Sprangles

For Lana’s birthday I enrolled us both in dancing classes at Gilkisons in the city — I’m not much of a dancer, but I know Lana likes it, so I figured it would be something she’d appreciate. I’m surprised to discover that I’m quite enjoying the classes too, despite my complete lack of grace and dignity on the dance floor. I guess it’s something to do with the fact that I don’t look so bad in a room full of complete amateurs. So that’s working out well, and we’re considering enrolling in other classes when this course is done, possibly even some swing dancing like Shell does. Who would have thought?

I also decided recently that I really need to get my french back up to speed, so since the start of October I’ve been attending french classes at l’Alliance Française de Perth. I’ve been really surprised by how much I remember, I can pretty much understand everything that the teacher says.

It still takes me a while to put a sentence together when I’m speaking, but I’m improving. I think the biggest challenge is making myself start talking before I’ve figured out the entire sentence — I notice a lot of the other students won’t say anything until they’re sure they know all the words they want to say, and they’ve rehearsed it in their head. I’ve got the same instinct, but I’m forcing myself to dive in and start talking. I think it’s better practice that way, and helps me be better prepared for real life conversations.

My french teacher in high school had us all to practice speaking as often as possible, and was very particular about our accents. I’m really appreciating that effort now, it’s clear that the teaching at l’Alliance doesn’t focus on that as much, and there’s some terrible accents in our class! I think once this term of classes has finished I’ll sign up for some one-on-one lessons — it’ll make me work a lot harder, and I think it help me learn faster.

And while I’m talking about classes, I’m also signed up with some friends to do an Indian cooking class in a couple of weeks. It’s a whole-day class, and we’ve been instructed to bring 8 tupperware containers for the things we’ll be making. Lana is looking forward to dinner that night!