Spanish and Church Classes...

...Or is it the other way around?

Yesterday we went to church with our landlady, Susana. It was a Catholic church, and of course I wasn´t able to recite along with the liturgy, but with some context, I could follow the Bible readings pretty well. For instance, I could not, for the life of me, figure out why they kept talking about food, and a table, and more food. Then Elizabeth explained they were reading about the Last Supper...and it was suddenly so clear! Of course, then I had to ask myself why I hadn´t figured that out already. Why else would they keep talking about food? Anyway, we enjoyed the whole service, but by far the best part was the music. It was typical of a Catholic service, with the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, etc., but with Spanish guitars, harmonies, and singing style. It was absolutely heavenly.

Today, we started our Spanish classes. They will be primarily one-on-one, talking with my teacher for four hours and imroving my grammatical knowledge, vocabulary list, and conversational skills. Occasionally the whole group will come together and doing an activity, which translates as everyone making idiots of themselves, except that one person who knows more than everyone else, knows they know more than everyone else, and tries to act like they don´t feel superior because they know more than everyone else. Each class period is four hours, and we´ll have five of them. In addition to that, every afternoon we´ll have activities that last a few hours, where we´ll go out and see things around the city or the nearby cities. Unfortunately, we´ll probably miss the activity on Thursday, since we plan to be with our uncle in Managua. The activity on Thursday is learning to cook some traditional dishes here...which would be really cool. Ah well, can´t win them all. The important thing is that on Wednesday we will be getting dance lessons, including salsa and merengue, for which I´m duly excited. So far, in the one-on-one, I´m fairly pleased with how much I understand, and fairly frustrated with my lack of ability to respond. Nothing unusual, but frustrating nonetheless.

In our down time, we´re continuing to watch Buffy, which has actually helped a lot, giving us great vocabulary words like slaying, blood, soul, help me, death, devour...I´m rather fond of "sin duda," which means "no doubt." Good old Joss. But kidding aside (well, actually, that´s all true, but in addition to that) we really find that the more we watch, the better we´re able to understand the quick talking, and catch the gist of what they´re saying. It´s a good feeling. Also, some of the annoying characters are less annoying with a different voice and language. On the flip side, some of the delightful characters are more annoying with a different voice and language. Ya win some, ya lose some.

In other k-news, it´s been decided that I have a new Dark Conflicted Man (TM). His name is Ender Wiggin (or Andrew Wiggin), and I suppose he´s the youngest yet, even though he´s 21ish by the end of the first book. But he starts out at 6, so I think he counts as the youngest. He now officially joins the ranks of the DCM (TM) as number twenty-four, and I´m sure he will bear the title proudly.

Did ew know...?
There are too many irregular verbs.
Thank you for choosing Lod´s Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.