One thing off my back!

One of the many things I have been doing lately and that has kept me rather busy in combination with all the other things is to study for a Spanish exam. I have been studying Spanish with a private teacher for over four years now. At first we were three ladies going to her class together, then one lost her husband and dropped out shortly after, and the other one kept going with me for about another 9 months. Since then I have been going by myself, sometimes studying more, sometimes studying less. In a desperate attempt to get me to study more my teacher at some point suggested I should take the A2-level exam. Which I put off for a while, but we started using a different book to prepare me for the exam, and finally I plunged in and said I want this over with, so I signed up. Last Friday was the big day, I had been totally stressed out the weeks before because I still could not put aside enough time to study and was absolutely sure I would fail. My wonderful teacher had prepared me very well, though, and given me a few hints as to how to approach those standardized processes of taking such an exam. Of course, I should know, because I teach a language as a foreign language myself… but it is totally different when you are on the other side. In any case, I think I passed, although it will be a while before we get the results as the exams will be corrected in Salamanca.

After the written part of the exam I had to breach a few hours and went shopping, after the oral part a friend came and picked me up and we went for a coffee before I took the train back home. Amazing how much of a relief it is to have that thing off my back! I feel almost relaxed, although there are still many other things going on, I have to pack my bags to leave for France tomorrow, … I will have to decide how to continue with my Spanish. Of course I want to go on, and my dream is to go to Spain for a few weeks, perhaps a language class first, and then woofing, if possible, to actually use it in the real Spanish environment. But I am not certain I will take another exam like that. My friend Kathy rightly asked ‘so what is this credential going to give you?’, and I could not give a satisfying answer. I probably won’t need it to apply for a job anymore, nor do I need to demonstrate that I can do it. It was an interesting experience, though. Of course, I don’t know yet for real whether I passed.

So my thoughts have turned towards preparing the piece I will do at the Art Symposium in May. I have used two of the fabrics I printed when I was staying with Chrisse Seager in January. They are related in that one was the dropcloth under the other and I simply ripped them apart, inserted them into each other and have now prepared a piece that is large enough to get a finished piece of approx. 1,60 in width. 

I am talking to people who will do some of the handwriting that I will then transfer onto the fabric. 

Pragmatic way of determining the actual size of the area in which I will stich:
ironing creases, and these will then be the edges between which I will fold,
to finalize the size of segments

And I have taken decisions as to orientation and arrangement of the text. At first I thought it would be only 12 segments, but this morning I decided it will have to be 16. 

12 ...?

or 16?

And I realized that there is not a whole lot of time left before the beginning of the symposium. I will need to work well ahead because even a whole week of intensive work on site might not be enough time to get everything done there.