For whatever reason, Germany celebrates Pride in July. I joke that it’s because Germany is always a little behind on matters of social justice, but in reality Berlin’s Pride is a multi-faceted event, with celebrations, protests, and parties. Last year, I joined the mainstream Christopher Street Day event. This year, I opted to join some friends and coworkers at the Internationalist Queer Pride event, a protest demo that started at Hermannplatz and avoided the corporate celebrations of the CSD event.

I had a good time, but I also find the demo scene in Berlin a little repetitive and frustrating. Trying to be everything all at once, it ends up being nothing clear. Emcees tried leading chants, but 40 meters away was a boombox blasting techno on a Lastenrad. It was hard to figure out the theme. In preparation for the event, I gave a reading from a part of my chapter in the forthcoming ¡No Pasarán! anthology by Shane Burley to some folks at work. It was the first time I’ve ever done a reading of something I’ve published. I’m hoping to do a bit more of that soon.

Otherwise, the week was mostly preparatory for lots and lots of work. I got back to German lessons, doing 8 hours of course time during the week. If I can keep this pace, I can knock out my review of B2 in 3 months, while using some development budget from my job to begin C1 lessons. I also signed back up for Czech classes at the local Volkshochschule, and started working back through the textbook.

Oh, and finally, after 3 months post-COVID, I was able to start running. I’m restarting the C25K program from day 1. It’s not bad, and although I absolutely hate getting up in the morning, I love how I feel after. Otherwise, mostly I played Horizon: Forbidden West on my new PS5 and let me tell you, having a PS5 is amazing.

What I’m Learning

• Lingoda B2.2 (review): 14%
• Deutsche Üben B1 (review): 89%
• Česky Krok za krokem 1: 8%

The week ahead

Work will be absolute chaos next week, my schedule is incredibly full of workshops. Otherwise, knocking out more running, German lessons, and resuming MCU phase 3. I’m on the first MCU Spiderman movie. Honestly, and I’m gonna be problematic here, I don’t like these movies. But I’ll power through anyways.