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| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 81 of 154 31 July 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone I’m back safe and sound from my trip. It was one of my best ever for business and Spanish. Instead of doing a super long post I will just post one of two days at a time. I’m going to run down the events as they happened day by day.
Monday I have to get up at zero o’clock in the morning for a 5am flight. My flight into Mexico was good. I was listening to two ladies chat behind me. I was pleased that I could understand most of what they were saying. Customs was a breeze even though they inspected my bags. ( I think there should be more privacy when they are going through bags. I was behind a lady in line and they went all through her stuff. I wasn’t even trying to look at her bag, but the inspector was lifting and flipping her clothes around. I’m pretty sure the passenger didn’t want me to see her panties lying on the table) I wasn’t traveling with any knives this time so I wasn’t worried. There was a young girl passing out travel brochures that were totally in Spanish. I kind of laughed to myself that I was probably the only American on the flight who could read it. The driver was waiting on me and we went straight to the office. We spoke only in Spanish catching up on our lives and work. He told me that he went to the beach the prior weekend. He showed me pictures of him and his family at the beach having a grand old time. They he told me that he was bitten (stung) by an aguamala. I didn’t know what that was so I started drawing pictures. First I drew a stingray; he said nope, that’s a ray. LOL at the word being the same. Then I drew a picture of a jellyfish. He said yea, kinda, but something alittle different. He showed me a picture on his phone. Yuck! It’s looks like the meanest bad-assin-est thing in the world. Basically it’s a blob monster, you should google it. Its sting is really painful and I guess the old school cure is to pour urine on it. I didn’t ask if he did that or how he did it, as he was stung on his back. (that would be a pretty funny conversation. “Honey I need you to do me a favor.” Haha) It was a fun conversation because there was so much imagery and emotion involved. When we arrived at the office I had to take all of the clothes my co-workers bought out of my suitcase and place into smaller bags. The driver couldn’t believe how much I brought. The suitcase looked empty after all the gifts were gone. We entered the plant and I asked the security lady at the front desk a few questions like “what time is it,” and “what should I write in this box.” She was pretty shocked that I could speak Spanish and was very happy to help. We went up to the second floor and said hi to everyone. A lot of people there are my buddies so it took about 30mintues to walk around and catch up. Then I took out my list and set up a table full of clothes, cup holders, pens, and everything else they bought. Some people didn’t have my money ready and I finally got to use my phrase, “don’t make me do it!” I said it while raising my firsts and acting like a boxer. They were cracking up while I started making up a bunch of weird names for my fists and saying, “I don’t want to have to introduce you to thunder and earthquake.” One lady paid me with a $20 bill that was 90% ripped in half. I asked her jokingly, “What the hell is this!?!” We were all laughing. “You can’t pay me like that, go find some tape.” After she fixed the bill I accepted the rest of the money. By the end of the week everyone paid up so operation Santa Claus will continue. After I was all settled in I went down to the production floor to get to business. I was very pleased to see that some past quality problems had been corrected. I spent some time with the quality engineer and we spoke mostly in Spanish. After a while I had to break it to him, he really needs to improve his English. I explained what would happen if he tried to speak with an America, especially over the phone. (they would probably start yelling at him then hang up) He understood and told me that his supervisor said that he won’t be traveling to the states to meet the customer for another year. Hopefully he is much better. We were able to communicate because every time he got stuck in English, he could just switch to Spanish and then we would be good. I went up to the prototype room and as always, my #1 fan was there. She’s an older lady with red dyed hair but she doesn’t get it touched up often so it’s about ¾ red and ¼ grey. She calls me Micky ( I don’t know why. Some of the Americans who came with me last time jokingly said it was because of the song “Hey Micky”) and speaks a million words per second. As soon as she saw me, she came right over and started talking. I did better with understanding her but she lost me pretty quickly. One day I’m going to be good enough to have a chat with her. It’s actually pretty funny because I think she said something along the lines of, “He’s mine!” to another lady that was close by. All the operators started laughing. I got out of there as soon as possible because what is funny for a minute or two becomes really uncomfortable in 5mins. We wrapped everything up for the day and I left. On the ride back we spoke all in English. The driver is getting much better in his English. He is to the point where he can self-correct, and describe something well enough were I can figure out what he’s trying to say. His sons are training to be boxers. Boxing is super popular in Mexico and he showed me videos on his phone of his boys training. I like watching boxing but I don’t know if I could wake up early