Woo-hoo! I’m all registered for the spring semester. Here’s what I’m taking:

* – I’ll likely drop this class even though it sounds good

I was a little worried I wasn’t going to get into the fiction writing seminar but it’s a done deal now. Six hours of class on Wednesday is a tall order but I’m doing it now and it’s not so bad. These are also two classes I’m most excited about, both for their content and for the professors teaching them, so I think it’ll actually be a good day.

This schedule also means I’ll only be away from home one night, either Tuesday or Wednesday night depending on which day I decide to have class. I’m leaning towards Tuesday since I feel like I should be taking classes about American literature but the Thursday class on the English Renaissance also sounds really good (Donne, Foucault, Marlowe, More) as well as an Irish Classics class that’s at the same time on Tuesday that sounded great. My cup runneth over with options this semseter.

I’m addicted to Spanish. There’s always a little hesitation to sit down and study but it’s pretty remarkable what I’m able to say. I had my tutoring session this morning and I said “mis sobrinas estaban llorando en la noche media” pretty much off the cuff (i.e. “my nieces were crying in the middle of the night”.) After thirty minutes of constant Spanish, I find myself trying to translate all my thoughts.

I’m also seeing a new dimension to the program. The patterns don’t just help you learn faster, they’re actually the key to conversing fluidly. Right now, here’s the way I communicate:
Hear Spanish sentence–> Translate to English –> Think of response in English –> Translate to Spanish –> Reply in Spanish
If it isn’t obvious, this takes a lot of time and it’s easy to forget what you’re trying to say, or what the original question might have been. The goal is this:
Hear Spanish sentence–> Reply in Spanish
Once the patterns are beaten into your head you can pick out the bits (i.e. the subject of the sentence [I, you, we, etc.] and the verb + tense [present, future, past] and the other nouns and descriptive phrases) and communicate much faster. Practice makes perfect with all of this (hence the tutoring sessions) but mostly I think it’s just repetition over a long period of time.

All for now. I’ve got a paper to write.

Current Mood: Okay |
Currently Listening To – Mississippi John Hurt – “The Complete Studio Recordings (Disc 1)”