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Torn From Tomorrow's Headlines
Posted by Miz B
on
Friday, August 20, 2010
See? Y'all was right. Second day was much better. I let the schoolwork go a little more, and it was better. I even found out that I can submit some of my work in English for the time being. It seems like they aren't actually grading anything right now, they just look at the work and then sign and date it, to show that work was done. At the end of the semester we hand in the signed sheets to the teacher, and they count them up for part of the grade. They barely even read the work. For mine, they usually draft poor Jose Luis to translate.
I think I forgot to mention the other students....
Okay, here goes. I only really know 4 of them by me, but everyone knows me. Whenever someone in my class is bored, they start arguing with the person next to them how to pronounce my name. It's quite an experience, to be surrounded by 20+ people all saying your name over and over. Badly. Anyway, they were trying to come up with a nickname for me, and I was desperately trying to distract them from arriving at Brownie. Not only do I not really like Brownie (and the way they pronounce it here makes it hard to tell apart from random sound), but here, brownie is another word for muffin, and I really don't like the nickname 'Muffin'. So, I started telling a story to Jose Luis about another time people had trouble with my name: in the first play I ever did, there were so many kids and the director called me by my characters name rather than my own, so lots of people thought the name of my character was actually my real name. To this day, some people still think that.
I made the mistake of telling this story, in English, right next to someone who only spoke Spanish, so the only word that got out of it was the name of my character: Alice. Before lunch, the entire school was calling me Alice. Whenever I met someone new, I would tell them my name was Bronwyn, they would say "What?" and someone else, even someone passing in the hallway who I didn't know, would say "Alice!" and the other person would say "Ah! Alice!". This is even funnier if you know that their are two Bronwyns in my family, me, and the lovely woman I'm named after. I'm Bronwyn R. and she's -say it with me- Bronwyn Alice. Sigh. Well, Alice is better than Brownie. Or Muffin.
And then last night I went to a fiesta in Anouk's family's house with the local Roteracts (for those of you who don't know, Roteracts are kids who did exchanges in the past, and are now in college. They're kind of like junior Rotary members, they run like a Rotary club, and one of they're prime duties is to act as friends and support for inbounds). Some of them were considering Ana as a nickname (for RhiANnon), which I thought might be a little confusing, seeing as there are 2 people here named Anna, and when I'm with the Roteracts I'm usually standing next to ANouk. See the problem? I mentioned that the kids at the school call me Alice. Well, here's a bit of fun trivia for ya, kids: the nickname for Alice in Mexico is Licha (pronounced 'LEE-cha'). So now I have to answer to Ana, Alice, Muffin, Brownie (and Broony, which is how Petrona says it), and Licha. Anything but my actual name. I think I'll be really happy to hear my name when I get home. And here I never thought I'd miss it if it was gone...
On the other hand, this all took place during a conversation about how to pronounce poor Arnoud's name (I think I spelled that right. Arnoud is from French-speaking Beligium, he arrived 2 days ago, but more on him later). This got onto the subject of full names, and how to pronounce them. After a good 5 minutes happily savaging my title, everyone moved on to Anouk, and she mentioned her second name was the slightly more language-friendly Sophia. Guess what the Mexican nickname for Sophia is? Chofie. So, in some respects, I got off easy. And the only person who can say Arnoud's name well enough that he'll recognize it from across a crowded room is Anouk. I'm ashamed to say that 2 weeks completely immersed in the Spanish accent has destroyed whatever remained of my careful French pronunciation.
Arnoud arrived at about 8pm 2 nights ago (which in a way led to me missing school today. Thanks to the lovely Mexican predelection for drawing things out as long as possible without really realizing it, I didn't make it back home until about 12. School at 6am, Rotary meeting runs late last night, 1am. Today, Petrona said I should skip school so I could get some sleep. I slept for 10 hours, and I'm still exhausted). He is very thin and extremely tall. I guess I don't really have a good basis for comparison, because I'm one of the tallest people I know here, but he's quite a bit taller than me. He's nice. He speaks very little English, and even less Spanish than I did when I got here, but he's a good learner, and is very quick witted. It's tough to make jokes with people who don't speak your language, but he pulls it off. Anouks older foster-sister, Melissa, was an outbound to France, so Arnoud is not completely without interpreters. I feel very guilty about this, but I find it kind of heartening how much more Spanish I know that Arnoud. Not because I like being better than someone, but because the only basis for comparison I had was Anouk, who just passed her 3 week mark and is definitely better than me, at least at forming coherent sentences. She says Arnaud is about where I was 2 weeks ago, which means I actually am learning. I knew I was, but it helps to have some tangible evidence. I often feel like I'm standing still, in a figurative sense. I have more to talk about, but it's about 10 or something now (I really need to figure out how to get a watch...) and I'd like to not loose all of last nights hard work because I couldn't stop sitting on the couch typing and watching 30 Rock in espanol so....