and let someone try to smash my face every day. When I got to the hotel I notice all new front desk people. I was sort of disappointed in that because I wanted to show off my improved Spanish skills with my buddies. The one thing that I liked about the new ladies was that they didn’t assume that I spoke English. They started with Buenos Tardes and when I answered in Spanish, we were on our way. The whole check-in was done in Spanish. She understood me perfectly. I noticed the other staff kind of looking at me, hopefully they were thinking, “His Spanish is great,” and not, “he’s killing our language.” One of the product engineers and I agreed to go out to dinner. He had been telling about a huge burrito for about a year. I told him that I was finally ready. Burrito means little donkey, but the place we were going to go only sells horses. He picked me up around 9:30pm and while we were driving he asked me what is more important, size or flavor. I’ve gotten certificates for eating in the past, but this trip was Operation: Don’t get fat , so I chose flavor. Also the idea of eating a 1 meter burrito didn’t sound like fun. As we got to the place with the flavor I noticed a lot people on their bikes, then more, then even more. There’s a biking club that does night rides several times a month. There were at least 50 of them. I thought that was pretty cool. When they’re done, they all go to a bar and party. Sounds like my kind of exercise. We go up to the open air restaurant and get a table. The place is pretty crowded and everyone is doing their own thing. It’s kind of a college hangout so there were kids hanging out, some people on dates, and some families. I love going to places like this. I was able to be in the mix without getting too many stares. People did turn to look at me but only because my voice tends to carry and we were speaking in Spanish for most of the time. Even though I said I wanted to go to the place with flavor over the giant burrito, my our burritos were about as long as laptop and thick. We they came out I was thinking, “Aww man, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. “ To my surprise, we both finished them. It was a larger feat for him because I’m probably 8 inches taller and 30 pound heavier. We had a great time talking about everything from work to love to dreams/goals. He has a newborn so we talked about babies for a while and he showed me pictures. After we digested our food enough to finally stand we went to a convenience store and bought a 6 pack. We then went to a co-workers house to drink them. She couldn’t come out to dinner with because she was eating with her parents, but she said we could come over to drink. I was thinking, “Cool we’ll get to meet her parents and I can talk to them in Spanish and get some good practice.” Nope. When we got there, my buddy made a call and she came out, unlocked the gate, walked out, locked it back up and came out to the street to meet us. Then we proceeded to drink in the street. It was a good time. We just had some brews and complained about our jobs and told jokes. It was a lot of fun and I impressed myself with how much I was saying in Spanish and how smoothly. (Although the beer probably helped with that). We hung out until about midnight and then it was time to go to bed. The next day was my first time in the English class and I didn’t want to look like I partied all night. Edited by HermonMunster on 31 July 2013 at 8:16pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 82 of 154 01 August 2013 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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Tuesday
I had no problem waking up due to the 3 hr time difference but I didn’t go down to get breakfast. I was still full. Kind of like those nature shows were a snake eats a deer and then it’s good for another month or so. The driver took me to the office and I walked into the meeting room where the class was being held. I’m pretty sure I didn’t look exactly how they expected. (I’m a black guy with some common features so I’ve been asked, “are you from Ethiopia” all the way to “Are you from Venezuela.”) There are a few black folks in Mexico but they are few and far in between. I introduced myself to the instructor and sat down like I was one of the students. The instructor had everyone stand up one at a time and introduce ourselves in English. Then she opened the floor for questions. The students were extremely shy and didn’t want to ask anything, so I decided to tell them the story of my bloody nose when I was in Durango, MX. There were cracking up at that so it lightened the mood. I also explained to them that there are millions of Spanish speaking people in the US. They didn’t know that there are more Hispanic folks in the US than black folks. Also they didn’t know how many Mexican people are in the US that can’t speak a word. I stressed the importance of learning English and they all understood that their career opportunities would be severely limited if they didn’t become proficient. I asked if any of them get to speak with American’s on a regular basis and no one raised their hands. They are very fortunate that the instructor is Mexican but she spent some of her childhood in the US so she can speak English very well. After I finished speaking there was one verbal and non-verbal question asked. The verbal was from a guy who loves baseball he wanted to know how to say, “throw them out,” like when a pitcher catches someone trying to steal a base. I knew of the non-verbal question when the instructor said, “Yes, he’s married.” Ha! The instructor tried to push them to ask more questions but time ran out. After the class the instructor and I spoke