Me - back to school?

Back when I was really retired, I got this idea that I could use some of this surfeit of time to study Spanish. Sounded like a good idea, right? I mean it is the minority in the majority these days, and besides, maybe I could understand what Mom says about me in Spanish, so I signed up for classes at Austin Community College.

Of the choices, the closet venue was the ACC building by Highland Mall - but only on Tuesday nights, 6pm to 9pm. Okay, that's not so bad - no football on TV on Tuesday. I can handle this. So here I go, brand-new student off to 1st day (night) of school. People, I can't even remember as far back as when I was in school; I would need a bigger calculator to figure it out! I've got my textbook, I have sharpened pencils, I have a notebook. I've even read the 1st chapter - "El mosquito es chiquito." "El elefante es grande." I can't believe I'm doing this.

Twenty-two of us, waiting patiently for la maestra and in walks Aunt Bea. You know, from Mayberry? A little old lady, gray hair up in a bun, with the notable Hispanic surname of Walsh. Oh-kay. Turns out Senora Walsh moved to Mexico City when she was ten and lived there most of her life. Teaching English. Now she's here, teaching Spanish, and she's very, very good. I learned a lot.

The most important thing I learned is to sit by someone who speaks English. The person next to me, with whom I was paired (this is conversational Spanish, after all), was fresh off the boat. Literally. She was born and raised in Scotland and has been in the States a very short time. I could not understand a word she said. Okay, we were supposed to be speaking Spanish, but I'm not sure she was. It didn't sound like what Senora Walsh was saying. It didn't sound like what I was saying. I just didn't know. And she was fairly fluent in whatever she was saying. She said a lot of it.

I think there's going to be a lot of blog material from this class.