Hola!!

I’m now officially in my Spanish phase. For the past five years I’ve been in my French phase, broken only by a brief interest in Portuguese in 2004.

I’m talking about the *languages* not the men, please note.

In 2002 I registered for French classes at Alliance Francais to (a) meet new people (b) get out of the house on Saturday mornings (c) get into the arty scene at Maison de France and….there was a fourth reason, can I remember it…oh yeah: (d) learn French.

After taking French classes on and off for forever, I can still only say “je voudrais une omelette avec champignons.” …the important thing is that if stranded in France, I won’t starve.

So did I (a) meet new people? Definitely. Did I make friends? Er, no.
Why not? Because that wasn’t on the list. The list said ‘meet new people’. There was nothing there about making friends. Stick to the list…focus, FOCUS!

A lot of the people I met at Alliance were very nice people. (A lot of the people I met there might read this blog.) I repeat, very nice people. Did I mention they were nice? Actually I don’t know if they are very nice people because I didn’t talk to them much, I usually sat at the back of the class drawing little Eiffel towers and giant croissants in my notebook.

I got as far as A4, dropped out for a while then started over. Got as far as A3 and dropped out again. Went back and continued from A4, dropped out. When I returned yet again my favourite teacher said to me “You are not serious. Why?” I blamed it on work, the universal reason why people the world over can’t be serious about weekend language classes.

“You’re just so *tired* after a week spent in Lagos traffic and at meetings that dragging yourself out of a comfy bed and into the harsh hostile world of an unknown language on a SATURDAY morning is sometimes impossible.”

The *real* reason was simple. When I joined a class and got bored with the people in it, I would drop out so that when I returned I’d be in a new class with new people. It was like watching a reality TV series, not liking the line-up of housemates and skipping it til the new season – and hopefully more interesting characters.

Going for the classes meant I definitely got to (b) get out of the house on Saturday mornings instead of lazing about doing nothing in particular. The (c) arty scene? Hmm I didn’t get ‘into it’ as much as peep in from the doorway. Why? Er…because of work. Yeah that’s it, because of work, traffic, meetings, comfy bed etc see detailed reason in paragraph eight.

There were great dance recitals and exhibitions and readings and screenings, with all sorts of people from all sorts of places…I went to a few and they were fantastic but before I knew it I was back to drawing in my notebook at the back of the room.

Slowly, slowly my interest in French waned. Now Espanol is all the rage. Since my interest in Spanish began it’s been nothing but hola! que pasa? and gracias! all over the place. Now I’m looking for where to take classes…if anyone knows any Spanish class with interesting people, please let me know and let’s see how long this phase lasts… adios amigos.