Heister

Dear Internet,

You must not, I repeat must not let me watch the first two consecutive episodes of Game of Thrones Season 2 tonight.

I am not at all ashamed to admit that the majority of my first 24 hours back in New York on staycation were spent ripping through all of season one. I did intend on waiting a full 24 hours before starting season 2, but it’s become apparent that tonight, I got a fever, and the only cure is more Game of Thrones.

However, I cannot, I must not, I will not watch more than the first episode of season 2 without taking a break to work on my freelance project that is due tomorrow. Even though I am technically unemployed this week and enjoying being able to do whaterr I want whenerr I want, all day, err day, I do like my freelancing job and I want to turn it in on time and get paid. If I allow myself — if you allow me — to watch one more episode, c’mon just one more, only one, I promise I’ll stop after that one, we all know that it will lead to just one more, what harm will one more do? I’ll work twice as hard after I promise, and then to At this point, I’m clearly not doing any work tonight so let’s just quit the pretense and watch as much as I friggin want to because it’s my vacation dammit, and then tomorrow will come and I’ll remember that one day is not enough time to write two quality articles, and I’ll have to beg my editor for more time and make some excuse like I do every month, and that’s just not cool. The buck needs to stop somewhere, and internet, I’m deciding it stops here.

So, no matter what I say, what I do, what I threaten, what I promise, under no circumstances — and I mean absolutely positively none whatsoever on this earth, in the starts above, in heaven or hell or any alternate universe or plane of existence — may I follow the first episode of GOT season 2 with a viewing of the second episode of season 2, without first accomplishing a sizable amount of writing/research on my freelance assignment. One (1) shall be the number of episodes I shall watch before working on my freelance assignment, and the number of episodes I shall watch before working on my freelance assignment shall be one (1). The number shall not be two (2). The number shall not be zero (0), unless it be followed by one (1).

Being the people of the interwebs, I know you might want to say, “Screw your assignment, just do it! Just watch all of the episodes. ALL OF THE EPISODES. GoT is such a good show, it’s totally justifiable, and I can’t believe it’s taken this long for you to get into it.” I grant you permission to say this, but ONLY if it is out loud to your computer screen or in your head or in any other manner that prevents your message from actually getting to me. Sending this message by raven is also acceptable, given that you live more than one day’s journey away from me, as the crow flies. The above guidelines also apply if you are inclined to give spoilers. Please see below for the likewise applicable punishment.

You might also say, “If you had just done your assignments on any one of the 23 other days since you received your assignment, you wouldn’t be in this situation and could watch as much TV as you want.” To you I say, thanks for being a loyal reader, Mom. I love you!

I am holding you all accountable. ALL OF YOU, INTERNET. I have washed my hands of this, this burden is now on your shoulders. To explain another way, if you allow me to watch more than the first episode of season two without first doing my work, you will be charged with Treason Against the Realm of My Sanity and Good Work Ethic, and we all know what happens to traitors. At least I do, because I finally watched season one.

Also, dragons. Just had to mention that somewhere.

So in sum, internet, hold me accountable! And I don’t mean that in the whole, I’ll ask you to be my hand and help me but then get mad at you when you actually try to help me and ignore you and do whatever the heck I want. Actually, that’s probably exactly how it will go, but that’s why I’m writing this letter in the first place, so stand firm! Stand up to me, internet! The well-being of the realm is in your hands! 

Tonight as I was walking home and pondering how I would spend my Monday night now that my Spanish class is over, I noticed a big ugly chair thrown in the pile of black garbage bags along the curb in front of me, and I remember what I’d been missing for the last 3 months — Monday Night Garbage Night Curbside Furniture Picking. I’m really proud of my free furniture curb picks over the last year. I started small, with a broken end table that I “refurbished” by setting a bronze plate on its top. Then I found a nicer end table. Then a makeshift TV stand. Then a microwave cart (and seriously, a nice wheelie microwave cart can go for over $100…). I even took a painting once. Finally, one day, my crowning jewel found me, a naturally antique-looking desk that I use as my creative and productive space. Yay! Bearing in mind the rule that one of my colleagues passed down to me, I passed by the upholstered chair and kept walking, and stumbled upon some serious bounty in front of my own building: a wood and glass coffee table and matching desk. So what, we already have a coffee table and 3 desks between the two of us, this was a nice set, and I wanted it to be mine, so I disassembled everything right there on the sidewalk, and lugged it inside, with the help of some obliging neighbors who were kind enough to grab the doors for me.

