school'd o escuela'd

i had my first spanish class yesterday.

it. was. AMAZING.

school as an adult rocks! you're not nervous or afraid to look foolish. the class is only once a week. and if you're a bit of a cut up, you can crack jokes and the teacher laughs with - not yells at - you.

it doesn't hurt that my class is in the financial district - a part of NYC that i rarely have a purpose to be in because, well, i'm a writer. money's not really our thing. so i felt important and learned simply stepping out of the subway.

the financial bull is right outside my building.

i immediately felt less learned when i saw all the tourists taking pictures of themselves holding the bull by the, um, lets say, not horns - think opposite end of the animal and rhymes with balls.

but then i took this picture, which i guess makes me not much better than the tourists.

ha ha... see how it looks like the bull's poo...

erhm sorry. school.

i expected the class to be in some crummy, mid-town looking building, but instead it was held here:

it's as pretty on the inside as it is on the out. on my elevator ride up, a woman complimented me on my hat (yay lost and found) and then told me you can tell we're from new york because we wear black in the summer. i was wearing a colorful sundress and white blouse (o-kay-yay).

anyhoo my classmates are friendly and at roughly the same level of spanish comprehension as me.

the teacher is phenomal and is also an artist who's originally from argentina. she conducts the entire class in spanish. sure, i nodded my way through some of it, not getting a word, but shockingly, i understood a lot more.

maybe that's what happens when you take all the pinches out of spanish. (i just wrote a really bad mexican curse word, but since it's in another language and looks like our english word "pinches," it doesn't count).

the class is three hours and it flew by. i happily babbled on in espanol on a multitude of topics like facebook and why Juan Garcia was applying for that photographer's position. the teacher only once commented, "corrie, i have no idea what you're trying to say." which for me is a score! since the boys say that to me at least five times a night at work.

when i left, i felt like the world had shrunk by 80 percent and i could easily conquer whatever part i wanted. i practically skipped home. well first i had a really heavy dinner with my crit partner (who's doing a book giveaway on her blog), so i ended up walking home kinda hunched over. but prior to that, i hadn't felt so free, vibrant, and capable of anything for quite some time.

i've decided that after high school it should be mandatory for everyone to wait tables. and i do mean everyone. there'd be wayyy less terrible customers out there if everyone had tried on those shoes. whilst waiting tables, you get your college like boozing on with shift drinks and drinks after work. not when you have to wake up for exams and 9 am classes. then when you're burnt out serving people, plus trying to recover from being a lush, you're allowed to enroll in an institution of higher ed.

honestly, Mr. Obama, this is a terrific idea.

but until that legislation passes, i think i've found my new calling. continuing ed floozy. 'cause from here on out. i'm going to take EVERYTHING.