That's All, Folks!
I think I forgot to mention the other students....
Okay, here goes. I only really know 4 of them by me, but everyone knows me. Whenever someone in my class is bored, they start arguing with the person next to them how to pronounce my name. It's quite an experience, to be surrounded by 20+ people all saying your name over and over. Badly. Anyway, they were trying to come up with a nickname for me, and I was desperately trying to distract them from arriving at Brownie. Not only do I not really like Brownie (and the way they pronounce it here makes it hard to tell apart from random sound), but here, brownie is another word for muffin, and I really don't like the nickname 'Muffin'. So, I started telling a story to Jose Luis about another time people had trouble with my name: in the first play I ever did, there were so many kids and the director called me by my characters name rather than my own, so lots of people thought the name of my character was actually my real name. To this day, some people still think that.
I made the mistake of telling this story, in English, right next to someone who only spoke Spanish, so the only word that got out of it was the name of my character: Alice. Before lunch, the entire school was calling me Alice. Whenever I met someone new, I would tell them my name was Bronwyn, they would say "What?" and someone else, even someone passing in the hallway who I didn't know, would say "Alice!" and the other person would say "Ah! Alice!". This is even funnier if you know that their are two Bronwyns in my family, me, and the lovely woman I'm named after. I'm Bronwyn R. and she's -say it with me- Bronwyn Alice. Sigh. Well, Alice is better than Brownie. Or Muffin.
And then last night I went to a fiesta in Anouk's family's house with the local Roteracts (for those of you who don't know, Roteracts are kids who did exchanges in the past, and are now in college. They're kind of like junior Rotary members, they run like a Rotary club, and one of they're prime duties is to act as friends and support for inbounds). Some of them were considering Ana as a nickname (for RhiANnon), which I thought might be a little confusing, seeing as there are 2 people here named Anna, and when I'm with the Roteracts I'm usually standing next to ANouk. See the problem? I mentioned that the kids at the school call me Alice. Well, here's a bit of fun trivia for ya, kids: the nickname for Alice in Mexico is Licha (pronounced 'LEE-cha'). So now I have to answer to Ana, Alice, Muffin, Brownie (and Broony, which is how Petrona says it), and Licha. Anything but my actual name. I think I'll be really happy to hear my name when I get home. And here I never thought I'd miss it if it was gone...
On the other hand, this all took place during a conversation about how to pronounce poor Arnoud's name (I think I spelled that right. Arnoud is from French-speaking Beligium, he arrived 2 days ago, but more on him later). This got onto the subject of full names, and how to pronounce them. After a good 5 minutes happily savaging my title, everyone moved on to Anouk, and she mentioned her second name was the slightly more language-friendly Sophia. Guess what the Mexican nickname for Sophia is? Chofie. So, in some respects, I got off easy. And the only person who can say Arnoud's name well enough that he'll recognize it from across a crowded room is Anouk. I'm ashamed to say that 2 weeks completely immersed in the Spanish accent has destroyed whatever remained of my careful French pronunciation.
Arnoud arrived at about 8pm 2 nights ago (which in a way led to me missing school today. Thanks to the lovely Mexican predelection for drawing things out as long as possible without really realizing it, I didn't make it back home until about 12. School at 6am, Rotary meeting runs late last night, 1am. Today, Petrona said I should skip school so I could get some sleep. I slept for 10 hours, and I'm still exhausted). He is very thin and extremely tall. I guess I don't really have a good basis for comparison, because I'm one of the tallest people I know here, but he's quite a bit taller than me. He's nice. He speaks very little English, and even less Spanish than I did when I got here, but he's a good learner, and is very quick witted. It's tough to make jokes with people who don't speak your language, but he pulls it off. Anouks older foster-sister, Melissa, was an outbound to France, so Arnoud is not completely without interpreters. I feel very guilty about this, but I find it kind of heartening how much more Spanish I know that Arnoud. Not because I like being better than someone, but because the only basis for comparison I had was Anouk, who just passed her 3 week mark and is definitely better than me, at least at forming coherent sentences. She says Arnaud is about where I was 2 weeks ago, which means I actually am learning. I knew I was, but it helps to have some tangible evidence. I often feel like I'm standing still, in a figurative sense. I have more to talk about, but it's about 10 or something now (I really need to figure out how to get a watch...) and I'd like to not loose all of last nights hard work because I couldn't stop sitting on the couch typing and watching 30 Rock in espanol so....
That's All, Folks!