While my compulsion for free furniture may be a tad much, it reminded me of all of the nonverbal languages I’ve become fluent in over the last two years, the languages of New York. I speak curbside furniture: I know which days are garbage days, and which streets have the most apartment buildings and ergo, the most free furniture. I know not to pay hundreds for antiques when one will end up on my sidewalk. I know to avoid anything upholstered, because, bed bugs. I’ve learned how to furnish an apartment for free.

I’ve learned how to speak subway. When I first came to New York on my own for my interview at my job, I could not have been more lost when it came to public transit. I panicked searching for a quarter machine in Laguardia so I could have exact change for the bus (thank god the HR manager had mentioned that), and then had a harrowing ride in on the M60 into Manhattan, frantically flipping through the 4 pages of Google Maps I’d printed out. Even then, I got scared and got off too early, wandering down into the subway and asking the lady behind the glass if this was where I could find Metro North. After finding the real Metro North station, it took a while to figure where to buy my ticket (the booth) and when the train would be coming. When I did ride the subway for the first time, all the lines, letters, and numbers blurred together, and I wished it could just be simpler, like the T in Boston. “I don’t need all these lines,” I thought, “just show me a map with just the 456.” My first shuttle ride between Grand Central and Times Square was a rare thrill, and my initial bus rides were an interesting practice in running to the stop to catch the bus, and then either getting off two stops before or two stops after my intended stop, each time. These days, I bus like a pro. I’m the go to girl for anyone in my office who’s looking for ways to avoid Metro North and save a dollar. I have the W45 weekday schedule memorized, and I’ve successfully figured out how to get from Astoria to Flushing via bus, just for shits & gigs (and bubble tea). The subway is a piece of cake, and makes DC and Boston’s transit look like a child (I read recently that the 456 line gets more foot traffic in a day than all of Boston’s T system). The other weekend, as I headed into the city for my weekend job, I witnessed a man, a father with his wife and two kids, trying to figure out where to get off the subway. It was a crowded car, and the way he leaned back to try to see the schedule, and his uncertainty about whether our train would stop at their station made it evident that they were tourists, that he had very little idea what he was doing, but that his family had deemed him most competent and trusted him to figure it out without really having much faith in him. From 86th, I minded my business, but after 59th, when I heard him say something about “33rd” I had to step in. I asked where he was going, and explained that we were on an express train and he needed the local, so at the next stop they could get out and just walk across the platform and transfer to the 6. The man was so relieved. It’s not a special story, and one I’m sure all New Yorkers have. But, it stood out to me in that moment that I spoke a language someone else didn’t: subway.

I also speak food in a way that I didn’t before. In particular, I’ve become fluent in bagel, which is saying something for a girl who came from a town so white bread that she didn’t even meet a Jew until she was 17. I understand that the freezer bagels are bread masquerading in a bagel shape, and that chain bagels are passable, but vaguely styrofoam. Only a real, true New York bagel will do it for me now. The very Dunkin Donuts bagels that were a precious commodity for me when I lived in upstate New York, only available on the rare days that I went to and from Utica or Clinton, are now the sort of bagels I turn my nose down at, or roll my eyes about. Pizza is another example. I won’t go into as much detail, but I know a New York slice, and I know which $1 slice places are worth it, and which ones are a rip off. I’ve also learned how to spice up a plain slice with a shit ton of seasonings — oregano, red pepper, parmesan, garlic — to make it feel less, well, plain.

