Details, Details

Ah, peer pressure...

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.

Stream

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.

Shopping cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.

Um... a ziploc baggie? Oh, wait. not metal. A lunch box, then.

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.

a treif frying pan.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.

couch.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.

Gutter.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.

porch.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.

Soda.

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.

Pancake.

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.

Food I don't eat. So I don't generally talk about it unless someone else mentions it first, at which point I generally use the word they use - usually sub or hero.

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.

bathing suit. Hopefully not a speedo.

12. Shoes worn for sports.

Sneakers.

13. Putting a room in order.

straightening up or cleaning, depending on what's going on.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.

Firefly.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.

What?

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.

Seesaw.

17. How do you eat your pizza?

Not a dialect question. I usually pick it up and bite into it. Unless I am recovering from oral surgery, in which case I eat very small bites with a fork and knife.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?

Garage sale. Unless it's manhattan, where no one has a garage, so it is called a tag sale.

19. What's the evening meal?

Dinner.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?

Basement.

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?

Water fountain.

So I started my summer Spanish class yesterday. My other class, on language assessment (related to ESL), began on Monday and I am really enjoying it.

My Spanish class? Not so much. How bad is it that I can sit there in class and explain how I know she is a bad teacher? I mean, she is friendly and well-meaning, and helpful in providing vocabulary and structure when students want to give individualized answers to questions in the text.

But then she deals with grammar.

Maybe it is the linguistics major inside me. Maybe I just can't stand it when a teacher gives an inaccurate description of why a certain grammar structure works the way it does. Like when she was explaining the Arabic influence on a certain Spanish construction:

"Me gusta el gato" is the equivalent of "I like the cat." It really translates to, "the cat pleases me." Word by word:
"me pleases the cat."

She was trying to explain why it is backwards, and she said it is because Arabic is written right to left.

I was so frustrated! It is a different grammar system - nothing to do with which direction they write!

Plus, other people are having such issues following the grammar stuff. I am not, because of many factors:
a) early experience with two very different grammar systems - English and Hebrew - leaves me more open to learning new grammars
b) I did learn some French - even if I have forgotten most of it
c) my linguistics background
d) I am just good at learning grammars
But other people don't have that, and they are struggling.

Anyway, it is frustrating.

That having been said, there is one convenient thing about the class:
We miss two instructional days to visit a museum and a restaurant on our own.
Next Tuesday, I will be going to a museum. (Lemme know if you want to come. I am thinking Museo del Barrio.)
The Tuesday after that, I will not be going to a restaurant.

Instead, I will be at home, relieved that I only have half a day of classes on a fast day. :)
So that is a very good thing.

As for the restaurant, well, I am going to try to find a kosher one that sells cuisine from a Spanish-speaking country (I am open to suggestions) and, barring that, I will just write up something about Jewish Sephardi foods instead. (which she said is okay. As I said, she is nice.)

As for the sunset part, well, twice a year, the sunset aligns with the east-west blocks in the city. Which, as we know, are not actually east and west. Anyway, it happens on May 28th and July 12th. (I am not crazy. I looked it up today on a website.) And today was sunny and gorgeous. And digital cameras are convenient because I could look at the viewscreen instead of the sun, and thus not hurt my eyes.

Anyway, I got some pictures.