… passed off quite a bit better today.
The unit on which we were working was a revision unit which involved discussing several of a selection of about 30 different topics, chosen by lot.
It’s quite true to say that I don’t know much and I can’t remember much but one thing about talking and chatting at large is that basically you just talk about what you know with whatever bits of grammar and vocabulary you can remember.
It doesn’t need to be complicated, and if you can keep it simple, then that’s all you need.
In schools in the UK, languages are taught in a ridiculous way. The emphasis is on grammar and being absolutely 100% correct, with the result that kids are quite timid and rather afraid to speak in case they make a mistake.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I was in Belgium I worked with people of all different nationalities and it didn’t take long for me to get the message that grammar counted for next-to nothing.
Iit didn’t matter what you knew and what mistakes you made. The aim was to make yourself understood to people and to understand their reply.
Knowing 100 words and using them is much more important than knowing 10,000 words and all kinds of obscure rules of grammar but not being able or being unwilling to use them.
But I digress.
Once more, the night that I had was marginally better than things have been quite recently. I didn’t travel far either. It was the annual meeting of our Students Association. I was with my friend who is no longer with us. Instead of flying to Birmingham we caught the train. When we arrived we actually arrived at the airport. It was a long walk through security, check-in etc out into the concourse where we found some people who my friend knew from the Association who were sitting around so she waved at them. I asked who they were and she told me but it didn’t ring any bells with me at all. We walked past a hotel at the airport concourse. The guy with us said “that’s where we should have stayed. It’s a much better place”. We ended up at reception at our hotel and given the keys. We all went into our room. I was busy chopping and dicing an onion ready to make sandwiches but had the onion all over the floor, all over the carpet. I was picking it up. I asked my friend if she had a plastic bag but she said no. I asked if she’d go to fetch one so she did. There were some other people in this room too who were clearly members of the Association, talking to someone on the phone saying “you’ll be here by tonight. Look for the Ealing branch” and a few other things like that. The way they were going on it sounded extremely doubtful about anything really. I was expecting something much more professional.
There was also something about me being in the USA. I was on my way to meet someone. We came to a very steep hill, so steep that you couldn’t actually see over the bonnet of the car as you went down. I had to be very careful as there were lots of cyclists etc about. There were traffic lights at the bottom so I stopped. As the lights changed and the car set off, I fell out of it and the ca, an automatic, went off on its own. It went round and round in a circle at this interchange, not hitting anything. I was trying to catch it to stop it. A passer-by came to help but we couldn’t manage to do anything. All of a sudden it changed direction slightly, came round, rolled up to my stomach and stopped. I was so relieved because this was the kind of thing that could have gone on for hours and could have been disastrous.
That wasn’t everything either but you really don’t want to know about the rest, especially if you are having your tea right now.
It was another slow start to the day before I transcribed the dictaphone notes, and then what time was left was spent revising my Welsh ready for the lesson. and wouldn’t it be nice if some of the stuff would stick in my brain?
At lunchtime I went and had a shower and then did some tidying up ready for when the cleaner would come round.
After the lesson the cleaner and I had a chat. We’ve worked out some kind of plan of action about the place and she also filled me in on a few things about the place that I didn’t know before. It’s always good to know about things like that.
Tea tonight was a curry from the freezer – one of those special ones I made about a year ago. And having matured for as long as that in the freezer it really was quite delicious.
But while we’re on the subject of the freezer, it’s slowly starting to empty itself now. I’ll wait to see what’s on offer in Noz at the weekend and if it’s a disappointing day I might just bake a vegan pie at the weekend to fill up the space.
That’ll be a good idea because there’s stuff in there like vegan minced soya stuff and using some of that in a pie would be a good idea.
While i’m at it, I’ll see about finding a recipe for some vegan sausage stuffing so that I can have a go at making sausage rolls. As I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’ll have to buy pastry for that because making flaky or puff pastry is a difficult and complicated procedure that’s beyond my capabilities.
That’ll give me something to think about while I try to sleep.
