A little birthday video I made for my friend Catherine.
The dinner I almost sacrificed my life for
The other night my Argentine flatmate came home, and upon entering the apartment immediately commented, “mucho calor! (“it’s very hot in here!”) At that point I was chilling on the couch, pretty dozy, and nodded in a non-committal way.
He walked straight into the kitchen, and exclaimed, “you’ve left the gas on!”
Suddenly I realised I wasn’t feeling too well.
As it turned out for the last one and a half hours I had been sitting in a closed up apartment that had been slowly filling with gas. Earlier I’d used the stove while (reluctantly) cooking dinner. I mixed up some of the dials, and somehow had accidentally left one of them with the gas on. And my terrible sense of smell had prevented me from detecting this.
To think, if my flatmate had returned a few hours later, or not at all that evening, I would have just passed away quietly into the night, with Stephen Colbert’s face the last thing I’d seen.
That night I ranted to my flatmate about God sending clear messages to me that I should NOT be in the kitchen. But the following morning decided to “get back on that bicycle” and braved using the stove once again.
When I lit a match to light the stove, a spark flew off and left a burn mark on my chin:
Just chatting to Rachel on messenger, and realising how ironic it would have been had I actually met my end. Think about it. As everyone knows I’ve avoided cooking my whole life. Then I finally decide I should take it up to improve myself … and instead IT KILLS ME.
As Rach said, “it could be a new verse in Alanis Morissette’s song.”
Like my Spanish, cooking will be more fun once I lose the nerves, and make the experience my own.
It’s hard to be you, when you can’t speak a language. People have absolutely no idea what you’re like, and in fact, are more likely to assume you’re dumb, or shy. You become this mute, empty presence.
I have been frustrated with my Spanish because while my classes have been going well, my ability to talk on the street was miles behind. But in these last five days I’ve made some great progress, thanks to two things:
(1) I have been talking more! I’ve been meeting locals whose English is less than fluent. That means good enough to keep the conversation flowing when I get stuck, but not so good that they wouldn’t rather I speak Spanish when I can.
(2) Being myself when I talk! Talking isn’t fun when you’re just saying, “Soy Australiana.” “Vivo en Buenos Aires.” “Estudio Espanol“. I love to talk when I get to try and be funny or interesting, and I think loving to talk is going to be fantastic for my Spanish.
For example, three times I’ve told this story, of why I’m learning to play tennis. I plan to get better and better, and one day end up on the world tour, win a few tournaments, and be introduced to Rafa (Spain’s Rafael Nadal), where we’ll fall desperately in love.
It is Classic Monica (as it contains unreal expectations of dating an incredibly famous celebrity). And with each telling I have picked up more words, and been able to say more of it in Spanish.*
Shit! More egg stuck on the saucepan than on the plate. Rookie's mistake.
Once I understand the principles, I'll be able to get more expressive. And that's when I'll truly be able to enjoy cooking, or speaking Spanish.
Of course it is still difficult. It’s like trying to build a house with barely any materials (vocabulary) or tools (grammar). But rather than be nervous that I’m sounding like a fool, I have begun to just dive in there, using Spanish words incorrectly but it gets the message across, patching it together with English words where I must, or interrupting with a “Como se dice ‘english word here‘ en espanol?” in order to pick up new words.
So long as the flow is there, the magic spark stays alive, and I feel like there’s a connection, which is encouraging.
(Although sometimes I don’t manage to get the message across. Like when a group of us were watching a soccer game on TV, and someone asked me, “te gusta futbol?” (“Do you like soccer?”) “Mas o menos. Veo el mundo taza ayer,” – which means “more or less. I watch the world teacup yesterday,” where I’d meant to say, “I watched the last world cup!”)
* Today I met this girl in my Spanish class who works in the tennis industry. She gave me the lowdown on Rafa – who apparently has a girlfriend! And they’re very serious!! And him being Catholic and all, he is a serious, family kind of guy!!! Oh noes!!!!!