That’s not to mention my mastery of the New York Shuffle, in which we’re all always in a hurry because we’re all always late, or my callous disregard of panhandlers in the subway. I’ve discerned which musicians to give money to and which to ignore. I’ve figured out how to exit the subway and orient myself to which street corner I’m on. I’ve can complain about New York as a way of showing my love for it.

And maybe New York is less the language than the dialect and accent, but in any case, I speak it now. Some things I’m still learning (I have a lot of brushing up to do on my Brooklyn), but when I meet tourists I have an experience similar to my epiphany in Spanish class when we met the level 1 students: for all of my struggles, for all of the things I don’t know, here’s a person in front of me who knows way less, against whom I can measure myself and realize…there was a time I didn’t know these things. And now I do. And that’s called progress.

Esta noche fue mi último clase de español tres, y estoy pensando en cambio

Esta noche, tuve un diferente profesor y mi clase fue más pequeño porque era la pascua judía, el pesach

Esta noche hubo césped en Bryant Park en vez de una pista de hielo

Esta noche monté el subway en vez de el metro north porque estoy viviendo en Manhattan esta semana en el apartamento de mi colega mientras cuido a su gato.

Esta noche llegué al apartamento a las 10, mientras que usualmente yo sólo salgo en el tren a las 10.

Esta noche aprendí de un professor diferente

Y esta noche voy a dormir en una cama diferente

Esta noche tengo más tiempo para escribir de mi noche

Y esta noche creo que cambio me haría bien, sí.

 -

Tonight was my last Spanish 3 class, and I’m thinking about change.

Tonight, I had a different professor, and my class was smaller because it was the Passover

Tonight there was grass in Bryant Park instead of an ice skating rink

Tonight I rode the subway instead of Metro North because I am living in Manhattan this week in one of my colleague’s apartments while I watch her cat

Tonight I arrived at the apartment at 10, while usually I only leave in the train at 10.

Tonight I learned from a different professor

And tonight I’m going to sleep in a different bed.

Tonight I had more time to write about my night

And tonight I am thinking that a change would do me good, it would.

Tonight marked our ninth and quasi-final Spanish 3 class. There’s a tenth class next week, but it’s Passover and my professor and a few students will be out, so we treated tonight’s class as our last and threw a classy little fiesta. Our professor brought Yerba Mate, and I and my seat mate cum partner-in-crime Emily both brought some red wines (de Chile y Argentina, claro). We spent the first part of class learning about Yerba Mate, and then wine, and then talking about the new (Argentine) pope, his political views (muy conservador) and the perception of Argentinians throughout the rest of Latin America. It was a small class again – 5 students – but we had a lot of fun and celebrated being completely done with grammar! By that point I had slammed down my vino a bit too quickly, to the point where my brain was a little lax in the comprehension department, but was slugging away in the conversation department. I’d have to check with my classmates/professor, but I’m pretty sure I spoke faster and with a better accent one glass in. We also read an article from a smutty newspaper like the National Enquirer about a man who committed suicide because he was so grief-stricken that Chávez died (our professor made sure to emphasize that the story was blatantly fake), and then listened to a song, coincidentally about remembering people. Aww.

I will miss this class a lot. More so than the other classes I’ve taken, I feel like I grew and sort of went on a journey with these people, not just in the same classroom as them. I was wary of them at first, then unsure, then intimidated, and finally comfortable. I’ve already talked with a couple about taking Spanish 4 together (eventually…when Arabic is done) and doing informal meet-ups/study groups. The last few months have flown by, and it’s definitely a bit bittersweet to be at the end here. Sure, I do have one more class, but with a substitute professor and less some of my favorite classmates, it seems like more of a bonus class, a postscript.

