Wednesday, March 10, 2010

kvinden taler i dansk. det er mig!

So we had "the meeting" with the girls in the dorm about the feedback last night, not quite the capital letter MEETING I had planned, but I guess it did the trick. When pushed, I had to admit (at least to myself) that the way I had planned it was more for my satisfaction and resolution and the truth is, someone had to be the adult. It turned out to be Alicia. It was frustrating not to get the resolution I wanted, but we kept it short and sweet; we basically said "we heard your feedback. We hope to address x,y,z but there was also some feedback that we don't quite know what to do with. We were surprised and saddened to find that not everyone is as comfortable here as we would hope and we care about changing that...we just don't know how yet." We invited more specific feedback and left it at that. Ball is in their court. Hopefully they feel heard. Then, we played kamikaze pictionary and celebrated two birthdays with dunkin donuts (YES! Michael found me a vanilla creme, which are typically only available in CT)!

Today was another crazy busy day at work, and it was DECISION DAY. Which means I got all choked up hearing the joyful reactions of a few kids when I called to congratulate them. But I also spent 40 minutes explaining to a mother why her son is on the waitlist. (In case you are wondering, it's because he has a 2.0 GPA and is applying for our largest grade with the least amount of room in it. Go figure.)

After work, I went to power yoga with Melissa, and we had sort of an easier instructor today. It was still a really good class (even if she did make me giggle inwardly a bit) and I could mostly keep up. And I really did feel all centered and connected afterward. Though some of that also came from spending time talking to Melissa about dorm parents stuff, which is always really helpful.

Then....I spent an hour and a half practicing my Danish!!! I am now halfway through chapter two (out of 8 chapters). Not bad! I learned a lot more about grammar and a lot of adjectives...old, young, small, big, biggest, right, left. Michael actually sat next to me and helped teach me at the same time...for nearly the whole time. It was really nice, because he could explain the articles and things. It made a lot more sense. I also learned about humans and pets, and a lot of pointing (why, Rosetta Stone, is this near the top of your list to teach me!?). I also learned shapes.

I need to get a microphone for my computer, because then it will compare my pronunciation to theirs. I am really pretty darn good at the reading Danish part (when they are words I know!) and I was fairly decent at the writing/typing tests...even if it often sounds to me like they are skipping words. But my pronunciation is REALLY BAD. sigh. And, I suspect I wouldn't be able to pick out the words I know in a real conversation. Hold on...I'll go ask Michael to say some stuff I know...

I got it! He said the man holds a yellow square. (Hey, he had to use words I knew!) Then he said the girl and the boy drink a big beer. But I didn't learn the word beer yet, so it sounded like they drank a big red to me. Oh well. Close enough.

In case you were wondering...the title means:

The women talks in Danish. It is ME!

(It is my first sentence that I composed ALL BY MYSELF.) Good, huh??

2 comments:

runningwiththejig said...

It is so nice that you and Michael can share in this!

Good job on Yoga, I'm taking a break from running (boo) to let my ankles recover a bit. I'm considering re-joining a gym so I can do a bit more cross-training. Though I have no idea when I would go.

Melisa K. said...

I know, I was kind of surprised for him to just watch me take my lessons and help out and stuff. He might be a little excited for me to actually finally be investing in this!

Sorry you're taking time off from running, but cross training sounds like a good bet. Technically, you could probably do it from home maybe? I guess it depends what kind of cross training you want to do.