Ohhh I have no patience lately.
If I have plans to meet people and they are fifteen minutes late, I leave. Especially if they have a cell phone. Don’t try and make me believe that your time is more valuable than mine!
I was in a meeting and we ended up talking about technical concepts with specific vocabulary. I was told that it was all semantics. No, no it isn’t.
But recently my ultimate battles have been fought with language institutes and taxi cab drivers.
About five months ago, I finished a six month intensive Spanish course. Not wanting all that training and knowledge to spill out of my head, I’ve been on the hunt for classes to keep it up. Of course a language exchange partner would be better than classes, but I live in a non-Spanish speaking place and while I’ve heard rumors about native Spanish speakers found roaming in the wilds, I’ve yet to encounter any. For me, native Spanish speakers are like unicorns. They sound magical, but do they really exist?
In my search for a Spanish class, I found two institutions in the city with Spanish classes. I went to the non-profit institute first and found the customer service…wanting. So on to the second one. I arrange a placement exam, wander all over the place trying to find it, finally calling them all hot and angry and find out that it is in the large building that I passed about a million times. There was no sign for the institute on the outside. It was cleverly hidden by the elevators on the inside. Not that you’d know to go inside to check by the elevators unless you’d lived here for a long time and had come to realize that there are in fact many treasures hidden within the monoliths, they just don’t like signage.
Get to the institute, take the test and the tester is all yeah, your level is too high for any of our classes. So he leaves, tells the registration people who make him come back and give me more questions because they really want to sell some classes so maybe he just misjudged my level and there really IS an appropriate class for me. Nope. They DO tell me I can take private lessons. For roughly a thousand dollars.
Um, no. Thanks!
So I’m left with poor customer service institute. I put it off but eventually realize that losing my Spanish is stupid after all the effort I put into it and that persistance is what is called for. So I leave work a little early one day (they only offer the placement test at specific times and will not listen to you when you say that you work and are unable to meet those times. You will meet those times or not attend classes. It is that simple. Awesome.) and head down there, determined to bend them to my will, give them my money, and force them to help me maintain this language! I am fist pumping in the air determined!
Get there at 430pm, the professor isn’t in a session so is able to give me the test. And says I’m too advanced for their classes. SIGH. But then she talks to the secretary and the secretary is to email me after the classes for the term end (the next day) and let me know if there will be any advanced/special courses. If not, then I’m to email the professor and she’ll figure something out.
YAY! Finally getting somewhere! I’ll be practicing soon!
So a week goes by and no email from the secretary. Even after I send an email asking after what had happened. I also email the professor but receive no response. Hmmm… So having taken Friday afternoon off, I decide to go and see what is up. Then, realizing traffic is a horror show on Friday afternoons, I decide to call first. I call and try explaining the situation and the girl is all, what is your question? So I repeat everything I just said and ask if there will be an advanced class. She says yes. I ask what level. She starts listing off all of these numbers that hold absolutely no meaning for me at all. So I tell her to stop and ask if that is intermediate or advanced. She says they have both on Saturdays and the next advanced class starts on August 30th. Perfect. And I can come and enroll today. YAY!
So I grab a cab and head out. The drive out to that section of town is INTERMINABLE because there is some kind of protest going on. So I hop out of the cab about a kilometer or more from my destination and start to walk. I’m in my work jeans, a khaki blazer, it is blazing hot and sweaty and the air is a distinct shade of traffic grey.
I love protests, but sometimes I just wish they weren’t happening right where I was trying to go.
Arriving at the language institute, I confidently skip up the stairs, fling open the door and greet the receptionist, the same one I’d seen the week before, and tell her I want to enroll in class. She remembers me and says, oh well the only advanced class will be a special course but they haven’t decided the topic yet. So it is unclear. I have your number and I’ll call you when it has been determined.
I say, well you were supposed to email me and you didn’t and I’m also a bit confused because I called earlier and was told that there IS an advanced class for sure and … And she says, well I didn’t email you because it was uncertain so maybe I’ll email you this week. And I lose it. Keep in mind I was hot, sweaty, had taken time off work, and walked over a kilometer in horrific pollution. So I explain that it is very frustrating to take time off work to match their schedule and call in advance to see if they have a class and be told that yes they do but then be told, after walking through a traffic jam, that no, they do not have an advanced class.