about the class and what she wanted to do for the next day. She was very helpful and offered to stop by and give me a lesson if I wanted. I wasn’t sure if she was just being polite but I took her card and told her that I would call her if I had time. As the day went on I had meetings and normal work along with preparing the presentation for the customer that we were going to give on Wednesday. I was supposed to take some parts back with me to give to a colleague so I had to go with a lady from quality to go get them. While we were walking the floor she told me one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a while. She has been in engineering for about 15 years and she said that when she first started out at another company an American guy was conducting an audit. Everything was going smoothly until they arrived at a work station and he asked, “What is that?” pointing to a metal box. She replied, “It’s the tool box of the operator. Everyone has one that contains all the tools that they need for the job like tape, scissors, wire etc.” The auditor asked, “Do you mind if I look inside? “ “Sure no problem, like I said it only has their to..” She didn’t even get to finish saying tools. The man opened the toolbox and there was nothing in it except for a large burrito!!! The engineer was extremely embarrassed and asked the operator, “What is this!?!” holding the burrito. (this is the best part..) The operator had the nerve to look surprised and said, “How did that get in there???” hahahahah!!!! Wow I wish I could have been there to see her face when he opened the tool box. At lunch time the program manager invited me over his house. I had met his wife before on a double date in San Carlos. She cooked a nice Mexican stir fry. It was really good. Their son is 5 months old and heavy! I was holding him and was thinking, “this is a workout”. We just chatted about all kinds of things. The baby is making weird noises now and she said the first time he started making them she woke up her husband and said, “I think the baby is sick!” Nope, he just makes crazy sounds from time to time for no reason. I was very hot that day, probably 105 and when we left his house the heat hit me like a punch in the stomach. The rest of afternoon was just working, but I did think, “You know what, you don’t have any plans for right after work, you should contact the instructor. “ I had a buddy call her because my text message didn’t go through and we set up an appointment at 6pm. The plan was to meet at my hotel and then walk to a restaurant. I had to work a little late so I was concerned that I would be at the hotel in time. She doesn’t have a car so she had to catch a bus and get a transfer which would make her ride about 1hr. I felt bad enough asking her to come out and spend so long traveling, but I got the feeling that she really didn’t mind. She was walking up to the hotel at the moment I arrived. She came in and waited in the lobby while I dropped off my work stuff and changed clothes. I came down and we started talking about restaurants we could walk to while we walked. As soon as we got outside the heat and the blazing sun made our decision for us, we would eat at the restaurant right across the street. It was a sushi place and the food is good with large portions. We ended up eating and talking for about 2 hours. About an hour was in English, just getting to know each other. Even though she lived in the States for years, she still needs to practice her English to keep it fresh. She lives at home with her grandparents so I could understand why an hour bus ride wouldn’t be too much trouble. A tutoring session is a good excuse to get away from the old folks on a Tuesday night. Once we switched into Spanish she started giving me tons of little tips on pronouns and adjective usage. She wrote a short story and had me correct it and then I wrote one and that she corrected. She told me about how surprised people are when they hear her speak English while she’s in Mexico. They are like, “How can you do that!” like she turned herself invisible or something. Before we knew it, it was starting to get dark out. She said that she would just go to the bus stop so I could go out with my colleagues that just arrived. I wouldn’t have that. She’s a smaller lady and had just gone out of her way to help me out. (yes, I paid for the food and the bus fare but I still feel like I got the better end of the deal) There was no way I was going to let her walk alone at night. So I paid and we took off walking and talking. We got some stares, but I think it was more because we were speaking English instead of our size and color differences. It ended up being about a mile walk and then we waited for 30mins so it was good and dark by the time her bus came. My feet were hurting a bit (I was wearing dress shoes) but I knew I did the right thing. After she was safely on the bus I hailed a cab and went to the restaurant where my coworkers were eating. During the ride I decided to chat up the cabby. We spoke about a bunch of things (weather, where he’s from, family etc) He told me more than once that my Spanish was good and one time said, “I can understand everything you are saying!” That made me feel so good! I just got an appetizer at dinner and dank/told jokes with my coworkers. It was fun. After that we turned in pretty early because Wednesday was the most important of the trip. Ohh yea, during dinner with the instructor I had a very funny/awkward moment when speaking Spanish. I wanted to say, “Then the person came in suddenly.” But I didn’t say it the right way. She kind of blushed and said, “Uhhh, I think that’s something that you should talk about with your wife.” I really said, “then I cum suddenly.” Hahahahahha! I was like, “Nooooooooooo that’s not what I was trying to say!!” Learning a language is so funny sometimes. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 83 of 154 02 August 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