And so tonight, as Metro North slugged along and I brushed red velvet cupcake crumbs off my dress, I reflected on the last 10 weeks, and reviewed all that I’ve done and learned:

1. 1.       When I started class, Spanish was just filling my time before Arabic started. I was excited to be conquering the past tense, but a little nervous about the new location and the group
2. 2.       During our first holiday break, I started utilizing some new resources to study Spanish beyond cracking a book: WordRef for a dictionary and conjugation tools, and Spotify for some great Spanish music (still love Chavela Vargas!)
3. 3.       Returning to class, I vowed to wow everyone, and to do it sober. After more Bruno Mars and coffee than could possibly have been necessary, overcompensation became the theme of the night, and I learned that I have the most fun and learn the most not when I try too hard, but when I just relax
4. 4.       Three words reflect a turning point: I discover, to my great shame, that I’m not doing well in class, and need to practice. I mean, need. I vow to practice every day over the next few weeks while I’m on vacation
5. 5.       I rediscover Duolingo and how fun a daily dose of Spanish can be
6. 6.       I journal while on a cruise and celebrate the first time that I have been able to express my thoughts, feelings, and write about my day in (hopefully) correct tenses in another language
7. 7.       I barely have time to angst about a make-up lesson with my professor before finding it really helpful and getting a much-needed confidence boost. Heading into class that week, I promise myself to have fun, to talk, and to focus. The result is the sort of night I wished I’d had back in week 3 – I’m relaxed and confident, having fun as the product of hard work
8. 8.       The most fun I’ve had in class so far, when only 3 other students show and shit gets real silly. Our professor introduces us to the Spanish language This American Life, and we celebrate another milestone – listening to and comprehending complex spoken Spanish
9. 9.       My Spanish successes and failure to launch in Arabic set each other into sharp contrast. I realize how much fun it is to learn a language once at the intermediate level
10. 10.   I celebrate the end of an incredible learning experience that has been so much more fun, intense, relevant, and rewarding than any college class. Chatting with the Spanish 1 students who take class right before us reminds me how far I’ve come, and that it’s all relative. I have a lot to learn and practice, but I also know a lot more Spanish than a lot of other people, and if it’s this much fun to keep learning, my conviction to continue learning Spanish has only grown stronger.

Next week, on Multilingual Mondays…

What will class be like with a substitute teacher? Can I bring the leftover wine and have a second party? Just how much weight have I gained since the start of my weekly cupcake tradition? Will it stop snowing so I can sit and enjoy Bryant Park one last time? All this and more, next time, on Multilingual Mondays.

arabicproblems:

Well if this isn’t a more succinct representation of my last post, then….

arabicproblems:

Two months into the new year, I can’t say that I’ve gone on a date or started training in earnest for a 10k, let alone a half marathon, but with two classes down in Arabic 3 and two to go in Spanish 3, at least I’m making progress on one of my New Year’s Resolutions.

My recently-started Arabic 3 class has been almost a year in the making, whereas the Spanish class I signed up for was a sort off spur of the moment decision to use up some of my barter credit while I waited for my Arabic class to start. It was really just a meant to be a filler, albeit a practical one; sort of like the Glee Project to the summer hiatus of Arabic’s Glee (yeah, I went there). Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve come to really love my Spanish class and I’ve been having a really difficult time switching gears for Arabic. In other words, Arabic, for once, is getting sloppy lingual seconds.

I’ve finally hit a groove in Spanish. My class is meshing well, I’m finally comfortable talking, and things are starting to make sense. I have finally conquered the past tenses and am wrapping my head around the future, the conditional, and subjunctive. This has also been the class that has really pushed me to find small, fun ways to practice every day. This class, more than any other language class I’ve ever taken, has weaned me off a textbook and transitioned my way of learning to fit the real world, and it’s been so much fun! We’re still doing lots of exercises, but for the first time, I’m reading real Spanish news articles, listening to Spanish music and radio, watching Spanish films, and talking about current events with my classmates in Spanish. It has not been easy, but I’ve overcome my shyness and fear and shame and embarrassment and am learning and growing and I absolutely live it and am already going into pre-withdrawal just thinking that we only have two classes left, and for one of those my professor & half the students will be out for Passover. Did you just hear that? That was the sound of mi corazón breaking into a million pieces.

I know that, because of everything I’ve struggled with and learned and mastered in this class, I will be empowered to go on to the next level and better overcome the same things. But still, it’s hard now to imagine learning Spanish with anyone but my class and my professor.

