My first day of classes

Amid streets busy with small taquerias and smaller shops, the yellow-blue cement block facade of El Centro de Idiomas stretches along an nearly an entire city block. Its blue metal gate opens onto a courtyard occupied by a dry fountain and, when I arrived, a handful of Mexican students presumably on break from classes in French, English, German or one of the university’s other offerings. I headed to the administration window and fumbled through a question about the school for foreigners, which, as I was rusty and the words foreigner and strange are similar in Spanish, likely came out “Where is the School for the Strange?” Fortunately, I was intercepted by my email amiga, Ariana, before they could answer me.

Ariana had been tireless in rapidly answering my multitude of emailed questions about the school and, finally meeting her, I found she was no less bubbly and solicitous in person. As I took the two placement tests, she asked twice if I wanted coffee, thrice how the trip had went and assured me repeatedly I needn’t complete the second test if I felt it was too hard. Ultimately, I was placed in level 2 and, after once more offering me coffee, Ariana introduced me to my grammar instructor.

Paulina was a very competent, if slightly dour instructor. (I write ‘was’ not because she has since died, but because she was my grammar instructor for only two days.) She told me she had spent some time teaching at Humboldt State, and she might well have walked off the campus that very day--she wore Birkenstocks and just the right selection of muted earth tones for the Northern California style. Our first item for review was ‘if clauses’ and her first example: “If I had more money, I wouldn’t be here.” We later moved on to topics less personal, but she managed to rise to the occasion: “If there was life on Mars, there would be a brain drain from Mexico.”

In the way that one might hesitate to question finding a huge wad of cash in your mailbox for fear that if you lose your ignorance you will also lose your new found wealth, I have not yet asked whether students get one-on-one instruction year-round. But as I sat there with Paulina and no one else entered the classroom, I began feeling very lucky.


(To be continued...)