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Wednesday
I was moving slow in the morning so I didn’t eat breakfast, just came down and got in the car. I made some small talk with the driver and went straight up to the English class. It was a really fun class. The instructor had us go around the room and list out what we liked, what we hated, and what we loved. Some people’s answers were hilarious. My favorites were: I like tequila, I like women, I hate my boss and my team, and I hate turtles. The last one was really strange to me. Who hates turtles?? Why would they hate them? Were they bitten by a turtle when they were little? Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to get to the bottom of it. It was a memory game so we had to recite what everyone said. I couldn’t remember so I would just look at the people and making things up. One lady had an electric yellow shirt on so when I got to her I said, (in Spanish) “Her name is Lily and she loves bright shirts.” The funniest part of the whole game was that there was a guy who was cheating. He was writing down all the answers in his notebook, but when it was his turn we all realized that he didn’t write them down correctly. He still got most wrong. We laughed so hard at that. The people who could remember all of them got a piece of candy. It’s funny how motivated people get with such a small reward. After class I sat with the instructor for about 15mins and she reviewed a story I had written as a homework assignment. I had lots of questions and sometimes her answer was, “That’s just the way we say it. There is no rule.” I asked some of the engineers why they didn’t correct my Spanish, after the instructor almost ran out of ink correcting my short story and guess what they said in the response??? “You didn’t ask.” That really sums up all of the communication problems that arise in international business. They didn’t correct me because I didn’t ask and I didn’t ask because I thought I was saying/writing it right. After class I did some work and then had “breakfast.” For the most part, the people in Hermosillo don’t eat before they go to work. They get in around 7am and then eat around 9am. One guy had some little tacos the day before and asked where he got them from. There are a few street vendors that show up right across the street from the plant. I went over with a Mexican engineer and he helped me order something. The food was delicious and I really enjoyed being a regular guy for a few minutes. There were a few stares from the vendors, but after a while I just blended right in. I guess some people had tried to buy breakfast on credit so there was a big sign that read, “No Money, No Food.” I thought to myself, “you got that right!” Here’s a little aside: I forgot to mention this in the post about Monday. After work I did my usual walk around the area outside of the hotel. It was about 2miles and half way through I went into the grocery store. I always like to see what kind of foods that everyone eats. I don’t think they were using a lot of “miracle grow” or whatever they put on fruits in the US to make them grow so big. Every piece of fruit was much smaller than what I’m used to seeing in the states. The pastries looked so delicious but I didn’t get any (remember operation: don’t get fat) I looked at all the candies and my favorite, the cereal aisle. There was one box in particular that made me laugh. It was the equivalent to Coco Krispies in the US, but on the box there was an elephant flexing his muscles while wearing a spacesuit. I couldn’t stop laughing while I was looking at it. I know the people around me had to think I was crazy. I asked the English instructor about it and she said, “Oh, I’ve seen the commercial for this, it makes perfect sense. They say that if you eat this cereal you’ll grow to be as strong as an elephant and as smart as an astronaut. Oh yea, when I was checking out with my drink, there was an old man who was bagging the groceries. He asked me if I was a basketball player (I was wearing athletic clothes and am still in decent shape) We had a little chat where I told him that I don’t play anymore because of my knees and he said that my knees look good to him. We made a few jokes that made the other people in the line laugh and then I left. I really enjoy how Mexican people, in general, are curious and friendly about their curiosity. When I was in Durango, I traveled with another engineer who is from India. He wears a turban and the operators had never seen one before. They had tons of questions about it, “Is it a hat that he takes off at night? Why does he wear it? Does he have hair under there? How does his hair not get pulled by it?” It was funny to me and he didn’t mind answering questions because they honestly wanted to know and they weren’t making fun of him. After breakfast I had to rush a bit because the customer was coming in a few hours and I still needed to iron out some kinks in my presentation. I’ll spare you the details but the meeting went really well and everyone enjoyed the tour of the plant. We did have a funny moment when a guy said, “Pardon my French,” and there was a French guy in the meeting who said, “Why am I being pardoned. “ Hahahah. Sometimes international business gets a little confusing. It took a long time to explain why we say that. We stayed at work pretty late so when we got to the hotel the plan was just to cool down for a bit and