My father is a man of many talents. Although I've always felt his greatest talent was the ability to string together swear-words as if it were an artform while watching Mariners games in August (despite them having a 30-60 record) his second greatest talent is the ability to spew pick-up lines in like 15 different languages. When I was a kid, I'd always just assumed he'd studied all of these languages individually and it just went to show that my dad was the smartest in town. It wasn't until much later in my adolescents that I discovered he'd actually just gleaned how to say 'you look pretty' from all of his foreign exchange students that he'd had over the years. It's as if he was somehow casting an X-rated version of Mr. Hollands Opus of his own. Needless to say, apples really don't fall far from the tree. On my first day of language class, wanting to flex my prior knowledge of Romanian (which consisted of literally three wordsI know I know, quite bragworthy), I told my Romanian teacher that I thought she was pretty. She wasn't impressed. At all. She has this particular type of charm that you don't really see in a lot of people. I think I can only characterize it as Catholic School Teacher strictness coupled with former Soviet Depression. It's really quite something. It's hard to get her to smile. I think the last time she ever laughed was the time she put a stick in the spokes of a Special Olympians' wheelchair. I'm kidding of coursebut this teacher is really, really tough.
I know it's atypical of me to say anything positive about anything, but I must admit, I'm really impressed with the method in which these language classes are being taught. It's like Rosetta StoneEN VIVO! All of the fun of Rosetta Stone with real, live teachers. I really think the way they teach us Romanian will be quite effective in the long-run, even if was already racing for the bottle by the end of day one. I think they put me in the smart kids class, and I'm sure I'll get bounced outta there ASAPit's way hard. I guess that's what I get for exaggerating my capabilities to learn a foreign language on the questionnaires! If any of you could tell by the women I've dated over the past few years, I don't really like a challenge, so we'll see how I handle this one.
Speaking of challenges. Our group of 41 got split up in half, half of us going to a middle school directly in front of a bus-stop, and the other half of us have our language classes in the morning at a 'nearby' high school. Note the quotes. In the afternoons, the entire group has to recovene at the middle school for afternoon meetings. Guess which one I got sent to?! Yesterday, the high school crew decided to hoof it over to the middle school to which we were told was a 'quick 15 minute walk.' Something got lost in translation. *TIME OUT* Let me back up. I know when you think of Romania you think of cold winters and Dracula, but straight upIT'S HOT HERE!!! LIKE REALLY F***ING HOT! Miami hot with D.C. humidityit's rough.*TIME IN* This hike would take Prefontaine an hour to get through, and my chubby ass was just drenched in sweat. Best part is, now that I'm sweating more than a menopausal woman, when our group got back to the middle school we were scurried away to this sauna of a room, where the only chairs in sight were those green plastic lawn chairs that tend to melt in the heat. My fingers started to get wrinkly, like when you've been in the shower for too long. I think I lost at least three pints of water today.
I've now had three classes and it really is impressive how quickly this is coming along. I can't really say too much, but what I heard as just sounds two days ago, I can now decipher as wordsand it's exciting. Romanian is a romance language and honestly does sound quite nice when it's not being bastardized by a foreigner who can barely get his tongue around the most basic words. But now that I have basic language abilities in Romanian, the living situation has improved ten-fold. There's no longer nothing but uncomfortable silence at every meal. I'm able to ask really groundbreaking and penetrating questions like 'where is the salt?' and 'what time is it?' You know, the stuff that revolutions start over. But G-d bless this host mom of minenow that I can ask a question, she'll literally give a five minute response to just about any comment I make. Step two will be trying to understand what the woman says.
That's all for now. I went to bed at 10pm tonight and for some reason woke up at 2amIt's now 3:15 and I have to be up in three hoursI'm going to try to get some sleep.
I know it's atypical of me to say anything positive about anything, but I must admit, I'm really impressed with the method in which these language classes are being taught. It's like Rosetta StoneEN VIVO! All of the fun of Rosetta Stone with real, live teachers. I really think the way they teach us Romanian will be quite effective in the long-run, even if was already racing for the bottle by the end of day one. I think they put me in the smart kids class, and I'm sure I'll get bounced outta there ASAPit's way hard. I guess that's what I get for exaggerating my capabilities to learn a foreign language on the questionnaires! If any of you could tell by the women I've dated over the past few years, I don't really like a challenge, so we'll see how I handle this one.
Speaking of challenges. Our group of 41 got split up in half, half of us going to a middle school directly in front of a bus-stop, and the other half of us have our language classes in the morning at a 'nearby' high school. Note the quotes. In the afternoons, the entire group has to recovene at the middle school for afternoon meetings. Guess which one I got sent to?! Yesterday, the high school crew decided to hoof it over to the middle school to which we were told was a 'quick 15 minute walk.' Something got lost in translation. *TIME OUT* Let me back up. I know when you think of Romania you think of cold winters and Dracula, but straight upIT'S HOT HERE!!! LIKE REALLY F***ING HOT! Miami hot with D.C. humidityit's rough.*TIME IN* This hike would take Prefontaine an hour to get through, and my chubby ass was just drenched in sweat. Best part is, now that I'm sweating more than a menopausal woman, when our group got back to the middle school we were scurried away to this sauna of a room, where the only chairs in sight were those green plastic lawn chairs that tend to melt in the heat. My fingers started to get wrinkly, like when you've been in the shower for too long. I think I lost at least three pints of water today.
I've now had three classes and it really is impressive how quickly this is coming along. I can't really say too much, but what I heard as just sounds two days ago, I can now decipher as wordsand it's exciting. Romanian is a romance language and honestly does sound quite nice when it's not being bastardized by a foreigner who can barely get his tongue around the most basic words. But now that I have basic language abilities in Romanian, the living situation has improved ten-fold. There's no longer nothing but uncomfortable silence at every meal. I'm able to ask really groundbreaking and penetrating questions like 'where is the salt?' and 'what time is it?' You know, the stuff that revolutions start over. But G-d bless this host mom of minenow that I can ask a question, she'll literally give a five minute response to just about any comment I make. Step two will be trying to understand what the woman says.
That's all for now. I went to bed at 10pm tonight and for some reason woke up at 2amIt's now 3:15 and I have to be up in three hoursI'm going to try to get some sleep.