The Great Leap Forward

Why am I not posting about anything interesting lately?  Er...

The most interesting thing I've done this past week is clean the toilet bowl.  Really?  Really.  Unless you think watering plants is more interesting than cleaning toilet bowls.  In that case, I change my answer to: watering plants.

Household chores offer a respite from conjugating verbs.  Romanian verbs.  I have a tutor.  It's a good thing.  She's a good tutor.  By now its universally acknowledged that I need to start being forced to speak Romanian so I can make the Great Leap Forward into total fluency instead of this half-baked sort of partial understanding but still talking like a four year old kind of thing that I'm doing now.  Problem is, everyone tells me this in English.  I can't quite wrap my head around the absurdity of that part.  I'm thinking about getting t-shirts printed up: Do not speak to me in English.  But then the back would have to say Do not bring a translator either.  Cause that's what happens.  Really.  I showed up at my tutor's house and there was a translator there.  And then we all sat around for about 30 minutes and discussed how important it is for me to be forced to speak Romanian.  How necessary it is that I be shielded from English.  My tutor understands English quite well and I understand Romanian well enough that the two of us would get along PERFECTLY.  Because what would it force me to do?  Uh...would the answer to that be "speak in Romanian?"  I'll take that category for $200 Mr. Trebeck.

I'm not denying that I seem to lack the mental capacity to make the Great Leap Forward.  Yes, my deficit of quality grey matter is certainly a problem.  But there's this other hindrance which is that no one wants to be the one to slow down and speak clearly for any length of time so that I can converse.  I get it.  It's a drag to have to enunciate every word and rephrase, to not drop endings and use nonsensical slang.  It's like cleaning the toilet bowls: everyone knows it needs to be done but they wait for someone else to pick up the brush and start swirling.  In the meantime the nasty stuff grows and I am spoken to either in English or through Mihai.

Sometimes folks get irritated with the lack of progress so they just start ramming Romanian down our throats.  It's about as helpful as when you tell someone you're thirsty and they try to solve the problem by turning a fire hose on you.

You know who was awesome to speak with?  Danuţ.  I miss him.

The meetings are a fantastic resource of course.  I always feel as if I have made great strides when I leave.  Except in the heat it's tough.  My head lolls around and the sweat drips down my sides and every once in a while a breeze will come through the open window and wake me up.  "Huh?  Whaaa...?  Where are we?  Paragraph 15?"  And there stands poor Marin Baboş wishing someone would wake up from their heat-induced stupor and answer.  Anyone except the four brothers from the "old generation".  The Ceauşescu era. They're made of far sterner stuff than are the rest of us who wilt and sag in our comfortable chairs, roofs over our heads, glossy magazines on every lap.  How can they stand us I wonder?

The older generation speak no English.  Its good.  It forces me to progress.  The younger generation do (speak English that is) but they are shy about approaching us and even after all this time we haven't quite broken through yet.  Probably has something to do with our attendance at Gara Nord being sporadic since we have so many options of times and days and we disloyally go wherever it's the most convenient for us.  Shame.

But also there is just that inherent shyness that comes with speaking a foreign language.  It makes me laugh.  I want to say "Are you listening to my Romanian?  How can your English possibly be any worse?"  But the reluctance persists.

Excuses, excuses, I know.  Just like the smoker or the alcoholic I tell myself that I can quit speaking English any time I want.  And I'm going to start on Monday.  Right after I finish cleaning those toilet bowls.

(The Sleep of Reason Sui Jianguo. I saw this original piece at SFMOMA a few years ago.  The rivers and trees are made out of plastic dinosaurs.  It was so fantastic it gave me chills.)