…Over my old posts and thinking I’ve made some pretty good points over the years. I just wished I remembered them after writing them down. Instead, when I stumble upon a post from 4 years ago about prepositions I think “Oh that’s very clever. Did I write this?”
Some of it’s pretty good. I need to take a weekend out and read the whole lot to see what I could learn from it. It might be depressing though. The other day I wrote a blog post and then realised I’d already done one on the same topic (here). Then the other day, when I was looking for something, I came across a post from 2021 about “assim ou assado” and realised I’d forgotten that and duplicated it too, following on from the Raquel Sem Interesse book I read in the summer.
Hugh Laurie said that at his age reading was like filling a bath with the plug out, and I feel the same with portuguese. I’m only retaining about 10% of what I learn, I think. I’m on a slippery slope that ends with someone asking me if I know who the prime minister is.
Her’s another translation – this time “Eu e o Meu País” (me and my country) by Oquestrada. It has a weird bit of anglo-french wittering at the start and I’ll just pretend that doesn’t happen. I wish I had a video of them doing it live but every one I’ve found has been shonky fan footage.
The song itself isn’t that deep either. The bit I really like is the very beginning. Freguesia is one of my favourite words for some reason, and that second line is great, plus the sense you have of her dashing around everywhere trying to hug the whole country. So that’s the only reason for the translation. If you want an objectively better video of them playing an objectively more stompy song, check this out.
Portuguese
English
De distrito em distrito de freguesia em freguesia e quando os teus braços chegam aos meus nós somos só um, somos um só nós somos um só, somos só um eu e o meu país
District by district Parish by parish And when your arms reach mine We are one, we are one We are one, we are one Me and my country
Ouvi dizer que me amavas, adoravas, entendias ouvi dizer que me querias, me estimavas, percebias e se à noite me sorris de dia pouco me falas mas se à noite me sorris de dia pouco me falas de dia pouco me falas
I heard you loved me, adored me, understood me I heard you wanted me, esteemed me, noticed me And if at night you smile at me By day you hardly talk to me And if at night you smile at me By day you hardly talk to me By day you hardly talk to me
I wanna dancing with myself I wanna dancing with myself e é tanta a rotunda que já nem sei chegar a ti neste silêncio, neste pantanal sou turista acidental neste anúncio, neste postal sou turista acidental mas e tu, tu oh tu meu país mas e tu, tu oh tu meu país diz-me diz-me onde ficas tu neste postal
I wanna dancing with myself I wanna dancing with myself And there are so many roundabouts I don’t even know how to get to you In this silence, in this swamp I’m an accidental tourist In this advertisement, in this postcard I’m an accidental tourist But you, you, oh you, my country But you, you, oh you, my country Tell me where you are on this postcard
Sérgio Godinho, singer, writer and all-round renaissance man, has been working for 50 years now and Radio Comercial produced this really nice video of other musicians covering one of his best known songs. Of course, this sort of ensemble cast has been besmirched by that Imagine song in 2020, but they go a long way toward redeeming it.
I don’t recognise all the participants but I’ve definitely mentioned A Garota Não, António Zambujo, Miguel Araújo, Tiago Bettencourt, Ana Bacalhau, Claudia Pascoal, Tim from Xutos e Pontapés. I’m a little surprised I’ve never mentioned Camané apart from a couple of passing references. His eyebrows alone deserve their own blog post. And I’d been thinking of doing something about Os Quatro e Meia, but hadn’t got around to it yet
Aside from playing spot the celebrity, there’s a lot to look at in the video: there are shots taken in front of A Ponte D Luís in Porto, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, and a mural by Vhils. You should also be able to spot where they’ve tried to mock up some of his album covers too. Compare this discography – I can see a couple (Samuel Úria and David Fonseca), but I feel like I’m probably missing some because a few of the scenes look so staged that they seem like the director is trying to set up the shot – like at 2.02 Diogo Piçarra is sitting on a park bench and as he sings the line he puts his elbow up on the backrest, then 7 seconds later at 2.09 João Só does the exact same thing but on the other side. That’s not a coincidence! Likewise the weird quantum superposition of Rita Redshoes on the same bench at 1:56 looks like it’s not just random.
