Good morning. It’s a gloomy morning—no light, no sun, just clouds and me. Last night, I had a delightful dream in which my cat, Sheba, came back to me. I was able to pet her once more, and she was happily exploring the house.

"Is that Sheba?" my mum asked.

"Yes, Mummy," I replied, cradling my fluffy companion in my arms.

My cat looked at me with her gentle eyes, as if nothing had changed. It felt like just another sunny day—everything was perfect and serene. Sheba seemed to understand the joy of our reunion; her purring resonated through the air as she nestled against me, filling the room with warmth and comfort.

But it was just a dream.

I woke up to a hearty breakfast of pancakes with quark and a steaming cup of coffee. Afterwards, I practised all the languages in my current repertoire: Slovenian, Hindi, and Greek. While there are other languages I haven't yet added to my list, I'm gradually working my way through them - not aiming for perfection, but for practical understanding. My approach prioritises real communication over textbook learning, relying mainly on YouTube videos and conversations rather than grammar drills or language apps.

After that, I settled down for a few leisurely games of chess online. To my pleasant surprise, I managed to win both matches without making any significant blunders - quite an achievement for me, as I'm usually prone to the occasional tactical oversight. The games were satisfyingly crisp, with neither my opponents nor myself dropping pieces carelessly or missing obvious forks. I even spotted a nice knight sacrifice in the second game that led to a forced mate in three, which left me rather chuffed with myself. It's not often I get to enjoy such flawlessly played games back-to-back.

After that, I went to school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. There, I had four classes on my timetable: two German classes, maths, and literature. In the first German lesson, we had to write an essay—mine was chock-full of mistakes, a proper dog’s dinner! I thought I’d nailed it, but when the teacher handed it back, it looked like a spider had danced across the page in red ink. Still, no use crying over spilt milk; I’ll just have to pull my socks up next time. The second German class went smoother, thank goodness, though maths later had me scratching my head—it was a real brain-twister! As for literature, we analysed a poem that went right over my head at first, but by the end, it all clicked into place. By the time the last bell rang, I was ready to call it a day and leg it home.

In the afternoon, I ate some mushrooms. I must say, I’m not keen on mushrooms cooked the German way—they’re a bit too sour for my taste. I much prefer Russian-style mushrooms; they’re far more delicate, I would say.

So, later, I was just watching YouTube, right? Then out of nowhere, I’m somehow in some random person’s account. Like, I hadn’t even logged out of mine, but suddenly there’s this different profile pic and all these weird recommendations—nothing like what I’d normally watch.

I clicked on the avatar, and it was some girl in her twenties. Looked nice, probably Latina or Spanish or something. No idea who she was—never searched for her—but somehow I could edit her whole account? Proper weird.

I’m not about that life, barging into people’s accounts like I own ’em. Then, just like that, it went back to normal. Opened another tab, and boom—my proper YouTube was there, all my usual stuff.

In the evening, I had my usual German class. We skipped the traditional Grimm’s Fairy Tales this time and wrote our own – with a grammar twist. My favourite was "The Tale of the Lost ‘Das’", a story about a confused little spoon (der Löffel) who thought he was neuter (das Löffel) because he’d fallen into a magic pond. The villagers – all correctly gendered nouns, of course – kept correcting him: "Nein, du bist DER Löffel!"* while he stubbornly insisted "Ich bin DAS Löffel!" until the town’s wise old book (das Buch, obviously) sorted it all out. Turns out, even fairytales need good grammar.

English class afterwards followed the same idea – we invented silly stories where past participles got lost and phrasal verbs threw parties. It’s the same routine every day, but when you’re making up tales about rebellious commas or German nouns with identity crises, it hardly feels like studying.