by Thursday was Children’s Day. That’s actually a thing in Romania, and this year the government decided it’s enough of a thing to make it an official public holiday for the first time. Personally I think anything that encourages parents to spend more time with their kids is great, although I was dismayed to learn that the awful phrase timp de calitate – quality time – exists in Romanian. Religious festivals are also most definitely a thing here, and today is Rusalii which I think translates to Whitsunday or Whitmonday or is it Pentecost? Whatever you call it, it’s another public holiday, so millions of Romanians have bridged the gap between the two for a bumper five-day weekend. Children’s Day was a popular day for my kidless students to have lessons so it was relatively busy for me. In the evening there was a show at the bandstand in the rose garden and a big smoky barbecue outside. I had a scoop of anchovies (hamsii) and some mici.
Mum and Dad should be safely in St Ives now. They had a two-night stopover in Singapore and called me from the airport. They looked worn out. Mum will be 68 next week, Dad turns 67 at the end of the month, and long-distance travel is starting to become both tiring and stressful for them. Mum doesn’t help – she gets very wound up if the smallest thing goes ever so slightly wrong, and of course when you’re travelling long distances, things rarely do go exactly according to plan. Oh no, there I go again, slagging off Mum. In fairness to her, she’s been very supportive of my move to Romania ever since I suggested it, and she’s proud of me for having the balls to actually do it. I’m optimistic that I’ll get on perfectly fine with Mum when they come here in five days’ time.
I’ve now had my first two lessons with Cosmin. They were fine, although next time I must make sure we sit alongside each other rather than opposite. He had some print-outs from a Romanian-based website for learning English which were worse than useless, but unfortunately he seemed to treat them as gospel. They were full of spelling errors (“fourty”), phonetic transcriptions that encourage terrible pronunciation (tenc iu veri maci for “thank you very much”), antiquated greetings like “How do you do?”, and words and phrases (“daughter-in-law”; “degree”) that you simply don’t need to know when you’re just starting out. None of this was his fault of course, and it disappoints me how much crap is out there, peddled by people who don’t know any better (or worse, don’t care), that actively hinder the process of learning English for student and teacher alike.
I’d better go. Next time (later today?) I’ll post some photos.
