So my theory about the undulation of my feelings about Spanish are proven yet again. The pessimism reflected in my last post has been overwhelmed by two realizations:
1) I am fluent in Spanish.
2) I am in Spain.
The former I realized lying in my bed. And since I came here with 2 main goals (become fluent and have a good time), I am doing what I need to be doing and that is really all that matters.
The latter I realized this for the 100th time as I was talking out the trash a couple nights ago at 23:30. I responded by throwing mt head back, running down the middle of the street with a trash bag in both hands, and laughing hysterically. My neighbors must think Americans are insane.
On a totally unrelated topic I took my math test today and feel as though I did quite well. This is the first time I have actually felt like I did well on a test since I have come to Spain-wow I missed knowing what I am doing! But I I knew how to do all but one of the problems, which is a definite improvement over my last test when I was only sure how to do one thing! TAKE THAT MATH!
Anyway-on yet another totally random topic-I just tried "gulas" which are a farmed form of "angulas" which translates to "elvers" which dictionary.com defines as:
Elvers
-Noun
a young eel, esp. one that is migrating up a stream from the ocean.
Anyway, angulas apparently cost about 1000€ per kilo, thus we were eating the farmed form which, while still extremely expensive, are far more reasonably priced.
... They were not very good.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Hola Niños Y Niñas.
Buenos días mundo (aúnque no debo decir "mundo" porque la unica gente que lee esto están en EEUU).
Nada ha pasado.
Me aburre.
Siento como mi español está empeorando.
Y hemos empezado estadisticas...
Odio estadisticas.
¿Que divertido, no?
Nada ha pasado.
Me aburre.
Siento como mi español está empeorando.
Y hemos empezado estadisticas...
Odio estadisticas.
¿Que divertido, no?
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
My Hand Is Green... Does That Mean It Is Jealous Of The Rest Of Me?
Well boys and girls I finally got my cast off. And even though I still cannot bend my pinky and have to keep it buddy-taped (not to mention that my hand is a mixture of purple and green), I am still extremely happy that it is gone! It also means that I can type again, thus I now feel compelled to write about all that has happened during the imprisonment of my poor, innocent hand.
To start off the list I turned 19. Now let me say this: Spaniards know their cake. I have eaten many cakes in my day and this cake-while fairly small-was by far the best cake I have ever eaten in my life. The only real downside was I had a hellacious headache when I got home from school, which would not have been a problem except my bed was covered in balloons and presents when I got home so I had to clear my bed of obstructions before napping. But speaking of presents, I was gifted rather heavily by my host parents. They gave me a shirt, a couple books, and a jacket. That may not seem like a ton but clothing is extremely expensive over here with a regular T-shirt costing about 30€. Thus the jacket-which is a Calvin Klein jacket and about 8 points more preppy than I would normally wear but it is really nice-probably cost around 300€. To be honest I do not really like to wear it because I am terrified that I am going to ruin it in some way...
School is rocking... or at least as much as school can. I got invited on a weekend trip to Salamanca yesterday, and even though I can not go because of Rotary rules and all that it was still nice to get invited! I also passed my geografia test! This might not sound like much of an accomplishment but I should explain the difference between American and Spanish schools.
In American schools, if you go to class, do the homework, and study, you will pass no matter who you are. (There are exceptions to this of course.) Thus we focus more on how much you pass by. We have an honor roll and give out awards for good grades. There are students who make it through all of high school with a 4.0 but score under 30 on the ACT. In Spanish schools, grades do not matter so long as you pass. Of course it is also infinitely harder to get a passing grade and there is NO ONE who ever gets a 10 (the equivalent of an A), even they over-achievers who live for studying and would normally get a 36 on the ACT. A passing grade is a 5, thus anything better than a 5 is something to rejoice about. Well I just so happened to get a 5.6 on my geografia test and I am most definitely rejoicing!
Other classes are coming along somewhat too. I got a 2.1 on my math test which is quite bad, but half of my class did worse than that and no one in school who has this class was able to pass it. I blame the teacher, she it terrible.
Speaking of teachers, my teacher of lengua castellana LOVES saying "Eh?" She says it so much that we started counting the number of times she says it in one period. The two days we have counted she said it 169 times one day and 175 times the next. This is in a 50 minute period so she was saying "Eh" an average of once every 17.75 seconds and once every 17.14 seconds respectively. Some of you may frown and say tsk tsk that I am passing my time doing such pointless activities instead of "utilizing" my time. But one must realize that in order to count all the times she says "eh" I have to actually pay attention to her the whole class, which is an improvement.
