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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
