After Class

Well, Italian class today wasn’t very interesting because she was still doing conferences. I will say at this point that I absolutely hate, hate, HATE  being the last one.

I feel shortchanged. For one thing, I found myself not working and listening to everyone else’s conference. We sit at tables in a big horse-shoe shape and she worked her way around the horseshoe. I sit close to her at one end which was, of course, not the end she started from. The class ends at 11:00 pm. At 10:55 she was still talking to Josh. She looked over to me and asked if I could stay. Well, of course I could. But in the first five minutes when she was trying to talk to me, THREE people came up and either interruped or stood there waiting patiently to talk to her and listening to my conference! However, I will  say that Nichole was good about putting me on hold and getting their questions answered and them out!

Anyway, I got to tell her that I feel my ability to read and write far exceed my ability to speak. {I primarily learn by writing}. She said she had plans to have us do more "chatting in Italian" exercises. This should help me. I told her I had noticed when we were doing the survey exercises where we asked specified question of each other, that I usually knew the word for what I wanted to say but had trouble remembering to use the correct ending. It is as if I can’t hold more than one thing at a time in my head! Anyway, I told her that my theory was that I was learning the way a baby learns and that eventually, like a baby, I would begin to feel comfortable speaking! I am particularly concerned about this because I am taking the class so I can eventually go to Italy and be able to understand and be understood! She told me I was doing fine but she would ask me please to not be so eager to give answers that I don’t give others a chance. I told her that yes, I had noticed I did this and I would make a real effort not to call out. {The last one was in the test when she held up a picture of an autumn landscape and without thinking, I said, "L’autunno!" oh, well! Everyone got that one right!} Another thing that bothers me a bit is that although in English I am usually an excellent speller, in Italian I am a poor speller! But this is a minor thing and I will, eventually get it right.

We talked about the oral reports which start NEXT TUESDAY for those who were brave {stupid} enough to volunteer to go first. {Coffcoff me Coffcoff}  Well, my fear of going first is less than my dread of having to wait!   She said she wants us to have simple present-tense sentences and gave us all a hand-out which said what it should cover. She also gave us the rubric she grades by and here is where I realize I won’t make a 4 which is the highest. One thing she is looking for is something like "Makes very few mistakes in structure of sentences." Oh, that is SO not me. I am still confused by prepositions and as for negatives? Well, every time I think I understand where "non" goes, I find I am wrong! Oh well, I can only do what I can do. {I say this a lot.}

I didn’t do any retail therapy today because when I came out of class it was raining heavily. When I got home today, I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and a peanut butter sandwich and then went to sleep for two hours. I do feel better now I have done that. I am deliberately taking today off but tomorrow I will start planning the report. We cannot read sentences; it has to be a true oral report but we can have vocabulary cards for each point we want to make. These have to be handed in at the end of the report so no cheating and reading sentences from the cards! Speaking to a group doesn’t bother me at all, but speaking to a group in a language in which I am nowhere near being fluent? Ok, I can only do—well, you know the rest of it.

Links to art:

Drawings and Pastel Paintings

Until later….