Progress Report

We changed instructors at week four since the course is actually three consecutive three-week sessions. Monday was the 4th of July holiday, so it was already going to be a short week. I was a little concerned because we cover a chapter a week, and four days has been barely enough to keep up. I spend most of the weekend before getting a head start, so much of the homework, “tarea,” is ready to hand in and I’m reasonably familiar with all the content of the chapter. It’s been a full-time effort, but I’m keeping up and getting A’s on all the assignments and tests. Not really important since I’m auditing the class, but a good indication that I’m doing satisfactory work and making progress.

But Tuesday when the new instructor arrived, we watched the film The Motorcycle Diaries, which I had already seen and which is well worth watching again. After the film, the new guy assigned a composition, then said he wasn’t feeling well and was going home early.

Wednesday I arrived for class and there were only four other students of the fifteen or so still remaining. One of the guys checked email and found a message that had gone out the night before from the instructor saying he was quite ill but would get out an assignment sheet soon.

That night, the same message, so we had now lost a full week, and still no study guide. By Saturday night back home, I wasn’t sure we still had a class. I thought the instructor might have died at home and nobody even knew ityet. Or possibly he’d been able to contact the department chair who was looking for a replacement, but I know that during the summer, faculty disappear like cockroaches when the lights go on, and finding a replacement was not likely. There are only so many cockroaches. I guessed there was better than a fifty-percent chance the class would crash and my summer experience would be over.

Monday morning, though, our guy was there, and I learned that an email had gone out Sunday afternoon with a short study guide. I don’t have computer access in the RV park where I’m staying, so I didn’t get the message.

For the next two weeks, life was crazy. He had to cram three chapters into two weeks, and I was now working from behind the curve instead of ahead of it. We also had a new composition to write, a skit to prepare with a few other students, and a chapter test every two or three days instead of at the end of the week.

It was brutal. By the night before the last test, I had given up on anything more than a quick review of new grammar and readings that I didn’t really understand.

In the end, the test last Thursday wasn’t so bad. He included useful aids, such as a list of verbs to choose from and notes on when and how to use them, so I think I did reasonably well. The best part, though, is that this weekend I’ve been back to my usual routine, with only one chapter to prepare and a sense that I’m going to be ahead when we start class tomorrow.

More good news: Mary is down in Santa Cruz for a wedding I was able to beg off from; though it was the son of some very old friends, I generally don’t like weddings or funerals, and I was glad for the excuse. I’ll do the occasional birthday party.

Bad news: today is the Motorcycle Grand Prix at Laguna Seca in Monterey, and it’s the first time I’ve missed the race in many years. I’m watching it this afternoon on TV with a friend, so that’s some compensation.

I’m making good progress in class, but it’s slow. I know a lot more than I did before, but speech, such as it is, is still halting at best. Listening comprehension is getting a little better, but when I watch a Spanish-language movie, I still have to rely mostly on subtitles, catching only parts of the dialogue here and there.

Note: Sin Nombre is an excellent film, and I highly recommend it. It should be required watching for all the virulent anti-immigrants, though it probably wouldn’t change their thinking much. But still. . . .

So this morning I keep working for a few hours. Then I have to take the dogs to the kennel because Mary will be gone a few more days and I’m heading back to the trailer after I watch the race. There I’ll spend most of the afternoon and evening studying some more. Tomorrow, back to class for the last three weeks of the program.

I’m so glad I was finally able to do this, and I’m already thinking ahead to ways that I can continue to study when the class ends.

I have some ideas.

Laca laca laca

I just wrote to Broshat that I’m three weeks into my nine week Spanish-intensive summer program, and it feels like Spanish boot camp. But a few guys actually liked boot camp because what are they gonna do, send me to Vietnam? (This was back when I actually was in boot camp and they did send everybody to Vietnam. I wasn’t one of those guys because this is a metaphor which starting getting away from me about three lines back. Who enjoyed boot camp? is what I’m saying. They did send me to Vietnam, and I didn’t enjoy that either.)

I am, however, enjoying my class very much, though it's taking it's toll.

I work mostly all the time the four days a week I’m living in our trailer near school. Weekends home I work about half-time and spend the rest doing a few things around the house and trying to spend quality time with Mary. The old “quality time" thing, which is what you call it when you know you’re preoccupied and being something of a pain in the ass.

We change teachers next week since it’s technically three courses in sequence. I liked Lady Vanderlip well enough, although over the last week she slipping into speaking mostly ingles in class, something I think would take great discipline not to do. Manipulation of body language and facial expression by students can get a teacher to do about anything including delivering lectures wearing a swim mask and flippers, so foreign language teachers have to accept that when they’re actually speaking the language they’re trying to teach, students will often look at them like they’re from what used to be the planet Pluto. Also, the three native speakers I’ve had as teachers seem to need to share a lot of detail about growing up in their native countries, which is certainly interesting but, hey, I’m trying to learn Spanish here. I’m not signed up to learn about growing up in Panama.

The new teacher starts next week and I understand he’s not a native speaker but almost never speaks ingles in class. I’m hoping the new drill sergeant will stay on-task.

I’m making good progress but still basically a beginner. When I overhear real Spanish, my reaction is “Hey, that’s Spanish!" but beyond that I’m mostly in the dark. Also, the subjunctive was invented during the Spanish Inquisition as a way to torture heretics and it somehow caught on. It’s complicated as hell and serves virtually no communicative function as far as I can tell. I’ll bet the first thing L.L. Zamenhof did when he developed Esperanto was dump the subjunctive. Esperanto itself, btw, in a very interesting story which you can find with a quick Wikipedia search.

“Laca laca laca” means “blah blah blah” I learned this week, so that’s become my goal, to be able to laca laca laca in a language not my own and which I started to study after I turned sixty. Also, btw, I’m the only student in my class over twenty-two, I’d guess, so talk about wearing a swim mask and flippers. They’d probably warm to me faster if I wore a burka, but finally the chill is wearing off and a few students have actually said a few words to me before class starts.

Laca.