I was musing over some of the, um, well, interesting and eccentric personalities of expats that I know who have lived in this country for a long time (no, I'm NOT mentioning any names...), and then my little kitty, Zane happened to come along. I found myself talking outloud in a funny little cat voice, telling Jackie that I was hungry and she should feed me some chicken pizza. I was actually speaking outloud on behalf of the cat.
Please pray that this trend doesn't continue and that I don't turn into a crazy eccentric lady who spends all her days spying on the neighbors and dialogging with her 15 cats!
On a happier note, Jackie and I recruited the young man who helps us around the compound to be our Arabic teacher! So we had our first lesson today, and it went quite well, I think! He seems to be patient enough, seems to know at least the basics of the language well, has been educated as a teacher in a nieghboring country, and is just a very pleasant young man.
I was encouraged because about halfway through the lesson, we tried out having a whole conversation with some of the phrases we had been learning, and we could both manage to have a whole conversation without even looking at our notes! So today marked my first "formal" language learning session. We're going to try to meet twice a week with Justin and see how it goes. I just might learn something yet :)
In language learning, there seem to be certain "windows" of opportunity where it's most effective. One of those windows was when I first arrived - and I didn't have the time to do anything about it then. But I think another window is opening up... and it seems this time to be more a case of the fact that I am just tired of all the other bits and pieces that I'm doing, so my brain needs a bit of a different sort of challenge. And learning some language seems to be just the sort of challenge that my brain is up to at the moment! I hope my motivation doesn't wane too far... it's too easy to get swallowed up in other things around here!
Num kwais! (um, that means, "sleep well", 'cause that's what I'm off to do fairly soon...)
1 comment:
Um... what's so weird about speaking outloud on behalf of the cat? I do it ALL the time with hedgehogs... Oh wait - maybe I am one of the eccentrics that you're talking about!! Only I didn't live there long at all and I'm not old. I think I kinda, maybe came a little eccentric already and the hedgehogs and living situation of that country, kind of, well, um, exemplified it, ya know?
I see nothing wrong with you speaking out loud on behalf of your cat... ;)
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