Satellite Dish in the Snow

A massive snowstorm hit over the weekend and something collapsed onto the satellite dish—total loss. For the better part of a week I had nothing but two channels and the slow erosion of my patience.

On Sunday I ended up watching a Swiss educational competition show—something about cantons and Pisa rankings—and understanding maybe half of it. Swiss German dialects are a genuine mystery to me. How does a country that small sustain that many distinct ways of saying "good evening"? Every canton has its own guttural variant. I watched adults communicate in sounds that seemed engineered to damage the larynx. Fascinating. Completely incomprehensible.

School’s been fine otherwise. Everyone else seems to have already started Christmas break while I’m stuck here until Friday afternoon. Haven’t bought a single present yet, and I already know exactly how this ends: last possible day, full panic, questionable results.

Ran into an old friend today who has an Abitur average I could only dream of and is still sitting around waiting for a university spot. The German admissions system, everybody. Meanwhile I’m technically supposed to be studying business informatics right now, and if I have to look at one more Excel spreadsheet I’m going to lose it completely.