I´m struggling with the existence and use of pronouns in Spanish. This is the type of help I am getting: (honest-to-god-Berlitz example)
¨Se trata de aceptar una nueva realidad territorial. Ello equivale a recompensar las depuraciones etnicas.¨
Actual Translation: ¨It´s a question of accepting a new territorial reality. That is the equvalent of rewarding ethnic cleansing.¨ (emphasis in the original).
OK. Hold on. I don´t even know what that means IN ENGLISH! This is not a good sign...
Being back in school is forcing my old bad habits and coping mechanisms to the surface. I STILL panic whenever we start a new topic. I´m still taken aback by the fact that the teacher won´t just stop what she´s doing and explain, (in a non-foreign language, thank you very much) just what the heck is going on. I still also resort to being the class clown. Because, if I can´t get all the answers right, at least I can amuse everyone (and serve some sort of purpose).
I'm also obsessed with classroom dynamics and am incredibly, unreasonably territorial of my desk and my friends. This whole ¨fitting in¨routine has always caused me more heartburn than necessary. Time, degrees and job titles haven´t changed that. As I said to my mega smart, ultra hot, Chinese American girlfriend last week. ¨The Japanese and Thai kids are cool, but I don´t want to get stuck hanging out with the Asians for the whole time.¨
I found out how bad its gotten today, when we had a new student introduced to our class and my alarms started ringing like crazy. He´s an American (that´s MY gig!) from some tiny school, 24 and studying for the MCAT (I didn´t realize they gave it in Spanish these days) and he´s got a laptop with wifi access. He seems nice enough and doesn´t know a soul in Seville. So, of course, I did absolutely nothing to help ease him in, didn't introduce him to anyone or clue him in to what we are studying in class, etc. You see, we´ve worked so hard (in 2 weeks...) to establish this cocoon world of ours, and I didn´t want some know-it-all Yank (well, he´s from Georgia, but STILL) coming in and spoiling the show.
There are some signs of progress for me, though. I´ve been making flashcards of verbs, doing my homework, and even assigning myself more work in ¨problem¨areas. If you´ve only known me during the last 7 years, you´d think: ¨and....what´s the big deal?¨but if you went to college, or god forbid, high school with me, you´d know what a quantum leap forward I´ve made in student survival skills.
You see, I was introduced to my very first day planner/calendar at the start of junior year of college...and then only because I worked for the school bookstore and they gave me one for free. Up until that point, I had just happily walked the earth in baggy plaid shorts and a striped shirt, smoking Camel Wides, (not) working in the school cafeteria and stopping only long enough to realize THERE WAS A TEST TOMORROW AND MY BOOK STILL MADE THAT CRACKING SOUND WHEN I OPENED IT!!!
There is no way to overestimate how unnatural planning and pacing and layering came to me. I remember in high school, a guy I knew decided to take Economics by ¨correspondence¨which meant that you got the book and the assignments, and had to complete them all on SCAN-TRON and then show up somewhere for your final at the end of the year and you´d get credit for the class, having never set foot into the classroom. Said dude was falling behind on his regular assignments and was forced by his parents to create a month long schedule, listing out what chapters he´d complete, and when, with the goal of finishing the class in the month (so he could pass and graduate highschool). I remember being near tears at the injustice of this most-onerous punishment. To me its seemed capricious and impossible. HOW IN THE WORLD was he supposed to know what he´d be doing a month from now? How was that even possible? He´s not a mind reader, or a time traveler. I mean, what did they want from this kid!!?? (Or so was my thinking for the first 20 + years of my life).
But if there´s proof that things can change, I´m it. I was never foolish enough to take a Correspondence course. I just kept showing up. One day, I started taking notes (or paying someone else to do so) and then much later, I actually started looking at said notes and thinking ahead. And the rest is history.
Sometimes I think I don´t get enough credit for what I´ve accomplished. I mean, yeah, my mom is proud that I graduated from law school, and have a great job, but wouldn´t she be even MORE proud if I´d done all that AND BEEN BLIND!? Or what if I was war orphan? that would rule! Then everybody´d see how much I´ve done. I guess I´m always looking for ways to be more impressive...not by doing more, mind you, but by coming from less. Its worked to mixed results. My girlfriend is sorta impressed with the stuff I´ve done. But I´ve also convinced that I´m (her words) ¨a little bit retarded¨
Ah well, can´t win em all.
But, if I can pass this test on Friday, I´ll win one more...
6 comments:
From DirtyRican:
"by coming from less"? You're a fake Mexican, for Pedro's sake! How "lesser" can you get? So get your head up, friend: you ARE quite impressive (albeit a little retarded).
And in case you find yourself resorting to the heavens for help, remember this traditional prayer: "Virgen María, tu que concebiste sin pecar, ayúdanos a pecar sin concebir."
Amén.
hell, even i have seen a marked change in the major over the past seven years. the boy who once cowered in the semi-round rotunda of crim law drawing sketches of beale in the nude and texting love messages to reznick, has now found himself as a part-hispanic and part-asian retarded male, living in an area of the world actually lazier than he is and that gives the proper reverence to a person that can eat the most hot dogs after 2am, and blogging about how much he is studying! a dios mio (sorry - don't have those nifty spanish keys on my trs-80).
by the way - has anyone noticed that at the same time deegs went to espana, we got beckham? personally...i think we got hosed.
Remember the episode of the Cosby Show where it turns out that Theo's inexplicably mediocre grades are a result of his dyslexia? Admit it, you wish you were Theo Huxtable, and everyone would say "wow, he's such a genius: he made it through law school even though he was dyslexic. Imagine what he could do had the universe not so unjustly dealt him this disability!"
Then again, had you not had the shining examples of Malakas and myself, would you have descended fully to the dark side of skipping class and not studying? Maybe your need to "fit in" served you well in your darkest moments. Then again, maybe not.
On a totally unrelated subject, are people shooting their pistolas in the air with excitement at the pending release of the final chapter of Harry Potter? Do they read Harry Potter there? I always get a kick out of translated famous movie and book titles.
That traditional prayer from DirtyRican is funny. For you non-spanish speakers (hopefully the original deegster is no longer in this camp), it translates as "Virgin Mary, who became pregnant without sin, please help us to sin without getting pregnant."
Now that is a prayer I will have start making. Thanks Dirty. Also, I just saw your girlfriend in a zebra print bikini on Saturday and I have to agree with your assessment of hotness. And seeing that she's dating you, I'd have to say she's a little bit retarded, too. ;)
Deegs! I'm still bumping that I missed the going away party. This thing is hilarious. Its like the underground. Someone starts laughing really hard to themselves and you're like "what's so funny? I know you're up to something. Tell me now!" So Heather linked me and I linked Laron. All said - You are a riot even in Spain. You gotta love it. Keep it coming.
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