then walk over to the steak house for dinner. My plan was to pre-party at the hotel bar but when I got downstairs I noticed a bunch of large signs and stickers with the word “CLOSED.” I asked my buddy the bar tender for a drink and he said he could only give me water. I asked why and he said something to do with cleaning. I didn’t really buy that so I asked the driver and he explained that they were shut down by the government for 1 day as a fine for unfair business practices. He said that they were doing a bait and switch. People were booking their hotel online and when they arrived they were being told, “Oh no, the rate is really this amount” (always higher). Also he told me they were including the tip in the price but then still asking for a tip. The driver also explained that things like this happen regularly. BIMBO is the name of a bread company and he said they got in trouble for printing on the bags $.99 but when you got to the cashier it was $2.35. One more note on corruption. While I was there, a big news story was about gas stations having rigged pumps. You think you’re getting a liter of gas but you’re really getting 0.8L. Many people don’t pump their own gas in Mexico so it would be easy for a person to not know exactly how much gas they were getting. It’s really unfortunate that the common man has to deal with things like that on a regular basis. The dinner was great. We had fun telling stories and just getting to know one another. Thursday was my last full day there so I tried to get some good rest. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 84 of 154 04 August 2013 at 11:37pm | IP Logged |
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Thursday
The English class was fun Thursday morning. We played another memory game and then spoke about our favorite songs. After that we played a game of hangman. It was cool to just goof off and kind of be a kid. I was surprised at how competitive everyone got during the game. After class the instructor corrected an old email I had sent to a friend in Spanish ( I didn’t have time/energy to complete my homework assignment) I actually didn’t have too many errors. She came prepared with a few written paragraphs and asked me to translate it. I didn’t have any trouble with that. I was very busy during the day trying to make sure I accomplished all my goals for the trip and spent some time just talking with all the people I communicate with on a regular basis. I’ve noticed that just talking about nothing has a way of pulling memories to the front of your mind like, “ Ohh yea, there’s something that I need to show you.” For lunch I went back to the program manager’s house. We had a good discussion about the healthcare system in Mexico vs the US. We also spoke about our career aspirations outside of engineering. There are a lot of people moonlighting in Hermosillo. One guy makes chorizo, another does real estate, while another makes moonshine. They asked if I wanted some moonshine and I said of course. I was saying some goodbyes and I got a call saying that the driver was waiting for me. It wasn’t 5pm yet so I was wondering what was the rush. There were two European colleagues who had flown in and were ready to go. One of the guys I had met before but the other was new to me. We introduced ourselves and I asked the guy from Germany which program is he working on, not knowing what his title was, he replied, “ All of them.” I was thinking to myself, “ whoa this guy is a big deal.” The other guy was Portuguese and is the North American COO. He asked me if I would like to go to dinner and I enthusiastically accepted. I had other plans for the evening but I couldn’t refuse an opportunity to spend time with two men at their level. (note for the younger people who may read this in the future. You have to take advantage of situations like this. I was very tired and I could have easily said, no thanks I’m going to take a nap and just get something in the hotel. In the real world, opportunities come few and far in between) We met in the lobby at 7pm and walked over to the steakhouse. (I wasn’t really looking forward to another steak dinner, but when in Rome…) We get our seats and we begin talking business. I explained why I was down in Mexico and the German guy explained how important my customer is to the global strategy of our business. That made me feel good about my daily battles to keep good parts going out the door and maintaining a good working relationship with the customer. I won’t bore you on the other details but our discussions really opened my eyes to a whole new level of thinking. In mind my mind I kept thinking, “ I can’t believe these guys are talking about these business decisions/opportunities so casually.” But I guess when you are on that level and deal with important issues and a daily basis; it really isn’t a big deal to them. While we were eating the conversation drifted to management styles and decision making. I mentioned how it’s important for a have a mix of ages and experiences in a company. You need young people with the fire to change the world and you need older people to tell them that their idea was tried before and it didn’t work. Putting the two groups together can lead to prudent innovation. As I finished saying this, the waiter appeared with the check. The two guys are probably in the early 50s and neither one remembered to bring their glasses. The Portuguese guy started laughing and said, “Here is a prime example, I can pay but I can’t see, you can see but can’t pay. “ And with that he handed me the bill and I told him how much it was. We all had a good laugh at that. Dinner lasted until 9:30pm and I was rushing to get back to the hotel because a coworker was supposed to pick me up at 9pm to go dancing. 