This morning on my way home from the gym I stopped at the chino and bought some bread for my lunch. I was planning on having some wine with dinner tonight while I watched the endless election returns, but instead got a small bottle of champagne. I sure hope I will have a reason to drink it.
It's very warm today. My computer is saying it is 29 degrees, which I think is probably high 70's, low 80's. It feels like summer. Strange to have summer in November.
I had my 2nd Spanish lesson today with my new teacher Leo. He had given me some worksheets last Thursday as a review of the subjunctive, one of the most difficult things about Spanish for me (and many others who study Spanish). It seemed easy when he gave it to me and if I had done it right afterwards, would not have been that bad. But I waited until 30 minutes before he was supposed to arrive before I made any attempt at completing the worksheet and I was totally confused. I looked online for some help but it only made me more confused. By the time he got here, I was in a daze.
I was a bit embarassed because the worksheets had spots and stains on them from food I'd dripped on them. They had been sitting on my coffee table since last Thursday. In addition, I messed up some of the exercises and didn't finish others. He was cool about it though and tried to explain the difference to me.
I found that his grammar explanations felt like a vise around my brain. I was trying to comprehend this theoretical explanation about why we use one subjunctive over another, but it just was not clicking. Finally I told him I needed some coffee and made a quick pot and we both had a cup.
He decided to move on to conversation, and between that and the coffee I began to perk up.
The thing I like about this guy is that he knows what I need, and I need to speak. Those who know me know that I am not always the easiest person to get to speak. When I return from 5 months here, there will be people who will say, "How was Argentina?" and my response will be "it was ok", and unless I am pressed for more, and pressed again, that will be the extent of the conversation.
So, Leo tried a few times to get me to talk, first by asking me what I did on the weekend. I had not done much, so that was a dud. He then asked me what I had done since last Thursday. Again, dud. He asked me what was new in my life. Dud. Then he asked me to tell him about a trip I had taken. He asked me if I had ever been to Europe and I began to tell him about my one and only trip there.
Then we talked about a trip to Nicaragua, and that led us to talking about politics, including my favorite topic of late, the U.S. election. Before I knew it, it was 3:45, and we were supposed to have finished at 3:30.
I kept making the same mistake as I tried to communicate during those two hours, but I never stopped to write anything down and couldn't tell you what the mistake was (other than I noticed I kept making it). So, even though I think I could have been a little more vigilant in trying to understand my mistakes, I think that the exercise of speaking in a foreign language is, in and of itself, very useful.
If learning is a process of creating new pathways in the brain, for me, speaking in another language is an important part of that process. I felt like I was driving around a very complicated roadway and at times would take the wrong turn and had to go back and try again. Thanks to Leo, I was able to find that correct path. And like driving, if you take the same turn over and over again, you reach a point where you don't have to think about where to turn anymore, it becomes kind of automatic (though at times you might still miss the turn).
When I am put in a position where I have to speak a lot of Spanish I can feel like my brain is being engaged on a whole different level. When Leo tried to explain the rules for the subjunctive to me, my brain shut down. But when I had to speak, it was like my brain had come back to life and was alive and awake.
Oh god, I have the TV on in the other room and I can hear the last gasps of John McCain rasping out the same old tired slogans "you'll know thier names!", "fight to the finish", "the Mac is back!" I wish he would just go play golf.
Ok, well, he distracted me from my musings about learning, so I think it is time to go and change the channel until I can assume CNN had begun reporting some results, enough that I will be able to open my champagne before I go to bed.
Oh, and if for some reason this election goes a different way than I am expecting. I think I'll just stay here.
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