Thats right, blame the TV...

Just given up on my Dutch homework; not only have I run out of time to work on it, I’m also unimpressed with my behaviour.

Admittedly, it’s the first one I’ve done this year after a break of about 8 weeks, so I’m going to be rusty & I’m doing homework in my lunch-break with all the attendant distractions (ie ‘work’), but at the same time, I should be able to do better than I’ve done; I worked out that I’ve attempted a pathetic 4% of my homework, of which 100% of the answers were copied pretty-much directly from the back of the book.

So I’m stopping as I’m not going to cheat myself. The plan is to try again from between 6 & 7 just before the lesson. Hopefully I’ll be in a slightly better frame of mind.

The moral of this story is that I’ve got to do my homework properly on Mondays & not be tempted into watching Battlestar Galactica.

S

Dutch woes

Well, I had another attempt at my homework before I started my lesson, but it didn't really matter in the end. We had 11 people in the class (down from 21 last week) and there was a full-blown argument in the class between 10 of them & the teacher, which left me horribly confused. The thing is, I was really pleased with myself when I worked out that they were arguing (in Dutch) about Dutch grammar.

It went from bad to worse when we moved onto pronunciation of 1 word that had 3 meanings; 'door' can apparently mean 'door', 'expensive' or 'through', depending on who is saying it. I suspect that the spelling is different, but the pronunciation of these words left me thoroughly baffled.

To crown it all, the teacher talked to me in the break & suggested that I drop out of the class. She gently pushed me to one of the following:
1) Redo basis 2 again.
2) Do the level 3 course with twice as many lessons (ie half as fast)

Either way you look at it, this is not a good sign; I dont like option 1 as, if nothing else, its a step backwards, whilst option 2 doesn't appeal much (leave work on time 2 nights a week, with an impending move to Hilversum on the cards? Not going to happen, now is it?)

The thing is, level 3 is such a massive step up from level 2, which can only be put down to the fact that everyone there speaks dutch on a regular basis, whilst I don't. In fact, the course is the most exposure I get to it, so dropping out is intrinsically a really bad idea.

I'm probably going to be bloody-minded & keep on turning up to the classes for the next 10 weeks with the intention that I fail the course, in the off-chance that I might pass it next time round. Ok, I'm going to be miserable, but its the only chance I have of (eventually) passing this course.

S