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The Cry of the Wild Newspaper Seller
Posted by Miz B
on
Friday, September 03, 2010
Hello, New York!
Impromptu poll: is it raining where you are? Because if you're anywhere in Veracruz right now, the answer's probably 'yes'. I don't really have access to local news here; my parents get the national newspaper, and I haven't figured out where the news channel is on the TV (although I can watch Access Hollywood in 3 languages, thank you cable). But if I'm not to far off base to follow the little bit of adult conversation I understand, most of the cost is at least partially underwater right now.
Ah, there go the lights. It's been raining all morning and I've learned to expect the unexpected when water falls from the sky and the sun is more or less out. The shower in the other room is still working, bless it's little cotton socks, but I came upstairs after breakfast to find that the lights weren't coming on. It's not that the power is out, it's just that it's not getting along quite well with the florescent's in my room. So, I left the switch on and went about my business in the dark. As I expected, after about 20 minutes they worked out their issues and came on without exploding and showering me with broken glass. Live and learn. Speaking of broken glass, I think I've finally stopped breaking things. For roughly 7 days, which ended about Thursday of last week, I started dropping things. I don't know why. I stopped drinking out of glasses out of sheer self-defense. I broke 3 glasses, a teapot and a ceramic picture frame all in a 78 hour period (don't tell anyone about the picture frame, it was a gift). The last glass I dropped shattered away from me but somehow managed to get one solitary splinter embedded in the bottom of my big toe (I know, I don't get it either). Anyway, ow. I had to keep rubbing alcohol on it, since I'm terrified it would get infected. I haven't broken anything for 4 days, so I think I am, for the moment, cured. Speaking of cured, my cold is almost gone now, although it keeps turning up in the form of randomly coughing uncontrollably for several minutes at a time. Now, all the other kids are getting sick. I was sick last week, Arnaud (Belgium) was sick over the weekend and into Monday, and Sam (new arrival from the US) is sick right now. The only ones who haven't been sick yet are Anouk (Germany) and our other new arrival, Joao from Brasil (I type Brazil like that because that's the way everyone writes it here and I don't need to confuse myself language-wise anymore than I already am). I can't type Joao's name properly because I don't know the location of all the correct accents on the keyboard, but on the other hand I don't know how to pronounce his name either. He's in my class at school, which brings the grand total of exchange students in that class up to 3 (Joao, Arnaud, and me). So far, we haven't all 3 been in school at the same time for various reasons. Sam and Anouk go to a different, much smaller school, I don't know why. Joao is semi-fluent already, which is okay with me. He doesn't speak any English, only Portuguese and Spanish. It'll be months before we can talk to each other in something even verging on semi-coherent. Arnaud's English isn't that bad, and his Spanish is about where mine was a week or 2 ago, so we can talk okay. Anouk's Spanish is better than both of ours, and Sam's is better than Anouk's (I think). I can't tell how much Joao knows, because I can't really talk to him. We haven't had any Spanish courses this week, because the school is partially flooded. Unfortunately, my school is just fine (a fact my family didn't know, which is why I missed school on Tuesday). I went to immigration again on Wednesday (causing me to miss school for the third day running), but still no visa. This makes 9 times. Today, we're going for a tenth (and missing the third consecutive Friday of courses). I really need my visa soon. The 30 day one I came into the country on is almost out of time.
I feel like I've hit a kind of dead-end, learning-wise. I don't have a textbook or something to study, all I can do is sort of muddle along with my dictionary and an 'it-is-impossible-for-me-to-be-embarrassed' attitude, which I gather is pretty much what everyone else is doing. I don't really have a way to learn more grammar without a native speaker explaining it to me, and I don't exactly have and English-fluent native speaker to pull out of my pocket. I'm not used to learning this way. I'm not good at it. It doesn't feel like learning, it feels like being stuck in thick muck up to my waist. Oh well, at least I can move my arms.
Impromptu poll: is it raining where you are? Because if you're anywhere in Veracruz right now, the answer's probably 'yes'. I don't really have access to local news here; my parents get the national newspaper, and I haven't figured out where the news channel is on the TV (although I can watch Access Hollywood in 3 languages, thank you cable). But if I'm not to far off base to follow the little bit of adult conversation I understand, most of the cost is at least partially underwater right now.
Ah, there go the lights. It's been raining all morning and I've learned to expect the unexpected when water falls from the sky and the sun is more or less out. The shower in the other room is still working, bless it's little cotton socks, but I came upstairs after breakfast to find that the lights weren't coming on. It's not that the power is out, it's just that it's not getting along quite well with the florescent's in my room. So, I left the switch on and went about my business in the dark. As I expected, after about 20 minutes they worked out their issues and came on without exploding and showering me with broken glass. Live and learn. Speaking of broken glass, I think I've finally stopped breaking things. For roughly 7 days, which ended about Thursday of last week, I started dropping things. I don't know why. I stopped drinking out of glasses out of sheer self-defense. I broke 3 glasses, a teapot and a ceramic picture frame all in a 78 hour period (don't tell anyone about the picture frame, it was a gift). The last glass I dropped shattered away from me but somehow managed to get one solitary splinter embedded in the bottom of my big toe (I know, I don't get it either). Anyway, ow. I had to keep rubbing alcohol on it, since I'm terrified it would get infected. I haven't broken anything for 4 days, so I think I am, for the moment, cured. Speaking of cured, my cold is almost gone now, although it keeps turning up in the form of randomly coughing uncontrollably for several minutes at a time. Now, all the other kids are getting sick. I was sick last week, Arnaud (Belgium) was sick over the weekend and into Monday, and Sam (new arrival from the US) is sick right now. The only ones who haven't been sick yet are Anouk (Germany) and our other new arrival, Joao from Brasil (I type Brazil like that because that's the way everyone writes it here and I don't need to confuse myself language-wise anymore than I already am). I can't type Joao's name properly because I don't know the location of all the correct accents on the keyboard, but on the other hand I don't know how to pronounce his name either. He's in my class at school, which brings the grand total of exchange students in that class up to 3 (Joao, Arnaud, and me). So far, we haven't all 3 been in school at the same time for various reasons. Sam and Anouk go to a different, much smaller school, I don't know why. Joao is semi-fluent already, which is okay with me. He doesn't speak any English, only Portuguese and Spanish. It'll be months before we can talk to each other in something even verging on semi-coherent. Arnaud's English isn't that bad, and his Spanish is about where mine was a week or 2 ago, so we can talk okay. Anouk's Spanish is better than both of ours, and Sam's is better than Anouk's (I think). I can't tell how much Joao knows, because I can't really talk to him. We haven't had any Spanish courses this week, because the school is partially flooded. Unfortunately, my school is just fine (a fact my family didn't know, which is why I missed school on Tuesday). I went to immigration again on Wednesday (causing me to miss school for the third day running), but still no visa. This makes 9 times. Today, we're going for a tenth (and missing the third consecutive Friday of courses). I really need my visa soon. The 30 day one I came into the country on is almost out of time.
I feel like I've hit a kind of dead-end, learning-wise. I don't have a textbook or something to study, all I can do is sort of muddle along with my dictionary and an 'it-is-impossible-for-me-to-be-embarrassed' attitude, which I gather is pretty much what everyone else is doing. I don't really have a way to learn more grammar without a native speaker explaining it to me, and I don't exactly have and English-fluent native speaker to pull out of my pocket. I'm not used to learning this way. I'm not good at it. It doesn't feel like learning, it feels like being stuck in thick muck up to my waist. Oh well, at least I can move my arms.