Arabic has been difficult too. I’m so out of practice, and have had a hard time making the time to study. I’ve only just found ways to incorporate Spanish into my daily life, and now I have to add Arabic. It’s a lot! And let me tell you, it’s a lot harder to find gaming apps for learning Arabic, or an Arabic This American Life, and even if I did find one, I’m too beginner to understand much. Now that I’ve tasted the fruits of fun, intermediate level language learning, it’s tough to go back to the much less fun and more time-consuming study methods of memorization, repetition, flash cards. Ugh. I’m frustrated, I wish I was more advanced in Arabic to do the fun stuff, but I’m never going to get there unless I put in my time and do the hard work now.

Class is tough, too, because it’s just me and another student. Which is a fantastic ratio, to be sure, but I’ve felt terrible in our last few classes because I’m so rusty I’m dragging along my sole classmate with me. I know I just have to study more, and the sooner I do it, the sooner we can move on to the fun stuff.

Maybe it’s all just in my head. Maybe Arabic really isn’t all that much more difficult than Spanish. Heck, we learned the past tense two weeks ago, that’s pretty baller! Maybe I can start journaling, in SUPER rudimentary form, in Arabic soon. Maybe it’s just that being on the other side of my Spanish class is making me resistant to start back at the beginning in another language, like that terrible transition between high school and college, when 13 years-worth of fighting to the top to rule your school and hometown are flushed down the drain and you’re back to square one in a new place with new people and new challenges, and all you can think is, “why did I do this to myself?” As if there were any other options.

In this case, there are options.  I could stop taking Arabic. No one’s forcing me to. I could postpone level 3, take it at another time when life is less busy (ha!) and I’m in a break from Spanish.

But ultimately, while the happy and proud feeling I have now towards the end of my Spanish class sets into contrast my early failures & frustrations with Arabic 3, I think it’s also what motivates me to work harder and stick with Arabic. Because, if completing a Spanish 3 class feels this good, I can just imagine how I’ll feel with I conquer Arabic 3. Bring it on.

Next week, on Multilingual Mondays…Will I actually do my Arabic homework? How rad is our Spanish 3 class-end fiesta going to be? Will I hit up Baked by Melissa, Crumbs, or Magnolia for my Monday night cupcake fix? How awesome is this Arabic gif blog?

arabicproblems:

OH MY GOD THIS BLOG. I’m so glad this is in my life now, just in time for Arabic 3.

These Multilingual Milestones are brought to you by the letters:

A (for Amiga)
B (for Buena), and
C (for Cerveza)

That is to say, gracias a mi amiga buena quién me dio dinero para comprar una cerveza hoy, despues de mi trabajo y antes de mi clase de español.

Which is to say, a massive shout out to my dear friendita (hi Molly!) who gave me money to buy a beer after work and before my class. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so grateful for a $2 gift, or to be willingly consuming Coors (although the 2 roadies after That Day on the way to go see M83 [hi, Alex! You get a shout out too!] come preeeetty close).

Now, I’ve been very proud of my ability and tenacity to overcome the challenges and awkwardness of learning Spanish without the aid of stimulants or depressants. Today’s beer had nothing to do with Spanish, I just had a tough day at work, as we all do from time to time. It was one of those days where I felt so mentally and emotionally exhausted that I felt ill and wanted to go home early, and when I powered through the workday after all, made me even consider going home and - gasp - skipping Spanish class so I could just curl into a ball and slip into a peaceful oblivion for the rest of the night. But I had actually done my homework - all of it. All of it! - the night before, and I’ve been feeling good juju with class and didn’t want to mess that up. So, that beer is what kept me out of the fetal position and got me on my train to the city. Yeah, I was a little blurry-eyed when we pulled into Grand Central, but by the time I got to class I was pretty much back to normal. So thanks again, Molly, for the clutch beer.

