Tage in Tirol mit Tah

This podcast episode moved me and I felt the need to share it, along with some personal thoughts about what friendships mean to me. BFFs (best friends forever) The personal One of the biggest blessings in my life are the friends that I have. Finding and being friends was a huge mystery to me for a very long time. It was something that I longed to have and at many times believed that I wasn't a person that anyone would want as a friend. And there was some truth to that, but not because I wasn't enough (like I believed), but because I didn't even know who I was and I couldn't think past "I need to do what I'm supposed to do." I could have stayed with this, but I was lucky. I was very lucky to go to university far away from where I grew up and get some other perspectives and imagine a new life. I'm forever grateful for all the experiences (including the not-fun-parts which help you grow) and people I met in college. Finally really hearing the question fro...

 So it's July and halfway through the year. It felt very good to finish June. The end of a studies and work semester, the completion of different group projects, and participating in 4 concerts was all part of June and despite getting sick the last Friday of the month, it all worked out. And funny enough, once I got the okay that things are settling down, the impulse to think of the future kicked in. Yes, of course I am enjoying this freedom of time with relaxation too. And I think when things slow down, one feel good thing is thinking positively about what is in the present and what is to come. So I looked at what I did last year December, the Old Year Reflections again and my last Level 10 Life. It was a good feeling to see that some things have already been completed, and also a reminder of old ideas. And I was motivated to then re-do my Level 10 Life. What is a Level 10 Life? It's a way to be intentional with your life focus(es). It's a concrete method to reflect and c...

Being a big fan of self-reflection, I love to think about what is to come in the new year and dream. New Year's resolutions has been seen more now as a shallow promise to make a big change, but I like to think of this more as an opportunity to look back on the previous year and then stop and think about where I want to be, what I would like to do, the possibilities that await. And if you can find a friend or friends who are also into a review, then all the better! Sharing visions and dreams can sometimes really become fuel for a wonderful journey. I've put together 2 small things to get the conversation going. It's not all questions about the meaning of life, but allows for looking into the previous year and then a little thought as what is to come. I recommend this mini reflection workshop below. New Year Reflection Program #1 Find a friend or friends who want to reflect together! Make it a date :) #2 Sit down together and enjoy some snacks and tea/coffee.

I was lucky enough to be part of a group years ago that would meet regularly and watch a video that would be related to self-improvement. Sometimes it was in nutrition, or exercise, and sometimes motivation. This was the one talk that stood out for me among all those shared. It took me a while to find the video, because I sadly forgot the name of Dr. Wayne Dyer . But thank you internet search as I was able to find him by remembering a little of his own personal story that he shared within this talk.

  Upon starting an Elementary Music Pedagogy Ausbilding (Ausbildung means a kind of certification program / study of something) I have been very motivated and interested in going deeper into the topic of what is music and how we connect to it. Going through the YouTube rabbit hole, I was very grateful to run into a TED Talk by Victor Wooten who is a bass player, teacher, and musical ambassador. He starts by sharing his own experience in being raised into a pass player and made a very profound comparison regarding "jamming with the professionals". He believes (as do I) that music is a language. And just as we learn our native language, we start right away in conversing with the "professionals". That a baby isn't told, "oh you don't know enough about sentence structure, therefore you need to wait to talk to mom and dad." This sounds ridiculous, but then when I think about the way music education is structured, this is what tends to happen.

This was a discovery when looking for an interesting Unlocking Us with Brené Brown Podcast called How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole on Spotify. (Brené Brown is an author that had been recommended to me by my sister and I recommend her onward!)

So I think a one week pause break turned into a much longer month off. But it's the first of July (27th now) and a good time to start a post. A post about starting again. This is a topic not just related to writing a blog post, but on starting or restarting anything new. Maybe it comes when you got sick and took an endless exercise break. Learning German for me has been a bit of a stop and go process too.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying to do something that isn't your favorite? Maybe it was speaking German for the first time in a coffee shop. And as your hesitation is getting the better of you, someone tries to help and says, "Just do it, get out of your comfort zone!"? Would that be helpful for you? Those were never words of encouragement for me. Sometimes, I would say, it even gave me a good reason to resist and stay in my comfort zone! But we know that trying new things, especially things that might scare us, are good for us to experience life. Okay, maybe it's good to hesitate if you want to jump from 2 stories into a lake without knowing how to swim, but that's not the fear/hesitation I'm talking about. (I realized that I wrote more than I thought, so I added a very brief tl;dr at the bottom.)

It's 4:49 in the morning and I woke up around 4:20am to feed my little girl who's now 3+ months old. Normally I would go back to bed and wake up when the sun is fully out around 7:30am. So why am I up when the birds are chirping at the sun to hurry up? I think it's a combo of my German language workbook and Tony Robbins.

This is a different kind of week, with a little more origin story about how I ended up in Innsbruck. The short answer is I got married to an Austrian from Tirol. The longer story is hopefully interesting enough to read for you. If not, and your mind begins to wander, feel free to look at some of the pics and skip to the German exercise at the end which is about prepositions or Präpositionen in German. One of my favorite views in Innsbruck, near  Markthalle As time passes, it's strange to see different similarities with my parents. Maybe you've experienced this too, with your smile, how you talk about money, or how you might not be able to handel beans. In my case, I find myself in their language-learning shoes when I moved to Austria in 2019. I’m a daughter of two immigrant parents who moved from South America to the US and learned English along the way. Despite having Spanish-speaking parents, my younger-shyer self never quiet learned how to speak the language. ...

It’s possible for you to learn German!  I’m speaking as someone who’s failed 3 other languages and I wasn’t going to let German be number 4. So far, with lots of determination, friends, classes and Austria itself, I’m finally breaking the curse, and I want to help others learn the language. This blog is hopefully going to give you: useful information about integration into Austria (particularly Innsbruck, Tirol),  great finds from other great German language resources, exercises to help build up those German-Speaking muscles, some encouragement when it feels impossible, and some laughs along the way. With every post there will be an accompanied German exercise! Posts will come every Tuesday.  And so, if this sounds like a fun and helpful place, then I invite you to add this blog into your German learning arsenal and subscribe. Feel free to share with your friends using the share icon to the right of the title!😊 German Exercise for the Week: Übung für Verben u...