9:30 changed to 10:00 and I started calling people to see what happened. I guess no one felt like going out that night but forgot to tell me! That was ok though, because I was sitting in the lobby listening to 2 opera students sing and sipping tequila. Their voices were amazing. While I was drinking I was chatting with my buddy the bar tender. I was cracking him up with the phrases and dirty words that I know now. We had a little back and forth going for about 5mins. I didn’t feel like staying in the hotel on my last night so I walked across the street to the restaurant/bar to have a taste and people watch. I asked to be seated upstairs in the open air part. I’m really glad that I did. It wasn’t too crowded so I had the opportunity to talk to the bar tender for about an hour and a half. When we started talking she told me that she spoke English, but I insisted on Spanish because I needed the practice. It was a really great conversation. I asked her about her life and she told me all about her kids and showed me pictures of them and everything. There were only a few times when she couldn’t understand what I was trying to say. The only problem was that it was soooooo hot. I was sweating like I had run a marathon. I was sweating so much that when I was supporting myself with my elbow on the bar, I slipped and there was a big sweat line left behind. Pretty gross huh? Again, doing things like this are my favorite. I was just kind of invisible. It’s fun to watch people in their environment. After a few more tequilas I went back to the room and packed my bag for my flight home on Friday. I planned on coming into the office for a few hours Friday morning to tie up any loose ends and say goodbye to everyone. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 85 of 154 05 August 2013 at 3:47am | IP Logged |
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Sounds like you have been having a lot of fun recently.
Your experience saying "then the person came in suddenly" brought back a hilarious memory when I was getting to know a new female Skype partner... we were talking about what we like to do for fun... I said "me gusta mucho correrme" thinking I was saying "I really like to go running." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 86 of 154 06 August 2013 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
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Hey James,
Yup, I made it a point to try to get the most out of this trip. You only live once. LOL@ your miscommunication. The only thing that saves me is the context of the conversation. Between the double meanings, slang, and mistakes I probably offend everyone I talk to at least once. Friday I was up and at em pretty early and had a smooth check-out all in Spanish. I was waiting in front of the hotel for about 30mins. The driver had to take people to the airport before getting me and he was running late. I was a little perturbed by it because I was missing the Spanish class. When I arrived to the Spanish class with about 15mins left I noticed that my name was on the white board. The instructor quickly erased it and sat down. I looked like they were taking a test so I just waited. After a while the instructor came over and gave me all the sheet of paper. She had them write short letters to me in English and Spanish. I thanked them all and put them in my bag so I’d have something to read on the plane. We said our good byes and I told them all that they could call or instant message me whenever they wanted so they could practice. After the class I reviewed a story that I wrote with the instructor and she offered to continue working with me through skype and via email. After class I closed out a few more issues for an hour or so and then I went to breakfast. I wanted to try something different and there was a big sign “CABEZA”which means head. I was thinking, I’m not sure what kind of animal’s head this would be, but let’s try something new.” I asked a buddy what was cabeza and he points to his cheeks and and said, “it’s this part of the cow’s head.” I’ve eaten fish heads before at a wedding so cow cheeks would be just fine. It was fantastic!!! I was tempted to go back to get more but I didn’t know how my stomach would react and I had 6 hrs on a plane. During breakfast I saw down with the new members of the quality team. We were just talking about family and future plans for kids. I was teasing a lady by saying that she wants 5 of them and another guy about 10 feet away said he has 4 daughters. I started joking with him about how he probably lives on the roof and they just throw some food up there for him. 4 daughters and a wife… it takes a special man to make that work. He was cracking up and I was glad that he could understand everything I was saying. After breakfast one of the engineers said, “I almost forgot… your Bacanora (moonshine)” We go up to the prototype room and a guy had a giant bottle with no label on it. I pulled out my wallet and my buddy said, “Nope, it’s a gift.” Thanked him and then started to worry. Would TSA let me in the country with a big ole label-less bottle? I decided to make my own label and wrote in English and Spanish, “This is a bottle of Bacanora. If you need to open it to smell/inspect please seal it tightly so that it doesn’t leak.” Then I said all my goodbyes and I was off to the airport. I arrived at the airport about two hours early and I went through security quite quickly so I had a bunch of time to kill. I was just walking around the airport looking in the gift store, watching the tv, and just bumbling around. An older lady caught my eye and said, “Hello.” I said hello back and then she asked me if I was from Venezuela. That kind of caught me off guard but I answered no and told her where I was from. I asked where she was from and a conversation was born. She worked for a credit card company that had a booth in the airport. I walked with her to her post while we chatted. There were two guys who were helping her and they took an interest in our conversation. Somehow we began talking about winning the lottery and I was making all these jokes that had them cracking up. “Do you want a Villa? How many? No, problem. How about you? An airplane… done!” Hahaha. I was playing a mental game to see how many of my vocab words I could throw in without the conversation getting too out of control. That was a lot of fun. My first two flights were uneventful but the last one was delayed an hour. I was in a bad mood because of that, but my spirits were lifted when I checked my bag and realized that my Bacanora had made it. Through the last week and a half I have been sipping and sharing some with my friends. It’s some strong stuff, but I like it. The funniest description of it was by a fraternity brother. “Man, this tastes like tequila with tobacco and Band-Aids.”hahaha. The really funny part is that when I told that to other people they would say, “Yea, I can taste it.” So this is my story and I’m sticking to it. The trip was great for business and language learning. I’m looking forward to my next one. I’m very pleased about how the classes worked out and meeting the instructor. Her offer to help me was much more than I’d imagined. I had a fantastic time and made some new friends all because I took the initiative to make it happen. Seek and ye shall find. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 87 of 154 13 August 2013 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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Hello Everyone,
I’ve been plugging away like normal. 1hr in the car listening to newsinslowspanish dot com (nss), about 30mins on my Anki flash cards, trying to listen to 3hrs of Spanish radio while at work, instant messaging and emailing in Spanish as much as possible. I’m just about to the end of my nss lessons. I will order up another month long subscription once I finish going through all the transcripts. I plan on doing at least 2 per day so It will take me until about October. I went to a meetup last week and had a great time as usual. Again my table was told to quiet down. It’s funny because I’m not really a loud guy. It’s more like I’m a catalyst who makes other people get riled up. Engineering is a serious profession so when I’m off work I like to have fun. There was a new Peruvian lady that came. It was good to listen to her and I was pleased that she understood most of what I was saying. Sometimes my accents are on the wrong letters, but I was communicating. Since my trip to Mexico I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life and career and if I am moving in the direction that matches those goals. I came to the decision that I wasn’t. I spoke with my boss and changed my training plan for the year. Quality engineer exam is out and DELE Spanish proficiency test is in. My goal is to study for and pass the B2 exam. My plan is to continue on my current schedule but tailor it more towards the exam. I purchased a study book today it should arrive in the next 2 weeks. I really need to work on my speaking. I’m going to start skyping my buddies again and write to the tutor in Mexico every day. I don’t want to abuse her offer to help me, but I want/need to pass the test. There isn’t a test center close to where I live so I will have to travel 5 hours and get a hotel. Might cost $600 so the company doesn’t want to pay that for nothing. I’m excited to know exactly where I stand in my Spanish studies. I have until mid Oct to decide which test to take B1 or B2. I plan on taking a practice test this week to see if B2 is attainable in 3 months. I don’t think I would ever feel like getting tested for a C1/2 level. I’ve heard that the skill level jump from B2 to C1 is huge. I just want to be understood/understand and sound like an intelligent person who has Spanish as a second language. I think having B2 on my resume would make me a whole lot more marketable. I’m thinking about trying to change positions within the company and being certified in Spanish will increase the odds that I would be chosen for the job, or even that a new position could be created for me that utilizes all my skills. The next few months will be super busy for me. I’ll be studying hard for the exam, we are moving to a new apartment, and I’m coordinating a move for an elderly friend of mine. I guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead. If anyone has some advice or can point me in the direction of some good study guides for the DELE B2 exam I’d really appreciate it. Cya 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 88 of 154 13 August 2013 at 2:06am | IP Logged |
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I just responded to your message and now I am reading your log. I think a certification would be good objective proof of your language ability. I must say, however, that working and having a job that you do in Spanish would be more powerful to me if I saw it on a resume. I do some hiring at my work and if I was looking for a person who speaks Spanish my preference would be to find someone who has actually had a job that they performed in Spanish and I would call a reference from that job to see how well the person performed in that job.
It is certainly exciting. Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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