Thanksgiving was... well... thankful. I rather love the way the Spaniards celebrate Thanksgiving, which is to say, they do not. They live more from the perspective that if you are thankful all year round you should not need a special day. We Americans tend to sometimes use Thanksgiving as an excuse to not be thankful for the other 364 days of the year (365 during a leap year). However Rotary rejoices in holidays likes Thanksgiving therefore there was a turkey dinner for all the exchange students and their families in the Madrid area. The turkey was OK, but lacked pie.
In the last two weeks there was also another Rotary Excursion which-although I do not want to whine-was quite boring. We went to Soria which is about 255 km away so it took almost 3 hours to get there. When we got there we went to a church/museum that was interesting, but nothing fantastic. Then we went to lunch which was quite tasty, and from there got on the bus for an hour bus ride to a little pueblo to see a Roman arch. Then we went home. Do not get me wrong. Everything was interesting, but considering that we were gone for 12 hours and spent 6 of it on the bus it felt kind of like a waste of time. I also forgot the memory card for my camera on the coffee table so I have no pictures. Boo.
That is far from all I have done these past few weeks, but you all will have to content yourselves with that because my brain is tired today. GOOD DAY!
Also for those of you who dont have a Facebook or just did not see it. If you want a postcard send me a message on Facebook (or if you do not have Facebook send me an E-mail). Might want to include WHY you of all people deserve a postcard as well as an ADDRESS to send it to!
To start off the list I turned 19. Now let me say this: Spaniards know their cake. I have eaten many cakes in my day and this cake-while fairly small-was by far the best cake I have ever eaten in my life. The only real downside was I had a hellacious headache when I got home from school, which would not have been a problem except my bed was covered in balloons and presents when I got home so I had to clear my bed of obstructions before napping. But speaking of presents, I was gifted rather heavily by my host parents. They gave me a shirt, a couple books, and a jacket. That may not seem like a ton but clothing is extremely expensive over here with a regular T-shirt costing about 30€. Thus the jacket-which is a Calvin Klein jacket and about 8 points more preppy than I would normally wear but it is really nice-probably cost around 300€. To be honest I do not really like to wear it because I am terrified that I am going to ruin it in some way...
School is rocking... or at least as much as school can. I got invited on a weekend trip to Salamanca yesterday, and even though I can not go because of Rotary rules and all that it was still nice to get invited! I also passed my geografia test! This might not sound like much of an accomplishment but I should explain the difference between American and Spanish schools.
In American schools, if you go to class, do the homework, and study, you will pass no matter who you are. (There are exceptions to this of course.) Thus we focus more on how much you pass by. We have an honor roll and give out awards for good grades. There are students who make it through all of high school with a 4.0 but score under 30 on the ACT. In Spanish schools, grades do not matter so long as you pass. Of course it is also infinitely harder to get a passing grade and there is NO ONE who ever gets a 10 (the equivalent of an A), even they over-achievers who live for studying and would normally get a 36 on the ACT. A passing grade is a 5, thus anything better than a 5 is something to rejoice about. Well I just so happened to get a 5.6 on my geografia test and I am most definitely rejoicing!
Other classes are coming along somewhat too. I got a 2.1 on my math test which is quite bad, but half of my class did worse than that and no one in school who has this class was able to pass it. I blame the teacher, she it terrible.
Speaking of teachers, my teacher of lengua castellana LOVES saying "Eh?" She says it so much that we started counting the number of times she says it in one period. The two days we have counted she said it 169 times one day and 175 times the next. This is in a 50 minute period so she was saying "Eh" an average of once every 17.75 seconds and once every 17.14 seconds respectively. Some of you may frown and say tsk tsk that I am passing my time doing such pointless activities instead of "utilizing" my time. But one must realize that in order to count all the times she says "eh" I have to actually pay attention to her the whole class, which is an improvement.
Thanksgiving was... well... thankful. I rather love the way the Spaniards celebrate Thanksgiving, which is to say, they do not. They live more from the perspective that if you are thankful all year round you should not need a special day. We Americans tend to sometimes use Thanksgiving as an excuse to not be thankful for the other 364 days of the year (365 during a leap year). However Rotary rejoices in holidays likes Thanksgiving therefore there was a turkey dinner for all the exchange students and their families in the Madrid area. The turkey was OK, but lacked pie.
In the last two weeks there was also another Rotary Excursion which-although I do not want to whine-was quite boring. We went to Soria which is about 255 km away so it took almost 3 hours to get there. When we got there we went to a church/museum that was interesting, but nothing fantastic. Then we went to lunch which was quite tasty, and from there got on the bus for an hour bus ride to a little pueblo to see a Roman arch. Then we went home. Do not get me wrong. Everything was interesting, but considering that we were gone for 12 hours and spent 6 of it on the bus it felt kind of like a waste of time. I also forgot the memory card for my camera on the coffee table so I have no pictures. Boo.
