Okay, I take back my last Blog entry. I love Christmas! Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I spent the day with my sons, and we went to my brother’s house for the Christmas Eve festivities. I love getting together with my family. I especially love giving gifts to children and seeing them go up to Santa Claus to receive them. Of course, not all children approach Santa Claus willingly or without crying. I don’t like to brag, but I didn’t cry this year as I sat on Santa’s lap. ¡Feliz Navidad!
When did Christmas become so stressful? I remember all the excitement and joyful anticipation when it came to Christmas. When I had my paper route, I loved all the excitement leading up to Christmas morning knowing that my parents, brothers, and sisters would be excited about the gifts I had bought them with my own money.
I used to dread Thanksgiving Day because then Christmas is just around the corner. But now I am beginning to dread Christmas soon after Halloween when all the stores start selling their Christmas gifts. Mainly because I hate Christmas and because I hate shopping.
How did a religious celebration become a capitalistic day of obligatory gift giving? No, I haven’t forgotten that Christmas stands for Christ Mass. I used to go to midnight mass at Holy Cross Church as an altar boy; I utterly understood the meaning of Christmas. I remember when I used to see large crowds in church for Christmas. Now I only see them in stores as we scramble to get the last toy or doll on the shelf. I guess fervent devotion still exists, but in a different form.
Well, only two more shoplifting days left until Christmas! Merry Christmas!
As a police officer, I work with many different partners. Partners of both sexes, different races, and many religions. I seem to have a good relationship with all my partners. One of my favorite partners, Calvin, is African American and I enjoy working with him because we have so much in common.
We both attended a Catholic school, we both went to the Marine Corps Boot Camp in San Diego, we are both college graduates, and we both work a second job. We actually have fun working together because we learn a lot from each other.
One day we drove past a bus stop with an ad of displaying an African American. I said, “That looks like someone I should know.”And he told me it was Ludacriss, the rap singer. About a month later, my sons are flipping through the magazine and they stop to look at the same ad that I saw on the bus stop. My oldest son held up the magazine and challenged me. “I’ll bet you don’t even know who this is,” he said. I immediately fired back, “That’s Ludacriss!” My son was amazed.
Anyway, Calvin and I got along so well that he started calling me, “my bro-THUH.” I was flattered. One day he found out that I taught college Spanish for my second job. So, he started calling me “mi hermano.” After a while, I missed hearing the words, “my bro-THUH,” so I started calling him “my bro-THUH.” Every time he saw me, he would call me, “mi hermano” and I would call him, “my bro-THUH.”
One day, another police officer witnessed our exchange of greetings and tried to be funny by saying, “You two don’t look like brothers!” And I said, “I didn’t say he was my brother. I said he was MY BRO-THUH!!!” That’s totally different, right?
Cognates are words that come from the same Greek or Latin root and resemble each other in English and Spanish. For example, in English, “insect” is very much like “insecto” in Spanish. And “drama” in English is “drama” in Spanish. Words like these cause no problems and, in fact, make it easier to learn Spanish.
The trouble for native-English speakers who learn Spanish are the words that sound alike in both English and Spanish, but have completely different meanings in English and Spanish. You must be careful when translating from English to Spanish or vice versa. Some words require extreme caution when using! For example, if you feel embarrassed in English, do not say, “Estoy embarasada” because you are really saying, “I’m pregnant.” And then you’ll really be embarrassed!
Another problem word is “molestar” that means “to annoy” or “to bother.” “No me molestes” means, “Don’t bother me.” However, if you confuse “molestar” with the English “to molest,” you are referring to a sexual crime punishable by imprisonment. ¡Tengan cuidado!
Over the years, I’ve had some interesting students in my Spanish classes. The one I remember most vividly was a Mexicana named Rocío. I met her when I taught Spanish at Daley College. She dyed her hair this obviously fake black color, even though you could tell her hair was naturally black. She wore black lipstick and painted her fingernails black. She had multiple piercings on her ears, lips, nose, and who knows where else. She always wore black clothing except for her t-shirt. I gathered that t-shirts were very important to her. Perhaps even sacred. You see, she always wore a Marilyn Manson t-shirt. Did I say “a,” as in only one, t-shirt? The semester was fifteen weeks long and we met twice a week. We met for class thirty times that semester and she never wore the same Marilyn Manson t-shirt twice! I always try to keep an open mind when I meet new people, but when I saw her in class, I had the feeling she would be at least a little rebellious. Whenever I called on her, she always gave the correct answer, and she usually scored the highest exam grades in the class. And this may sound strange, but we had a mutual respect for each other. For the oral presentation, she prepared the best presentation of the class. She also taught me a few things that I didn’t know about Frida Kahlo. And about being open-minded toward everyone regardless of our initial perception of them.
Chicago USA 