My German is at a weird place

It's also called a frustrating place! I'm learning about all sorts of confusing things, like the article in the accusative form, all while I still have a limited vocabulary. I've also been absolutely horrible and haven't studied at all on my own since my class ended this spring. I've pursued other classes; the bonus is that I can speak about the long and short term impact of the French Revolution on Germany; the difference between Kollwitz's and the Romantic's art; etc.

The downside is that my German learning is in a weird place because I have startling bursts of clarity when I can read signs but can't understand announcers on the radio unless it's the traffic report. Or, when I stumbled across an article written in Dutch and read bits of it without realizing it was in Dutch, I only realized when I stumbled on the words that have a lot of "oo"s in them that it's not actually German I was reading. Believe me, it was a mind trip last month when I was in Ghent and could read some of the Dutch signs! It's neat how that works, since there are some similarities between the languages.

Then, I try to deal with Kabel Deutschland and get shot down. I'll have to write about that in more depth in the future. Basically, in store service around here = friendly people who try their best to help even while being flustered about speaking English. Calling KD for stuff the in store people can't do = an exercise in futility. They basically tell me to take a long walk off a short pier if I won't speak German on the phone. Yes, I can understand; it's Germany and I should speak German. However, I have a feeling that the company might not be allowing their call center people to speak English on the phone even if they know it.