Personas muy interesantes

Our Spanish class at the adult school ends with half an hour of "intercambios." The Spanish learners and the English learners get together for conversations. Fifteen minutes in English and 15 minutes in Spanish. While it is hard for me to make conversation with strangers (no matter what language!), I must say that it is one of the most interesting parts of the class. I have met so many interesting people.

There is a stereotype about Spanish speaking people who are living here in the US (maybe you noticed you had a different reaction to my phrase "English learners" above than you would have if I said Spanish speakers?). In California, as the Latino population has grown, the tension about Spanish speakers (bilingual or not) has grown as well. And, of course, when hearing someone speak in a language that they are not fluent in, it reinforces the idea that they are not educated. However, when speaking to them in their primary language, it is easier to see how articulate they are or that they have a wonderful sense of humor or how passionate they are about a topic they love. Their human qualities dominate and the stereotypes have to fall away.

While studying at the adult school (which has free English instruction) I have met a couple about my age from Vera Cruz who share many of my values, some twenty somethings from Michoacan who are just deciding what they want to do with their lives, a Spanish wine maker, a Venezuelan surfer, and many, many people who dream of moving from the adult school to college. We also have a group (who is there varies from week to week) that meets at a local coffee shop for conversation. We are usually there for 3+ hours. The group has been going since April. A few of us were talking and were remarking how we have never run out of things to talk about in all that time.
¡Qué bueno son los intercambios. Nos hacen más humanos.

It's a Small World After All.....

Blogs, blogs, y more blogs!
If you notice the list of my blog addiction you will see that I have added a few. Notice that they are in Spanish! And if you click on them you will notice they are about knitting, weaving and spinning! So, now my fiber blog reading will be reading in Spanish.

The one thing that seems true no matter where "yarn people" live (Argentina, Mexico, Spain are all represented on these blogs) was the first line of one of the blogs!

Me parece que tengo un petit problema de no terminar lo que comienzo…
It seems to me I have a small problem of not finishing what I start... Ha ha ha!!!!

Una clase de espanol muy mal

Had a Spanish class tonight. Very frustrating. For lots of reasons. Mostly due to my lack of time to practice. Some of the frustration was with the other students. I think that being a teacher makes me more sensitive to how a class should go and I resent when the teacher doesn't keep control of those students who want to monopolize the class.

But most of my dissatisfaction is my own lack of practice and progress. So how do I fix this? Well, one option is to keep a journal (on paper, not online) in Spanish. Another option is to join a discussion board (online) that is in Spanish. Speaking is what I really need to practice, but my limited time means that I have to do this practice on my own schedule. So writing practice will have to take the place of speaking practice. I will find opportunities to speak at school. But many of the other students have scheduled an hour or so a day with a Spanish speaker to just practice. I don't have an extra hour and I don't know any Spanish speakers who have the time either. After September is over I will be more free on Friday evenings and maybe we can go back to our coffee shop intercambios.

Now I am off to find some website where I can have online discussions in Spanish. At least online discussions can't be monopolized! I won't have to work so hard to be able to get into the conversation.

On a positive note (can you tell this isn't one of my most positive evenings?), it makes me more aware of how I have to make sure that no students are feeling that they can't participate because classmates aren't letting them into the discussion.

Aaaaaaaah...lmost summer!

The finals have been given, the party has been given, the diplomas have been given. The grades...not so much! I still have one more set of finals to grade today and then I calculate the grades and post them by tomorrow at 10. That was the deadline I set for myself.

I did take yesterday off to relax and imagine what summer will be like. After a little bit of cleanup of after-party mess, I took a nap, I read blogs, (see blog addiction list, right) I knitted. I am working on baby booties for a colleague of the dear husband. I already made little baby socks from tofutsies I had leftover. Now I am doing boots from cotton chenile I had left over. I hate knitting with this!! It has no stretch and it constantly gets caught on itself. One bootie is done and I need to start the second. They are cute though, and don't take long, so it is worth the effort to knit with this yarn. I will post pictures when they are done.

A new project
Oh yes, I needed a new one, didn't I! (My screen name on Ravelry is 1hundredprojects!) It actually is something I found on Ravelry--a group is reading Don Quixote! I have wanted to reread this for awhile and now I have some company. An online book group. No wine, no potluck, but on the other hand it has definite advantages! So I went to Librivox to get the free audio book version. (Girls in college--you might want to check this out!) Librivox has public domain books, so mostly old classics. They are read by volunteers so for DQ it is not the same reader for each chapter (the readers on audible are voice actors and are better--but not free). But it will help me catch up to the group. And maybe by using the audio book I can also have some time to read it in Spanish. That way it ties into my Spanish fluency project!