Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Saturday, June 03, 2006

A normal Saturday night

Listening to: 'Hate Me' by Blue October; 'Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield; 'Where'd You Go?' by Fort Minor (a rap song I actually like, since it also involves music and good lyrics)

I worked a rare 8-hour Saturday shift today, and although I did take a nap afterwards I wasn't really wiped out like usual. I got to use my Spanish today when helping a man with a phone card. I could read the card's fine print and was able to direct him to a Mexican restaurant in broken Spanglish. I explained that I could read Spanish and understood him, but didn't really speak it well. He appreciated it a great deal and shook my hand, then went on his way. And before any of you say anything about how people in this country should know English, he was using every bit of his English and trying very hard to be understood, and had a phrase-book where he could show me a word he didn't know. It wasn't that different from how I'd be a tourist in, say France, except he was probably more fluent than I would have been. :) If I could just get over my embarrassment at speaking Spanish, I think I could do pretty well with fluency. I always hated getting up in class and speaking, even though I had a decent accent and did really well. But now that I'm rusty, I'm too hung up on making mistakes. I really should go to one of the bilingual cafes they have over at the Village Branch library and practice more to get my confidence up. And I'm not like this just with Spanish...German is the same way. Also, I think the part of your brain that you use for second languages must be slightly different from your native tongue...sometimes I find I go to think of a word in one language and can just remember it in another one, not English. Of course, my grasp of English is somewhat idiosyncratic, too. :)

It was also our day to be a honest-to-goodness service station. The guys hepled change a tyre for one woman who was stranded and then one of them gave another one a jump right afterward. Oh, and I got to be a Good Samaritan yesterday by giving someone water for their radiator when I was out driving. I still had water from working on the battery, and she was stranded without any more. What can I say, what goes around comes around.

Well, I think I'll play on the computer for awhile. 'Night.
So, I'm home now and having had some cheap pizza (Little Caesar's hot-and-ready cheese carryout deal for $5 can't really be beat when you're hungry and not wanting to spend a lot) and a nap I'm listening to the radio and watching Cerys roll on the floor. She's doing much better today; the limp is gone completely and by yesterday evening she was leaping from the bed (which may have been the problem in the first place). She's being cute, putting her muzzle up on my leg. :)

The computer is apparently fixed. Yay!

Tomorrow there isn't a game (long story to that which I won't go into here; suffice to say it's on hold until I can solve a technical problem with my e-mail, of all things), so I think I'll do some work for distance learning so I can go in Monday with both tapes I've been working on and exchange them for some more and maybe do some things around here. Cleaning my bathroom seems a capital idea, for example. Or maybe I'll do some reading. Anyway, I think I'll play on the computer some and then head on to bed. 'Night.

No comments: