i understand

Tuesday, April 21st 2009
My boss called me last night at 10pm to ask if I could teach a new student today at 8am. (typical of her, right?) I need the money, so I said yes. I taught a new student in her apartment. She's a lawyer and she's around the same age as me. She was really nice to talk to, so I'm looking forward to more classes with her. After our class, I got on the collectivo and headed to my 9:30am student. Since it was a new route for me, my boss offered to call my 9:30am student to let her know I'd be late. Of course she didn't call and I was late. I don't know if it was because I was late or she was just in a bad mood but she was stand-offish. When she read, I asked if she had any questions on any of the words. She quickly responds with a no, but when I ask her a specific word...she didn't know the meaning. Not sure what her reasoning for being so difficult was?

My 11am student canceled, so I headed home. Later in the day I had my Spanish lesson. I always get so tired during the lesson. In the middle of a worksheet I stopped reading and just had conversation with my teacher. She asked if I was practicing my Spanish and I told her I met a conversation exchange person this Monday to practice. She said something in Spanish and I said I didn't understand what she was asking. So she said in English "I asked you last week if you wanted to have conversation exchange with me and you weren't interested". Wha??? Oh no.....she asked me and I totally didn't understand! So much of my Spanish comes from taking a couple words that I do understand and forming a meaning from them, rather than understanding word for word. I'm sure I heard 'intercambio" and thought she recommended I look for someone on the internet to exchange languages.

I apologized and said that I was interested in doing a conversation exchange with her after my lessons. I apologized again. I hope she believed me (I really didn't fully understand her)

I guess this doesn't make me much different from my difficult student this morning...pretending to know when I really don't understand.