I’ve been keeping this blog up for over a year now, which means that my gap year is almost up and I’ll be back in school alarmingly soon. Like any other period of my life, this past year didn’t go exactly as I’d expected. Being an au pair turned out to be an even less glamorous job than I’d thought. Two hundred and sixty Euros is way less money than I had originally thought. As for my novel and my German skills I can’t decide if I’m satisfied with my progress or not, but that there has been progress on both is undeniable.

I was also naively confident at the beginning of this year that Rutgers would take one look at my grades, my LSAT score and my New Jersey residency and accept me with open arms. I’m still on the waiting list. I was also naively confident that one of the companies that was calling Ader and begging him to come in for an interview would offer him a job and a three year project in whichever US city I wound up in. He’s still looking for something. Even if he found and accepted a job in Miami today, he still has to give his current company three months notice before leaving. So it’s basically guaranteed that I’ll be starting law school alone.

Even so, I’m excited about the next few months. Work is almost over. I told Beata that I’m definitely leaving by July 6^th, and sooner if she finds a replacement for me sooner. I would of course still like to leave earlier and have more time to travel/see my friends/write, but I’m not so anxious to go now that I was promised at least one day a week free. I’m working this weekend and every day next week, but next weekend I’m not working at all and (fingers crossed) I’ll be home alone. Beata is supposed to take Julia to Allgäu and I’m really really hopeful that Gregor won’t be back from wherever he is by then. I also don’t have my German classes for the next two weeks, which gives me six free mornings.

Then in the beginning of July I’m either going to Paris—it depends on if Ader has to go on a business trip or not—or traveling around Germany for a week. Then it’s back to Munich for the last weekend (maybe with Ader if I’m lucky) to throw myself a goodbye party. Then I have about a week in New Jersey to  see everyone and go to a real beach, and then (assuming that Rutgers doesn’t come around) I’ll have to go down to Miami and get myself set up there before the first day of classes on August 21, which I’m finally feeling ready for.