A lot of them I’d never heard of before, or heard of but never sat down and listened to, so I picked on a few who took my interest:
Capicua is quite interesting – she’s one of the first on screen. She’d broken the dress code by just turning up in normal clothes instead of being in her finery. I am not a rap aficianado, so I wasn’t really moved by her stuff, but her videos are quite interesting and worth a look. My favourite actual song is “Maria Capaz“, which is obviously a wordplay on Maria Rapaz, and I like that she’s turned it around and made it a good thing like that. Very good!
I feel like there’s split in the genders of the singers: Most of the guys are showbiz veterans like Palma, Abrunhosa and Ribeirinho, all grizzled and weatherbeaten. Then there are people like Zambujo and Araújo in the next generation down, younger than me but not exactly spring chickens; and there is a fair sprinkling of young dudes in there too. The women, on the other hand, are almost all young, hot and immaculately groomed. I don’t really see any female fadistas of that older generation, coming out of retirement. I wonder if they were asked. The only woman I noticed who looks like she had done the hard miles and approaching his level of seniority was Mafalda Veiga, who is straight after Capicua. She seems to have done quite a lot of duets with the other musicians in the video (here) and I liked that there was someone there representing for us grown-ups.
Buba Espinho is the least rock star-looking person I’ve ever seen and I checked out a video of his and it’s charming because he acts like a big ol’ doofus as well. His music’s Ok though and I don’t hold it against him that he isn’t trying to be super-cool in the american style. There are videos of him doing more straightforward Fado too and he looks more at home there.
Carolina Deslandes is also fine but I didn’t feel the need to buy all her music. That’s a shame because she has an amazing voice.
Rui Ribeirinho seems like an interesting guy. He’s from a band called GNR – not to be confused either with Guns ‘n’ Roses or with the Banda da Guarda Nacional Repúblicana. They’ve been around since the eighties and they’re still rockin’. HOLD THE PHONE – My wife’s just told me she met him at a party once! What the actual fuck?
Rita Redshoes is someone I’d heard of but never paid much attention to. I quite liked this video where she is surrounded by Caretos… wait, why don’t I have any posts about Caretos? I could have sworn I’d written about them a few months back but I can’t find it now. Oh well, add it to the to-do list. Rita Redshoes has a very diverse back catalogue. There are some in english, this children’s show and even some relaxing white noise to send you to sleep!
Pedro Abrunhosa is another name I know but I’ve never listened to. I can’t say I was that interested to be honest. Sorry, Pedro. He’s been around a long time though. I might put him on my Spotify for a while and see if I can find something I like. Listen to the crowd on this video – they love him!
Sara Correia has a cracking set of pipes – she really belts it out, sailing that line between fado and more commercial pop, a bit like Ana Moura. She and Abrunhosa have collaborated before in the past on a fundraiser for Ukraine and it’s really powerful. Better when she’s singing than him, it must be said, but powerful all the same. Oh and she’s singing at Cadogan Hall in February – right, get that one in the diary!
Let’s do the lyrics, shall we? Lots of passive voice here: it’s going to be difficult to render it into english without sounding affected but I’ll do my best.
