Good Morning Class!

(Today I present a lecture from my alter ego, Maestro Mike. Notice I am also a student in the class. No, this is no comment on my mental state.)

Good Morning Class!

I hope you all had a good Valentine’s Day. It looks like Enrique enjoyed his a little too much, seeing as he hasn’t arrived yet. No matter, we’ll start without him.

Today, we’re going to cover suppositional statements. For instance: “Perhaps Enrique hasn’t arrived yet because he’s suffering from la cruda” (a hangover). Darrien, give us an example. “Maybe he ran away with his girlfriend to get married in Tlacolula.” Very good Darr—oh, good morning Enrique, glad you could make it. In fact, we were just talking about you. Ah, you were late because you were taking photos of the teacher’s union. A man has to make his living.

Let’s move on to suffixes class. Suffixes usually indicate size, but also affection. We will start with, well, how about with Miguel’s house. It is una casa. That’s a word you all know. But Miguel’s mother, were she Mexican, might call it her casita. Yes, as you’ve all learned, that could mean it’s small. Yet it also denotes affection. His mom certainly scraped enough cottage cheese off the ceilings to be fond of the house. On the other hand, sometime after Miguel returns to California he may want to buy a house. He says journalists make no money, so all he’ll be able to buy is a casitita, a very small house. Yeah, maybe you’ll need to stay here in Oaxaca Miguel. Suffixes, however, don’t stop there. There are casitititas. These are about the size of, for example, the homes of the students who attend the Derek Zoolander School for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Things Good Too. Extremely small. Like models. And if that’s too many iti’s for your tongue to handle, there are other options. Maybe a casicas suits you, or a casiquiquitas. Say that one three times fast.

But you can go the other way too. Maybe it’s got columns in front and a double stairway. Provided this only one step up the scale—remember, these are all relative—this is a casota. And you can move up from that to a more grandiose creation, a Bill Gates-sized villa, a casototota. Although maybe it’s big but you don’t like it. It is one of those ugly McMansion’s taking over California. Then it is a casucha.

Got it? Well not so fast. With each word they change a little bit. For instance, Julie Roberts doesn’t simply have a bocota, big mouth, unless you want to imply she’s a blabbermouth. And permutations of perro, dog, can easily be misconstrued, especially if you’re talking about females. No need to start using suffixes right away. Maybe best to stick to grande and peque­no.

(My dear fans, I know it will be hard, but as always I will not be posting over the weekend. Why? One, I'm lazy. Two, I don't have internet access outside of school. ¡Hasta lunes!)