Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

If asked to name the finest moment of my almost-year on placement in Graz, Austria during the 2012-13 academic year, I would think that the thoroughly enjoyable weekend spent in Vienna, in the warm May sunshine, would spring eagerly to mind. Other notable achievements included using my knowledge of German to translate a text for a local TV company and to perform a rap in German in my last week at the college where I was working (quite exhilarating), carrying out a language investigation with the college students for my university project and invigilating an exam (even less interesting than it sounds, believe me).

 

And, on a more wide-ranging note, I couldn’t fail to be motivated by having a job (teaching assistant) that involved so many presentations, and to build a rapport with those students, given the behind-the-scenes nature of so much of my subsequent work in education, including my current role at this university.

 

Of course, any placement is a finite length of time, and should therefore be approached in that knowledge. I made it my mission to meet as many new people as possible, and vigorously pursued this goal beyond the college, absorbing myself in the lively nightlife of the southern Austrian city and conversing in German with the locals whose destinies entwined with my own, in one way or another. I’d urge those of you currently on, or about to embark upon, your year abroad to ‘throw yourself into’ wherever you are at an early stage, do everything in your power to create opportunities, and never wait for things to happen.

 

Yet those are simply the ‘edited highlights’ of my time on placement. The more I look back at my diaries from 2012-13, the more clearly I see what looks like a discernible and consistent cycle of setbacks, bad days, skiing trips that I didn’t enjoy and disagreements with my manager at the college (who was unanimously disliked by everyone else) in amongst the highpoints. I suppose any placement will have its share of low moments, but I’d simply tell my youthful-looking 20-year-old self to analyse what does go well, with a view to replicating it later down the line, rather than dwell on the disappointments, and to re-configure one’s thinking along the lines of living an adventure, away from what you’re familiar with, where you can grow through time by building on your strengths and find out what you’re truly capable of.

 

The spring 2013 phase in which everything seemed to come together – culminating in the Vienna weekend – became a benchmark, a reference point for the future. Now, at a still-youthful-looking 26, I can see that my current life is based, in part, on what went well in that time.

 

I remember feeling such a sense of satisfaction post-Vienna, as real and pure as satisfaction can get. When times are as good as this (and if it hasn’t already happened for you, it will), savour it, because it very quickly slides into indifference and gets forgotten as life strolls on. I only hope that you have a manager who is vaguely likeable!