ich habe mein deutsch vergessen!

which means "i have forgotten my german" and i desperately need to find it before this summer. as i mentioned in an earlier post, i am going to the world cup this summer. we still haven't found tickets for other matches, besides the ones for the iran-mexico and the portugal-mexico games that we originally won. but preparations are underway... and i've started to contact youth hostels by e-mail... in german! of course i could write in english, but why did i study german for 2.5 years then? although i haven't actually practiced in about 7 years! but i guess it'll come back quickly...

to complement the fun summer activities, i needed a more intellectual environment -- life is not just fun after all. just last week, i was informed that i have been admitted to the european science days summer school in steyr, austria! this year, the conference will be devoted to the economics of education, which is currently one of my areas of research. every year they focus on different topics, from the theory of the firm to the growth and welfare, and the academics who attend are always high-calibre scholars like philippe aghion, kevin murphy, daron acemoglu, tim besley, avinash dixit, etc. so i'm very excited about this opportunity.

if i get a teaching assistantship for the second half of the summer, then i'll be all set. but that i won't know until april or may...