Fight the good fight!

In my own language, I am an articulate, responsive and witty speaker.  In Spanish I am enthusiastic early Tarzan and in Catalan epsilon semi-moron.  As someone who loves language and the speaking thereof, my inability in any other tongue than mine own is baffling.

     Of course, you could point to the fact that, apart from the lessons, I do virtually no other work.  My expectation that language will work by osmosis, though patently not working in my case, is still firmly a methodology to which I adhere with monomaniac fixation.  Well, it beats methodical working and revision!

     Even though I am something of a past master in blagging my way through Spanish, I have even less basic linguistic information with which to work in Catalan.  And we are now getting close to a crunch time as, in the middle of next month (which, horror of horrors, starts tomorrow) I have an examination.

     It makes no difference how many times our present teacher assures us in his class than the examination, nay, not examination, more of a test, really, is simple beyond belief – I still know that with my level of ability ANY bloody casual (let alone searching) examination of my knowledge will lead to hot-faced humiliation.

     At this point, the more incisive reader might wonder about my typing about these concerns, rather than actually doing something about them.  If so, you haven’t read the previous short paragraphs where I freely admit my lack of effort in acquiring or attempting to acquire another language.

     The one positive point about this next ‘test’ seems to be that it is vocabulary heavy with an unnatural concentration on the direction and existence of accents on individual words and, in any choice between the two, ‘vocab’ is an easier option than ‘grammar’.  So, you never know, if I play to my strengths of being able to cram discrete points of information for the duration of an exam I might even be able to scrape through.

     Though, I do admit that scraping-through in the language of the country in which I actually live is not a very inspiring (or indeed worthwhile) goal, but it is what I am working towards. 

     And you never know, now that the date of the examination has been set, it might (just might) encourage me to make a start on the tedium of vocab learning this very weekend.  There is, after all, nothing quite so self-satisfying in doing a minimal amount of work sufficient to engender the feeling of complacency in knuckling-down to something worthwhile.  Obviously.

It’s all about the far end lane.  Of the swimming pool I mean.  Of those hardy folk (or nutters depending on your point of view) who turn up at 7.00 am when the pool opens, the one thing motivating their early appearance is the claiming of an empty lane for your lonely furrow.

     There are five lanes in our pool, and they fill up quickly.  Lane one is usually taken by a sedate looking retired lady who makes stately progress up and down the pool.  Lane three or sometimes four is taken up by two ‘youngsters’ whom I call the twins who are dedicated and athletic and look as though they are training for a triathlon.  Lane four is taken up by a recent arrival to the family of a snorkeler who rushes into the pool to try and get the Crown Jewel of lanes: lane five.

     Lane five is the lane to get.  Why?  Because it is slightly obstructed by the metal access ladders.  The way the ladders slightly jut out into the pool space means that two swimmers in a lane is somewhat awkward.  Therefore people go to double-up in the other lanes before trying the end lanes.  Lane one is for the slower swimmers and the periodic exercisers; they rarely go to lane five.  So, if you bag lane five early enough you are almost guaranteed to have it to yourself for the whole duration of your swim.

     The problem with this is, no matter how early I get to the pool, even if it is before the pool has officially opened, one man, the same man, always seems to get there before me.  So I am reduced to going to one of the other three lanes (remember lane one is given over to slower others) and hoping that it remains uncluttered with extraneous swimmers for my metric mile.

     If you are an early morning swimmer then the intensity of possession in the highly charged first hour of opening is something that will not need to be explained to you; if you have not experienced the rush of claiming a lane and swimming in a savagely elegant style to keep it to yourself, then I would suggest you think about the last time you went on a train or a bus and looked for a double seat for yourself and the looks and hopes that kept people away from you as a guide to how we feel.

     This morning, for example, I was, yet again beaten to the fifth lane by my friend, but I managed to claim the fourth lane and keep it to myself until almost the end of my swim when I had to share it with another swimmer for a few lengths until my friend left the fifth lane and indicated to the other person in my lane that he could take over the vacated fifth lane.  Now that is courtesy and civility of a high order!

 

I am working on a poem at the moment which grew out of notes that I made in my pocket notebook: two days’ work; five unsatisfactory lines, no, four and a bit lines now I look at it.  I mapped out the ideas behind what I want to write in annotations of the transcription of my notes, but the working-up is taking longer than I expected

Some poems write themselves, in so far as the structure is concerned, the skeleton is roughly assembled and then the hard slog of fleshing-out takes up the real time.  In the present instance, I only have fragments of bone, meaning that my construction of meaning in my writing is more palaeontology than poetry, but it is getting there, or more accurately it will get somewhere sometime.  And there is no title yet, either.  Working on it, working on it.

The daily crash-bang-wallop of reformation in the house next door continues unabated and is now producing a steady stream of rubble which is filling bags which are taking up parking spaces on the road.  One of the (industrial sized) rubbish bags has been in situ for over two weeks.  This is not satisfactory and ‘steps will be taken’.  I have already asked about them and the workmen have shifted the blame on to the company that should have picked them up.  As I recall, there are usually by-laws about leaving household rubble on the street and on Monday I will make a trip to the city hall after my Catalan class and find out the legal situation.  I will also take photographs (they like photos) to illustrate their wicked deeds.  Our city hall is generally helpful, and I look forward to being armed with the Regulations of the Righteous to smite the rubble makers hip and thigh – if necessary with the jaw-bone of an ass.  And I wonder how many people nowadays will pick up that reference!

So, lots to do this weekend: planning, scheming, writing and lino-cutting – never a dull moment.