart from that: who wants to watch a match at home when you can go to the city instead and be in the middle of other fans and get caught up in all the singing, jumping, shouting, celebrating??? to put it short, I had some really great evenings with different people watching football either in a bar or in some other public place! ;)

Summer seems to be here to stay, we've had between 24 and 30 degrees almost every day since I came back - of course I enjoy every second of it, but it also makes you lazy... the most beautiful thing therefore is to sit near the lake of Zürich (yes, the one I've missed like crazy while I was away! ;)) with nice people and just do nothing!

Guess who I had lunch with today! You'll never guess... ;) Pascal!!! It was so funny! After some SMS short after our return (all about Alex Frei, the Swiss footballer - whom Pascal can't stand but I think he's the best... ;)) I hadn't heard anything from him and I didn't want to be the one who's running after this friendship if he doesn't really care- but then, out of the blue, I got a message last week saying that he'd be in Zürich today and if I had time to see him... It was so weird at first to see him in this (for me) familiar environment but it was great fun, especially when we took a look at all the pictures!

That's about it for now I would say - I have just installed the Skype-software, will hopefully be able to talk to Olga and the others pretty soon.... all I have to find out now is how to connect the headset to my PC... yes, women and computers! ;)

P.S.: Just read through this text - I realise that I haven't used my English in at least 2 weeks and added to my tiredness at the moment, I really have to apologise for this post... I hope it's getting better again! ;)