Aaron Versus The Old Fart

A conservative geezer named Joaquin (who looks like Brian Cox) derailed my otherwise successful lesson when he just had to ask why English-speaking people use the "t" and "d" sounds in the past simple tense. For example, at the end of "watched", we make the "t" sound, but at the end of "bamboozled", we make the "d" sound.

I know what the answer is-where the sound is made, in either the throat or the mouth-but to try to explain something that is confusing FOR English-speakers, to people who don't even have 100 words of English vocabulary between them, seems fairly impossible.

I should have said "shut the fuck up Joaquin" or, the more diplomatic and teacher-appropriate "that is a very good question, and we will get to this at a later date (even though we won't)."

But I equivocated and tried to do both things, mumbling about how difficult phonemes are and then trying to teach it anyway. It was just a complete mess, the class understandably gave up on trying to figure out what I was saying, and started talking amongst themselves. Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, I was bailed out when my tutor Roger finally came up to the front of the classroom and explained in his way why we use certain sounds, although I swear I don't think any of them understood what he said either.

It's one thing to teach something well and quite another for people to actually understand what they were taught.

In other news, the CELTA people are mostly fun, but this whole idea of not eating and just buying beers is starting to wear thin. I know we're all a bunch of cheap young people, but going from 12 in the afternoon to 4 in the morning with nothing but beer and sometimes wine is no way to go through life in Barcelona. Last night, we wandered close by to the school, which was kind of lame, and went to some cool bars, but when some of us tried to get the group to sit down at a restaurant, they balked and we wound up never actually going somewhere that served edible food. My dinner last night was peanuts and really bad empanadas which were overpriced and disgusting.

I discovered a beer here called "damm lemon" which is fantastic, for me at least. I have no idea whether it is considered a good beer or not, but it's kind of a mix between beer and lemonnade, and it was great. I can't really be bothered at this point to try to understand the palate differences between ales and lagers and stouts, etc. I know "bad" Bud Light beer tastes like water or tastes like crap, but as far as the "beery" taste of beer, I wouldn't know what to look for in a competition, other than perhaps whether it was made in Germany.

So all of that is just to say that I like the crazy beers which taste like beer and something else entirely. Like chocolate beer. Or a beer ice cream float. Or "Beez Kneez" which was an extra-sweet honeywheat flavored beer I had in Australia.  Or, in Barcelona, Damm Lemon.

Today is going to be an adventure because a few of us left all my important things with a girl named Kelly who has no phone, no computer, and doesn't know her own address, but allowed us to drop our school crap off with her before going out last night. We were all supposed to meet at 12 to go to the parque Guell but I woke up at 12:45. I'll head over there now and hopefully I'll run into them. If not, I might start knocking on random doors on Carrer Trafalgar.