2023 Summary: Part 2

In May, I went up to Pittsburgh for Mothers’ Day weekend. My brother’s New Zealand work visa had come through, so he was saying goodbye to the family.

Exam results

In June, I got the notification that I had passed my DELE exam. Woot!

The breakdown on scoring is a maximum of 25 points each for reading comprehension, writing skill, listening comprehension, and vocal interaction. You need 30 points total between reading and writing and again between listening and speaking.

My scores were:

• Reading: 20.14
• Writing: 17.81
• Listening: 17.50
• Speaking: 15.85

With totals of 37.95 and 33.35, I was found competent.

Pride

As usual, I helped coordinate participation in Capital Pride by local Quakers. That meant I couldn’t go to the weekend-long queer tango workshop and learn some tango, but I still went to see a performance late Sunday afternoon and connect with José, who organizes the DC Queer Tango Collective.

Adventure begins

At the end of June I set off to circumnavigate the globe. No, really. My flight plan went Dulles, Virginia to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Frankfurt, Germany to Nairobi, Kenya to New Delhi, India to Bengaluru, India to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia to Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand to Wellington, New Zealand back to Auckland to Los Angeles, California and finally back to Dulles. That was Air Canada, Air India, Air Asia, Air New Zealand, and United.