Spanish 101

So I have discovered how much fun it is to relive childhood moments with real life youngsters. Like an out-of-body experience, I have watched myself actually enjoy reruns of Sesame Street (who knew Feist could teach fuzzy monsters to COUNT TO FOUR so melodically!), get upset when the Hercules disc was too scratched to play on the dvd player, and gulp Nesquik chocolate milk while singing The Climb with Hannah Montana and admiring Billy Ray's new haircut. (I still vomit in my mouth a little when I hear the words "Jonas" and "Brothers" anywhere near the same sentence, however. Actually, a lot. All over the desert island to which I banish them.)

After posting an ad for private tutoring at the American Church, I got a call from a Spanish family for Wednesday night 2-hour sessions with their 8- and 10-year old children. I was a little hesitant at first because, well, me and kiddies...erm, not so much. But hey, I'll try anything (almost) once, and if they turned out to be little terrors, I consoled myself that I just wouldn't go back.

But to my surprise, they were actually really well-behaved and smart! I helped them with their homework and, when there wasn't enough work to fill the hour, we'd dance around in plastic Asterix helmets and sing songs from High School Musical. (I know, I KNOW! Number 3 IS the best one, I totally agree!)

The first time I babysat and ate dinner with the kiddies I was interrupted from my stuffing-my-face reverie with a little 8-year-old-boy squeak: "Pleeze to 'elp wis fud?" as he made cutting motions in the air with his knife and fork. OMG! After picking my jaw up off the floor and looking around to see if he might not be talking to someone else, I, feeling exceptionally awkward, cut up SOMEONE ELSE'S chicken cutlet into bite-sized pieces. And didn't eat them myself.

And one night around Christmastime we settled in to watch Rudolph the the Red-Nosed Reindeer, yes, that Christmas special from the '60s hosted by Burl Ives the Snowman. I hadn't seen it in a reeeeeeally long time, so I was really excited when I stumbled upon a European dvd player-friendly disc at the library a few hours before I was due at their house to babysit. A few minutes into it, though, I began to fear it was too old-looking and weird for this new generation, but as soon as the first song started, Jaime started bopping his little feet and Blanca even tried to sing along with the lyrics as the subtitles popped up in time with the music.

Yay, old fuzzy Rudolph animé wins over another batch of kiddies!

Anyway, they found my camera one night and took a lot of really incomprehensible, fuzzy photos of I-don't-even-know-what objects, but here's one where we actually all came out looking like human beings, which is kinda sad because that means my photography skills are only slightly better than a 10-year-old kid:

Movie night!

And thus endeth kK's adventures in babysitting. Maybe they'll come visit me in America. The parents are really anxious for them to learn English and they all think I'm super sweet and mature. Haha yar, if those kids come over here I'll take them to all my usual shady hangouts, you know, the library, the local cemetery, dangerous places like that. 

I'm having the babysitter for dinner...

Well, today started off well...I 'tutored' the 4 year old this morning, but she was having none of it. I should have known something was up when her mother left the room, saying: 'now, be nice to Kathryn today...' ah shit.

We began with colors, and she actually repeated everything I said really well. Then we tried shapes, but she was like, NON we are finished. And I was like, quoi? comment? No sirree we are NOT finished. But then it was all downhill...I kept speaking in English, and she was like ARRET! So I of course ignored her and kept saying words and phrases in English in response to her outbursts of French. She kept telling me to stop talking, stop laughing, it's not funny! (which of course made me laugh even harder.) She started running around the room, picking up her dolls and hiding from me, telling me to stop looking at her. So I pretended to enjoy the game and staggered after her, holding up a coloring book and asking if she wanted to color something, goddammit! (no, I didn't actually swear out loud, but dude, inside...pfff!) AND THEN she busted out 'you're not pretty! I'm TOO pretty! You have no friends! You are evil! I will cut off your face and eat it!'

OK, so all but the last was true...she definitely said something about mange-ing something, which would have been funny except the look in her eyes gave me the "woah, back off Mademoiselle Lecter" vibes.

She kept leaving the room and trying to color on the walls...I was swinging her around and instigating sword fights with our pens, and when her mom came back in (probably b/c we were making so many weird noises and opening and closing doors) we tag-team finished the 'lesson' with a more subdued-but-still-glowering little girl trying to stuff her dolls into her pink backpack and go off on a roadtrip. I told her mom next time I was bringing some damn Sesame Street...viva la television!

kK

Seriously? Did today just start already?