That is far from all I have done these past few weeks, but you all will have to content yourselves with that because my brain is tired today. GOOD DAY!
Also for those of you who dont have a Facebook or just did not see it. If you want a postcard send me a message on Facebook (or if you do not have Facebook send me an E-mail). Might want to include WHY you of all people deserve a postcard as well as an ADDRESS to send it to!
Friday, November 20, 2009
This will be brief because typing with one finger on your right hand due to a cast sucks.
So I have an irony to point out!
About a week after I got here my status on facebook read something like "they say that you should be more or less fluent in 2 months, by this reasoning I should be more or less fluent before my birthday." Well boys and girls I had my first spanish dream on november 19th... eg the day before my birthday... eg the last time I slept before my birthday... eg the last possible opportunity for that prediction to come true.
Even my subconscious procrastinates.
About a week after I got here my status on facebook read something like "they say that you should be more or less fluent in 2 months, by this reasoning I should be more or less fluent before my birthday." Well boys and girls I had my first spanish dream on november 19th... eg the day before my birthday... eg the last time I slept before my birthday... eg the last possible opportunity for that prediction to come true.
Even my subconscious procrastinates.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Matt Damon Should Never Ride A Scooter On Screen...
So I have discovered that watching movies in Spanish is by far one of my favorite pastimes. Watching movies that I have never seen before (like The Godfather, Death At A Funeral, etc.) it great like always, but there is also watching the great old favorites just to hear the same lines but in Spanish. My favorite so far is "No es volando. Es caer... con estilo!" (for those of you who are too lazy to translate, the quote is from Toy Story.) It also frees up some attention cells because I have seen it before so I notice odd things, like the fact that Matt Damon looks like a complete moron on a Mo-Ped.
Mondays suck. Tomorrow is one. Good Night.
Mondays suck. Tomorrow is one. Good Night.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Irony
I find it extremely humorous that my feelings about Spanish are in constant flux. (Of course feeling that is humorous fluctuates too.) One day I will be feeling like crap because I am feeling like my Spanish has not improved in weeks and I am just wasting time, and the next day I have a day when I have some great improvement. This happens fairly regularly, and it happened today.
The past few days I have been feeling kinda down on my Spanish skills because, like previously stated, I felt they were not really improving. My vocabulary was not grow (at least it felt like it), and I had to concentrate like all hell just to understand what is going on. Then today I was sitting in Psicología when I realized I was understanding the Jav (see previous posts if this confuses you). The fact that I was understanding was not in itself remarkable because I can usually kind of understand-more or less-what he is saying, but the fact that I was kind of-more or less- understanding WITHOUT CONCENTRATING struck me suddenly.
I was going to write way more than this but I am extremely tired so that is all.
buenas
The past few days I have been feeling kinda down on my Spanish skills because, like previously stated, I felt they were not really improving. My vocabulary was not grow (at least it felt like it), and I had to concentrate like all hell just to understand what is going on. Then today I was sitting in Psicología when I realized I was understanding the Jav (see previous posts if this confuses you). The fact that I was understanding was not in itself remarkable because I can usually kind of understand-more or less-what he is saying, but the fact that I was kind of-more or less- understanding WITHOUT CONCENTRATING struck me suddenly.
I was going to write way more than this but I am extremely tired so that is all.
buenas
Thursday, November 5, 2009
WARNING! DANGER! TAKE EVASIVE ACTION IMMEDIATELY!
My host mom has started to threaten birthday festivities...
And now on to a topic that has nothing to do with the title of this post. (the above line is, while true, really just an excuse to write "evasive action")
School is getting better. I had a philosophy exam yesterday, and today the philosophy teacher sought me out to tell me that I had done better than most of the class. I also do homework now because I can actually understand when the teachers tell us what we have to do, but I still usually have a reduced assignment. Not that I usually do it right, but I am getting there.
I am trying to cut back on English a little so that is all for today.
And now on to a topic that has nothing to do with the title of this post. (the above line is, while true, really just an excuse to write "evasive action")
School is getting better. I had a philosophy exam yesterday, and today the philosophy teacher sought me out to tell me that I had done better than most of the class. I also do homework now because I can actually understand when the teachers tell us what we have to do, but I still usually have a reduced assignment. Not that I usually do it right, but I am getting there.
I am trying to cut back on English a little so that is all for today.
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