Weird German Helps

Dear Wal,

As some of you may or may not already know, I'm taking German III over the summer. And let me tell you, it is intense. Only the brave or the foolish or the seriously genius would attempt what I'm doing right now. Very hardcore course to take over the summer, about three or more hours of work every day. We listened to a radio play in German, read a few articles in German and now we're reading a book in German. In the next unit, I have to write poems in German. That's going to be fun. The quality of the course is fantastic (I'm taking it through Oklahoma State University.) it's just that the whole thing is super concentrated into 40 days of work. It's been a trail to keep up with, along with all the other things I've been doing over the summer.
Anyway, I have some funny memory helps for some words I have trouble with. It's rather amusing. All I ever have to do is associate a word with superheroes, the Doctor or one of my original characters and I'm good.

traurig-sad I think of the Doctor's trainers, since the word starts with tra-. I mean the Tenth Doctor, because he is sad and amazing at the same time.
nur-only This one is a bit complicated. Nur makes me think of never, which makes me thing of the Onceler from The Lorax for some reason. And that makes me think of Jason, for reasons which will be revealed if I ever finish that fanfic and post it somewhere. And then Jason makes me think of only. Very long and convoluted train of thought, but it works.
die Freude-the joy I think of Sigmund Freud, and it's highly ironic that Freude means joy. In my opinion.

Those are just a few of many. Most of the time I hear a German word and it's meaning and it becomes seared into my brain. I like German a lot. I may or may not take German IV, considering how intense this course has been so far.

/endrant

P.S. I'm going fly fishing tomorrow.