**N.B.: obviously this post was started on 25.10.2009 Monday morning at what should have been 8.30 am...**

Gah. So there's something about not actually sleeping in on that first day of DSL...I feel cheated, of course, but also a bit off...nobody's supposed to FORGET about DSL!  Now I just feel stupid, and also like I've been awake for an extra hour, which is not exactly how this fall-back thing should work. I want to feel like I got to SLEEP for an extra hour, muthafu***! I wuz robbed! God, if I hadn't LITERALLY JUST YESTERDAY installed internet in my apt, I would have gone to my tutoring session an hour early!! That would have been super fun.

Saw my first college american football game in ages last night at a canadian pub overlooking la Seine, although I must admit I was obviously more glued to the tv than the river (river? what river? was that a safety by Penn? why the f*ck aren't they showing THAT game instead of Tenn v Bama!!). Ha, I sound like I'm actually a die-hard fan of Am. Football....mostly I'm quoting Pull The Prick Out (no, I was not clever enough to give her that name...only hashers think up stuff like that!), who IS a sports fiend. It was good fun (even though I mostly kept sneaking glances at the TV showing the Aus v NZ rugby match...).

Now I'm drinking coffee at way-too-early in the morning getting ready to eat my soggy chocolate-quinoa cereal...damn, I was so annoyed I missed DSL I had to BLOG about it before I ATE. This is major news, peeps, major. At least I have some awesome French music videos to keep me company. I mean seriously, thank GOD for the bizarre fabulousness of French music!!

kK

Tutor (also read, in best jim carey voice: leh-hooo-zeh-hehr!)

Since the teaching gig is only 12 hours a week, I gots to earn me some extra cash, and luckily I've gotten a few tutoring requests: The Spanish Family--daughter is about 9, son is about 6 (holy crap that little dude is just too friggin adorable!!!) and they're so well-behaved, both of them! They just smile a lot and very studiously show me their lessons they need help with, and they try really, really hard to follow my corrections in pronunciation. I'm like, you're too young to be so well-organized! Stop speaking three languages and making my lazy American, one-and-a-half-language self all embarrassed, like!

Then there's the 4 year old French girl, also super adorable, but it's pretty much just an hour of 'babysitting'...I point to letters of the alphabet and go over them slowly and clearly in English, she ignores me and draws incomprehensible objects on little pieces of paper with various crayons. Then she tries to get ME to say the alphabet in FRENCH. I just keep repeating things like "YELLOW" until she finally looks at me funny and goes "wewwo" and I'm like PERFECT--NOW DO IT AGAIN YOU LITTLE HO.

Saint-Denis is, thank god, quite a bit older...final year in university (or master's degree, or something...I still can't figure out how this school system works, even when people try to speak slowly and explain it like I'm leotarded), and he's just landed a two-month stint at some job where he needs to speak a lot of English, so he just wants to practice by having a conversation over un cafe (omg he orders DECAF esspresso...I just looked at him and was like, dude, are you even French?) en anglais. He gets so frustrated when he makes little mistakes (saying 'persons' instead of 'people') but really, he does just fine...he's a sweet, serious little perfectionist...his new boss is going to love him (especially seeing as how said boss doesn't even speak English!). So what if he can't understand a word Chandler says in an un-dubbed episode of "Friends"; I'm sure he can hold his own when it comes to discussing agricultural practices of the EU. It's actually fun to talk to him, and by now we're more friends than tutor/client, so I just told him to buy me a beer next time and we'll do both English AND French so I can practice too. Seriously, I gotta start speaking more French...listening to music and TV (omg sometimes I even leave the TV on all night just in case it helps train my brain to dream in French or something. I know, I'm crazy.) only does so much...

**kK Tangent 806**

...but wait! I just remembered something TOTALLY awesome! I was in the internet store finalizing my order on Friday, and there was a Brazilian girl being helped by the same lady who was on hold with the phone company for me...anyway, long story short, there was a language barrier and the internet lady looked over at me and was like, um, will you help me? So I got to translate for two complete strangers, telling the Brazilian lady what the internet lady needed from her to get her new blackberry working! It was pretty basic, granted, but still...I was like *puffpuffpuff* ego-getting-bigger. And then, of course, I went to a cafe and ordered une carafe d'eau, and the waiter was like, QUOI?? COMMENT?? oh, UNE CARAFE D'EAU? (yes, goddammit! that's what I just friggin said!) and then: "why yes, I will bring you water right away." in english. le sigh.

**possible end to kK Tangent 806**

Well, it's either time for a shower or another glass of wine...let's make a wild guess as to which one wins out tonight.

kK