Ramblings on a mundane and sometimes comical life: Spanglish/ lost in translation

After my 72 hours of on and off napping I was able to wake up with some vigor at about 7:40 this morning…this is a personal best, lets put that on the record. I got up at this unnecessary hour to greet little Sadie the kitty and reassure her cat parents that I would look after her diligently. I think I proved this minus almost shutting her into the refrigerator (she’s curious and quick). She’s not 100% excited about us yet and doesn’t want to be held or cuddled too much but is having a grand ole time using our apartment as a jungle gym. She pops out from under furniture covered in dust bunnies with some odd thing that has been stuck in a crevice since probably the first week of moving in. She’s made toys out of pen caps, random beads and linty socks so far.

Also after waking up at the crack of dawn I was actually able to make it out of bed for over three hours and attend work. I was thrown back into things full on with a Wed morning meeting hosted by the Big Mama boss. These meetings are basically a time to get free coffee, sit around and listen to customer compliments but more so disgruntled customer’s disses. That and to pound the company standards into our brains in the form of an annoying acronym as if we’re kindergartners learning the alphabet. Usually I like acronyms but its really getting old. Its always a good day though when my department manager isn’t running around checking our sales totals, credit card numbers, number of times we’ve gone to the bathroom throughout the day, etc. There’s just this air of relaxation without her trotting around the floor like a high heeled deer telling us to spread out, quit chatting and get crazy greeting and selling! She actually has a book sitting on her desk titled “Hug your customers” I’m not looking forward to the day she has us sit down for a power point presentation on her findings from that book.

See!! Its real!

So the day passed on in its dragging post-Christmas fashion with a little uplift during lunch at “Honey Honey” with Elah, my little dark cloud side kick and the boyfriend who had recovered from his 24 hour flu but still took a sick day. Its always a kick to sit outdoors in San Francisco and watch who passes by while enjoying a savory crepe.

After running around the store on behalf of my client who likes v-necks and “Mandarin collars” but not capped sleeves or ruffles or the colors red, yellow, orange or green I made my way on the China town bus to my “Elementary” Spanish class. This is through my College held after hours at a middle school…because there’s nothing more inspiring to an adult student than going back to a Jr. High classroom. Now remember how I just mentioned that this is supposed to be an “Elemnetary” class, as in figuring out the basics…you know maybe learning how to pronounce all the letters, some basic words, throw together some sentences and start a conversation…well apparently the Professor is not aware of what he’s teaching. This old man has literally got to be 85 and he’s like a frustrating and challenging grandfather. It’s like I’m the only fucking idiot in the class who didn’t take several prior years of Spanish. Today for example he read aloud his own personal short essay about Valentine’s day and how it is originally a holiday celebrated for the Saint, as well as some other scholarly bullshit on the celebration of Saints throughout the world. He read this aloud to us en espangol and expected us to listen to this and translate it back to him…how the fuck was everyone able to do this? Later he was disappointed in me for not correctly writing down some other shit he rambled out. He looked over my paper of primarily blank spaces and told me I needed to open my ears and mind and listen better. I wanted to fucking trip the old fart I was so infuriated.

I signed up to take Spanish at the level of a 6^th grader, I signed up to do this the AMERICAN way…tell me how to order an alcoholic beverage, where is the beach and how much will it cost to have the drug cartels release me and my family? I have been to Mexico before they don't really give a fuck what language you speak as long as you're willing to get your hair braided, go parasailing over potentially shark infested waters, attend a foam party and tip in American dollars. I mean jokes aside…Spanish is a beautiful language spoken by lovely, passionate people and it will certainly be useful since people haven’t stopped hopping the border and America is moving towards being a Spanglish speaking nation. But weather or not I have a love for Chipotle and would like to order it in the native tongue of the oh so skilled burrito maker does not change the fact that this teacher has outrageous expectations of what our prior knowledge should be. Its as if we were supposed to study abroad before enrolling in the class. Towards the end of the night he spoke numbers in multiple digits and had us write them down, I have difficulty with numbers in English. It was not fun to compute in a different language, while counting on my fingers while trying to write it down (and look at my neighbor's paper, her parents are Cuban she has an unfair advantage). Plus I just kept thinking of Daddy Yankee counting to three over and over in that song that you take tequila shots and dance on bar tops to.

Or I wish the Professor would just stare at me, make whistle and clicking noises of approval at me like most Mexican men do. Then we could both walk away from the situation awkwardly validated.

Its highly likely that I’m going to have to drop this class since I’m not a walking talking Rosetta Stone like everyone else seems to be. I truly love Spanish, I’ve enjoyed saying “Uno mas” on spring break booze cruises as much as the next guy…Anyways I feel like my eyes have glazed over and I’m ready to hit the hay.Buenos Noches.

Here are some people I'd rather be learning Spanish from