No estoy tan preocupada ahora

Well, one big worry is out the way now – I had my oral exam for Spanish yesterday morning. It went predictably badly (I always panic in orals, for some reason. I go in knowing tonnes of vocab and grammar, and able to construct wonderfully complex sentences in my head, then they ask the first question and it all disappears and I’m struggling to string even a few simple words together ), but I’ve done well enough in the written tests and essays that a bad mark in this one won’t hurt my overall grade too much. I’m just so relieved to have it over – I was getting totally stressed out about it. Only two more lectures to go now (and they’ll just be revision, probably), and then it’s two weeks until the final exam (which is all written, so will be comparitively easy). And that’s my Spanish course is all over… and then all I have to do is decide whether I want to continue with the next level course next year… (at the moment, the thought seems horrifying (it’s gets more difficult than this??? ), but at the same time it seems a shame to have put all this effort in, and to be at a point where I can almost communicate, and just give up. I suppose I should probably go and talk to my tutor sometime and find out just how much harder the intermediate course is, and then I’ll be able to decide whether I’ll have enough energy/enthusiasm for it… (actually, I suspect I will carry on next year – after all, I did go to the library the other day and get out Cuentos en español, a book of short stories in Spanish which conveniently has the English translation on the facing page – my Spanish isn’t quite good enough yet to read a real Spanish book, but with these I can attempt to read as much of each page as I can, and then read the English version to get the bits I couldn’t figure out. I’m planning on working my way through it over the summer (something to fill in the quiet patches at work) – I’ll probably have to get it renewed a few times before I finish it, but I’m determined to read it all! ) )

Meetup last night, which was very poorly attended – just me, lytteltonwitch, and non-fiction. Awhina and meerkitten were at meerkitten’s music recital thing (which lytteltonwitch and I are going to tonight – not really my idea of fun, listening to a load of primary school kids showing off their (lack of) musical talents, but when a child asks you to come to something she’s in you can’t really say no, can you? ), but I’ve got no idea where everybody else was. Oh well, we had a nice dinner anyway, and exchanged a few books – I picked up Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult, The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller, and Days of Starlight by Craig Harrison, and passed Off the Map by Derek Nelson on to non-fiction. I had taken a couple of other books along (Twisting the Rope by RA MacAvoy and A Rhinestone Button by Gail Anderson Dargatz), but they were both ones that lytteltonwitch had given to me, and non-fiction wasn’t interested in them, so I just released them into the wild on the way home.

Currently reading: Cuentos en español, and The Winner’s Enclosure by Anne Caulfield