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Taking Stock
German has several words for looking back and summing up. A Bilanz is literally a balance sheet, and Bilanz ziehen, to draw up the balance, is used for any kind of review, from a company's year to a personal one; a Zwischenbilanz is an interim one. Newspapers run Jahresbilanzen in December, and politicians are asked for a Bilanz after their first hundred days in office. November is a natural moment for it. The days are short and often gray, the outdoor season is over, and the run-up to Christmas has not quite begun; some people call it the gloomiest month of the year. It is also traditionally a month of remembrance, with several days set aside for the dead and for reflection. Many Germans fill their winter evenings with regular commitments: choir practice, sports clubs, adult-education courses, volunteering. A common piece of advice, especially for people new to a city, is not to sign up for everything at once. Burnout, borrowed into German as das Burnout, is a frequent topic in magazines, and the stress of overplanned leisure has its own word: Freizeitstress.