She says, but we do have an advanced class. We have two. We have the special course to be determined and we have the advanced normal class with grammar and conversation.
I stop and am deeply puzzled. I try to protest, but you said you only had one and it was yet to be determined. Eyeballing me as though I’m exhibiting fearful signs of insanity, she repeats slower and perhaps a bit louder that no, they have an advanced grammar and conversation class. Mentally replaying the conversation over and over, I wonder if I missed a paragraph or two. Or when the hulk-esque rage was overtaking me, did she whisper about the advanced class? Regardless, I say that I’ll enroll. Then I double check that my placement exam would allow me into the class. Yes, yes. Excellent. Then I ask if they take credit cards. Fearful that the hulk will return, she kind of scrunches into her seat and says no, only cash or check. On the off chance, I say I have a check drawn on an American bank. She skitters away from the hulk to ask her boss. As the clearing process for that would take a month, I say I’ll just go to the atm across the street.
A restorative donut across the street, cash in my hot little hand, I go back, sign up, get my library card and woo! Start next week! yay!
As my afternoon is not hardly over, I decide to go to see a movie. Yay!
But I’m still at a place in the middle of a traffic jam. So I walk over in the direction of the park that is popular with tourists to see if there are cabs there. Nope. I walk to the old part of town right outside of the park to see if there are cabs there. Nope. Well, there are cabs, but they all have people in them. I end up wandering all over that part of town for a good hour/hour and a half looking for a damn cab. I’m a fair girl, the sun is beating down on me, my face is becoming red, perfect strangers are offering me drinks of water, I accidentally wander into this bizarre sculpture garden in the park that frankly, has statues that look like torture porn, and I’m exhausted. Cursing those who’ve luckily found cabs and trying to avoid catching the glances of the road workers who are waving tissues at me, I finally decide to camp out on the side of the thoroughfare and wait. Cabs fly pass. Waiting waiting waiting. Eureka! A cab stops!
My life and pale skin have been saved!
I jump in the cab and shut the door, then tell him where I live. I live in an extremely busy part of town, a place whose traffic inspires fear in the hearts of most drivers. When I tell him where to go he says, no.
Oh fuck that.
I repeat it with a smile and lock the door. He says no, the traffic there is bad. Transfer to another cab.
I say no. There are no other cabs. Take me.
No, the traffic is bad. Find another cab.
No, you aren’t allowed to refuse me. Drive. (legally, they can’t refuse based on not wanting to go to a certain section of town)
No. Transfer.
I’ll make you a deal, either take me to (a) section of that area of town or (b) section of that area of town. But you have to take me to one.
He finally pulls away from the road and we start driving. I kind of feel like an enormous brat but at the same time, I could NOT start walking again, I could NOT stand out in the sun for much longer, and I’d end up having the same argument with every single cab driver I passed. NO ONE goes into my section of town during rush hour.
And of course, after all of his protestations, the traffic was quite honestly the best I’ve ever seen on a Friday afternoon.
I’m learning valuable lessons during my time here. But I’m not sure they are actually good for my personality or positive moves in general. Today I learned that if you throw a fit, you magically get a Spanish class that didn’t exist earlier (I dont’ care what she says, I’m POSITIVE that the firm set advanced class was not mentioned by her when I arrived on the scene) and you get a cab to go to your area of town during a time when no one will go to your area of town.
Throwing tantrums = happiness (?)
That can’t be right.
Side note: Saw Death Race today. Had no idea this movie even existed but it was either that or that Zohan movie, which I didn’t think I could take at that moment. Death Race has Jason Statham (mmmmmm) and fast cars and pointless violence. Really, I’m a 12 year old boy inside. Death Race is precisely as good as that description makes you think it is.
Side side note: I thought getting my cat neutered would make him less of a bitey asshole. It has not.
Tags: late, learnin', tantrum, taxi driver
