Learning Spanish - by Krista Cukrowski

Hi. This is Krista. Uhhhh…I just thought I'd tell y'all a little bit about our learning Spanish in South America. Our teacher's name is Amelia. My first thought when I saw Amelia was that she reminded me of the little bat (my favorite character) in the Disney movie ANASTASIA. She hops around the classroom, acts out "los verbos" for us, and on occasion will choose some lucky students to help her out.

On a normal day, she'll make us go around the room and conjugate verbs to different forms for about 30 minutes.

An example of conjugation in class:

Amelia: Hiciste?

Krista: Pues...uhhhhmmm….Si, yo….hico?? Possiblemente?

Amelia: MUY BUEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

To me, there are lots of Spanish words that seem made up. One of the best is "hablaba" (which means "I was speaking"). Hablaba looks like gibberish—kind of like the English word "suing," which also looks like gibberish.
OH! And you can't leave out "desafortunadamente" (which ironically means "unfortunately"). I usually forget a few syllables, which in turn makes people give me this *Aw-look-at-the-pathetic-mental-child-trying-to-speak* look. Sometimes we have contests to see who can say it the fastest. It usually doesn't end well.

For those of you who were wondering what we do for that remaining hour, it is my pleasure to inform you that we go over the 'Chapter of the Week,' and sing. Yes, I typed that correctly. We sing. In Spanish. Badly. Actually, the singing is my favorite part, mainly because I'm the one who gets to find the songs, purchase them, bring speakers to class, oh, and listen to the song a few times beforehand. It's kind of nice, really.

I really am grateful for Amelia, and her diligence in teaching us the "Uruguayo" way to speak Español. It really is fun! =)

EATING MY WORDS (Coffee, Part II)

We parents eat an awful lot of our words throughout the years. If (1) you talk as much as I do and (2) you like to eat, you have to eat even more of them than most. But I thought I could do worse than follow some excellent examples that I had known. Here’s one: when I was six or seven, my grandfather Pa Jay gave me a pinch of snuff—in order to teach me never to get hooked on tobacco, like he was. It worked! I reeled, and I can’t believe I didn’t vomit, it was so so so so gross. When I was offered cigarettes and/or pot as a teenager, I quickly turned down all such offers.

So when my firstborn was two years old, she asked for a sip of coffee (not quite as dramatic as chewing tobacco, I’ll admit, but this is my story), and I thought, “Yeah, I’ll give her some, and she’ll hate it, and then she won’t get hooked on coffee.”
It worked!
Tah-DAH! I’m a great parent!

A year or so later, I have another two year old, and Krista asks for a sip of my coffee. Knowing now that I am in fact a fabulous mother-and-teacher, I say “Sure.”
And she says “Yum.”
Uh-oh! But no matter; after all, I had a cup with lots of cream and sugar (Ken always says that we like our coffee the way that, if you were to freeze it, it would be coffee ice cream), so I gave her a sip of black coffee. A little cruel admittedly, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
And Krista says “Yum.”
Oh no! Pa Jay’s method is failing me; what to do, what to do? So I give this beautiful baby, who has barely passed her second birthday, a coffee bean to chew.
And Krista says “Yum.”

Now that’s a real coffee drinker—and she has been all these years.

Krista's Birthday

Ken has arrived, and all is right with the world.


4 June 2005
Krista Lynn Cukrowski was born 12 years ago today in New Haven, Connecticut. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 11 oz. Today she is becoming a wonderful young Christian woman, 5’4”, 101 pounds of fun, a smart, interesting person to be around and talk with. Today she celebrated her birthday in Paris, France, sleeping in late, visiting the Arc de Triomphe, the Opera House, and the Eiffel Tower, eating baguettes with garlic “bour-snap” (boursin cheese that Katie and Krista have re-named), and picking up her dad at the Charles de Gaulle airport. Pretty cool birthday, eh?!!

Katie and Krista

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Originally uploaded by K4Cukrowski.