Whatever it took to get me there, I’m glad I went, because today’s class was the most fun I’ve had in class so far. We only had 4 people, so that helped make it feel comfortable and cozy. As always, I enjoyed the antics of my seatmate (hola Emily!) and got to see a fun side of my other classmates (hola Susan y Tate!) While we waited for others to arrive, we shot the shit, which I guess we do every class, but this time it felt casual, like REALLY shooting the shit vs. Talking About Our Weekend Using The Preterite and Imperfect. This led to a discussion - in Spanish, of course, on lucid dreaming, and when class starts this way, you just know it’s only going to go up from there. We read a poem about a man who had a tattoo of Che’s face, and then practiced the subjunctive a lot. Some parts clicked immediately, others were more confusing, but all in all it went over well and was a lot of fun. We giggled a lot over the fact that Emily had FINALLY bought a textbook but that it was the wrong edition, so every time we read exercises aloud, her characters had different names and used slightly different verbs. Now that I think about it, it really shouldn’t have been so funny, but I’m telling you, we were all giggling like schoolgirls every time she said “Vincento” when our books said “Hector.” We did some exercises and I did pretty well. I think I understand when to use the subjunctive, but I need to practice writing & recognizing it.

Along those lines, we ended class with a listening exercise, listening to a radio segment on a woman whose car was stolen but then found after she prayed about it. And let me tell you, this was a BIG DEAL. Not the lady finding her car, although that was too - un milagro (a miracle) by her estimation - but that we listened to a radio segment. As our professor explained, if we can do this, we can read books in Spanish, we can watch TV in Spanish, we can do anything once we can listen and roughly comprehend without using a dictionary (at least, I THINK that’s what he said). So I feel pretty proud and accomplished, and have been thinking tonight about what a milestone this class has been for me. Spanish 3, at Fluent City, at least, is all about wrapping up grammar (we have like 1 more tense to go!) so that we can move on to a conversational class (level 4).

This class has been completely different from any other language class I have ever taken in this regard, specifically the progression to being conversational. In the beginning, we spent a lot of time doing exercises in the book, and would have a lot of homework that we’d review, and only spent a little bit of time talking about our weekends or reading a newspaper article, “conversations” that were small bookends on the rest of the class. But today, we only spent about ¼ of the time working out of the book and spent much more time talking. Even if we were doing exercises, we’d go off on tangents, and we found pretty much everything — even a discussion about faith, miracles, and religion — funny, amusing, and all-around enjoyable, even if it was a really freaking difficult exercise in the first place. I’m talking a lot more, and I’ve noticed that my classmates are as well. It’s pretty incredible that in just, what’s it been, 7 weeks so far, we’ve gone from being terrified and embarrassed (ok maybe just me) to feeling comfortable and confident with one another and with our new language. I’m really proud. I have never been able to communicate so much in a foreign language in my life, and if you’ve been following along this adventure, you’ll recall I quite recently doubted that I ever would. Well, here I am and I can only get better from here. I’ve pushed past the plateau! And if I can become conversational in Spanish, I can become conversational in other languages too, which bodes really well for the Arabic 3 class I started on Saturday, during which we started learning the past tense. Grammar work in Arabic!! Who’d have thunk I’d be learning that already??

All this to say, I’m feeling really, inexpressibly good, proud, and accomplished. It has not been always been easy, but I’m getting there! Y gracias a todos por su apoyo – thanks everyone for your support!

Next time, on Multilingual Mondays…will I be able to overcome my premature grief that the end of Spanish class is near (3 more weeks!) and make the most of the time I have left with my class? Will we all become BFF and speak Spanish together forever? Will Bryant Park be open again next week once the ice skating rink is torn down? Don’t you think it’s indicative of how icky NYC weather is that the Bryant Park ice skating rink is open for FIVE out of a possible twelve months in the year? Will I ever remember to go to Office Max before class to get those index card notebooks I saw one of my classmates with on the first day of class so that I can make flashcards? Will the Spanish learning potential of “Radio Ambulante” — the Spanish “This American Life” — be able to make up for its lack of Ira Glass’s voice? Can anything make up for not being Ira Glass’s voice? All this and more, next time, on… Multilingual Mondays.

visual-poetry:

»all of my good ideas are battles« by adam katz

Ahh love this