by We’ve had a sudden drop in temperature today; it briefly snowed this morning.
So last night I called Dad. I waited till half-ten (my time) to make sure that, barring something unforeseen, Mum would be out. He brought up the subject of Mum without my prompting. At one point the electrician showed up at my parents’ place, so our call was interrupted and went even later than expected. So, does Mum want me to come or not? Yes, he assured me, she absolutely does. He said that he could certainly see where I was coming from though, and she was just in a funny mood the day before. I’ll take his word for it. He even said that she’d now be quite upset if I didn’t make it over. So I guess that’s settled. I can safely book the trip. I really do want to see both Mum and Dad over there, as well as extended family and friends. Plus it’s just a great country to spend a month in – that’s the plan. Mum and Dad have virtually decided to spend two months in Europe, arriving in the middle of May, so I’ll likely be spending more time with them than I imagined. That can surely only be a good thing. As for Mum’s golf, she’d only played five holes when one of her playing partners took ill, so they called it a day.
Some other family news: my brother got a distinction in his master’s degree. His academic exploits appear to be limitless. It’s all mighty impressive, firstly because he didn’t have an academic bone in his body as a kid, and secondly it’s in business management, something that would bore me to tears (and I assumed would bore him to tears too, but clearly not). Mum is keen to attend his graduation in July, just before they go back home.
I’ve lost a student. She questioned my lack of relevant credentials. So, would you seriously prefer a teacher with a TEFL qualification but without all the practical experience I have? Yes. OK then, I’m sure you can find someone who fits the bill pretty easily. That was my second and surely my last session with her. If it’s taken over nine years for someone to be bothered by my lack of a formal qualification, I’m glad I didn’t get one. (I did want to take a course in Wellington, but the sheer expense and the fact that I’d have needed to take time off work put it beyond my reach.) I had a funny lesson last night with a woman in her late thirties. I’ve got a new sink. I hope you like it, she said. Bathroom or kitchen sink? Chiuvetă. I said the Romanian word to confirm that I’d understood her. No no no, sink, like when you sink music. God! Oh, you mean a new song! Of course I do. You need to guess what I mean. No, sorry I don’t. Often you can make a mistake and still get the message across perfectly fine. But what you said was too far away for me to reasonably guess, and sounded like another word that was totally plausible.
In yesterday’s Romanian lesson, Dorothy talked about her time as a Latin teacher and her use of mnemonics. She mentioned this because some of the Romanian imperatives come straight from Latin and form a nice mnemonic in that language. I find mnemonics extremely handy. Most recently I’ve used them to learn Scrabble words. In that crucial game in the recent league I played DISPONE to give me a narrow win, a word which I’d learnt as ONSIDE plus a P. (SPINODE is a valid anagram.) Soon though I’ll have to shift away from these memory aids, otherwise there will be too many phrases to remember.
