Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Writing ensayos

Hoy en la clase de espaƱol tuve escribir un ensayo. First of all, I don't do my best "essay writing" in class. I need time to prepare to prepare my thoughts and organize my content. (I don't know how i'm going to do on my English final, half of it is in-class open book essay). Also, i hate the time crunch you have with in-class essays. I'm so concerned that I'll run out of time, and then i start to freak out, and then i get bewildered. At least at home I control how much time i have to write. Second, and this is the part that pertains to this blog (my goal is to have all my posts relate in some way to Sparmenglish or at least to my grandfather...i don't want this blog to turn into me ranting and complaining) this essay was in supposed to be in Spanish, but i'm pretty sure i made up some Sparmenglish words. I did it on the last essay tambien. "Percent" is not "Porcente" but actually "Porcentaje" so i was pretty off there. We'll see what new words i come up with soon.

Spanish is an interesting class. I feel like i'm learning everything i need but i don't think i'm using what i've learned and i can honestly say some of the things that we cover I have NEVER heard in the house before. I don't think my mother really distinguishes between the preterite and imperfect. And I'm positive that Ago does not use the subjunctive. In fact, i question how much Spanish my grandfather uses. The majority of his conversations with my mother and aunt are in Armenian (i say majority because spanish is infiltrated in those conversations) and when he speaks Spanish it's like he's repeating the same sentences. Ohhhhhhh....that's a good post topic: What my gpops says in Spanish. I'll have to elaborate on that one when i'm not so tired.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Treadmill

The treadmill. That is a word that has been creeping up in Ago's vocabulary for a couple of years now. Ago spends fifteen minutes everyday walking at a slow pace on the machine. His old complex used to have a gym and i believe that his new place has a gym as well. Well, that is not good enough. It turns out that Ago has to have a treadmill in his own living room. Apparently, right now he is saving to be a "top of the line" treadmill in Marzo. If he's going to wait a whole year to buy the treadmill, then we're going to have to hear about it for a whole year. We'll be reminded about how he he needs to save money for it; the health benefits of a treadmill, and he'll tell us how nice it is to exercise in the comforts of ones home at any hour they please. It will get old. But at his age of 94 this kind of exercise is good for him. I do have to say though, i've been pretty impressed by my gpops efforts to keep up with technology. He doesn't have a cell phone or computer, but this man has a printer and fax machine. And he had an iPod before everyone else!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

So today I went to see my grandpa and it was a little different from all the other times that i have gone.  Whenever i come home I usually go to see if he needs me to take him anywhere so that my mother won't have to, but surprisingly today he needed to go nowhere.  So now what do I do?  I just got here.  I can't leave.  He hasn't seen me for three weeks.  What am I supposed to do?  So, I stayed for awhile. He enticed me with food: an Argentine pear and a Cameo apple.  Like we don't have any fruit at home.

When this happens I usually just sit, watch some television or read a book but today was different because I sort of had a conversation with my grandfather.  As of now we still don't speak a same language, but we both can understand Spanish, Armenian, and English.  The conversation, which was mostly in Spanish, was him lecturing and me listening and I understood all of it.  Everything that he was trying to say, I understood, I got, I was able to come home and tell my parents about.  I can blog about it, but I won't.  The only parts worth blogging were the importance of Spanish and maybe what nutrients almonds have (magnesium, vitamin B6, calcium).  But, what Ago and I have is a sort of emotional bond.  Words don't have to express what we are thinking or feeling, our emotions explain it.  But how? He knew that i understood what he was saying, and I knew that he knew that I just understood--if that sentence makes any sense at all.  

AGHHH!!!!  I am having difficulty explaining this "deep emotional stuff."  Maybe i'll just stick to entertaining stories and save the rest for a book.