Portuguese
English
A principio é simples, anda-se sozinho Passa-se na rua bem devagarinho Está-se bem no silêncio e no borburinho Bebe-se as certezas num copo de vinho E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
At first it’s simple, walk alone It happens in the road, nice and slowly It’s OK in the silence and the noise Certainties are drunk in a glass of wine And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
Pouco a pouco o passo faz-se vagabundo Dá-se a volta ao medo, dá-se a volta ao mundo Diz-se do passado, que está moribundo Bebe-se o alento num copo sem fundo E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
Little by little, the step becomes slow One takes a turn to fear, a turn to the world It’s said that the past is dying Breath is drunk in a bottomless cup And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
E é então que amigos nos oferecem leito Entra-se cansado e sai-se refeito Luta-se por tudo o que se leva a peito Bebe-se, come-se e alguém nos diz bom proveito E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
And then friends offer a place to sleep One enters tured and leaves refreshed And fights for everything that’s taken to heart Drinks, eats, and someone says “Enjoy!” And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
Depois vêm cansaços e o corpo fraqueja Olha-se para dentro e já pouco sobeja Pede-se o descanso, por curto que seja Apagam-se dúvidas num mar de cerveja E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
Afterwards comes tiredness and the body weakens One looks inside, little remains Asks for rest, no matter how short Doubts are washed away in a sea of beer And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
E enfim de uma escolha faz-se um desafio Enfrenta-se a vida de fio a pavio Navega-se sem mar, sem vela ou navio Bebe-se a coragem até dum copo vazio E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
And in the end, a choice becomes a challenge Life is confronted in its entirety Navigating without a sea, without a sail or a ship Courage is drunk from an empty cup And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
E entretanto o tempo fez cinza da brasa E outra maré cheia virá da maré vaza Nasce um novo dia e no braço outra asa Brinda-se aos amores com o vinho da casa E vem-nos à memória uma frase batida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto da tua vida
And meanwhile time turns the coal to ash And another high tide follows a low tide A new day is born, on the arm another wing Loves are toasted with house wine And a well-worn phrase comes to mind Today is the first day of the rest of your life Today is the first day of the rest of your life
My run of bad luck… or rather my non-run of bad luck continues. I was due to do the Meia Maratona dos Descobrimentos in a week and a half but I’ve had a weird infection that’s blocked my nose for weeks and left me unable to train or to sleep, and it’s not shifting, so I have had to drop out. Probably just as well because I also can’t afford it, but that’s another story!
Being an optimist (most of the time) I subscribed for the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon in March and I’ll probably try and do one closer to home later in December if I can get well again in the next week or so. I’m on antibiotics and steroid sprays and saline rinses. It’s weird, not like a cold, not like a flu or covid, just like someone has filled my nostrils with plaster of paris. I just want it to stop.
Super-optimist me wants to go for the Lisbon Marathon in December if the March run goes well. I’ve done 2 marathons before but mever managed to finish one runnning all 26 miles. In the Brighton one I hit a wall at 20 miles and just stopped for no reason and ended up walking about 3 miles before I could get running again. Disappointing. And as for the South Downs Marathon… well, I was just hopelessly out of my depth there! Hot day, savage hills, not enough training, not enough water. Took me about 6 hours!
I;ve heard Portugal has a strong running culture. I am not quite sure where it is. I mean obviously there are super-stars like Rosa Mota (who is still going strong) and my early influence, Jessica Agosto (hey, not bad, seven-years-ago-me, I can see you’ve made a couple of mistakes there but you were doing Ok for a newbie!), but I think there’s only one park run venue, I haven’t seen many runners around parks, and when I went running in Madeira earlier this year people looked at me like I was a lunatic. You’ve only to check the relative availability of the Lisbon Marathon (just sign up) vs the London one (join a lottery months in advance and hope the gods of running smile upon you).
I’ve always wanted to do a run in Portugal though: it’s a bucket list goal, just to see what the vibe is like. This is my third attempt now. Third time lucky right? Right?
I’ve been browsing Lidel for C2 textbooks to work through. They have quite a lot of good options, including some ebooks and interactive content, and I was surprised to find myself spoiled for choice. Unfortuantely, for UK users, even if you only pick downloadable products that don’t need to be posted, when you try to check out this happens!
So I wrote to them and explained that this surely couldn’t apply to virtual products, and even for paper books, Brexit had turned out to be a bit of a “tudo-nada”… Hm, is that the right expression? It was closest I could get to “damp squib”. And that most other book dealers had sussed out by now that their packages wouldn’t be shot down by spitfires on their way across the channel. Looking forward to hearing from them…
I was sorry to hear Sara Tavares (who I’ve written about on here before) had passed away yesterday. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumour a decade ago, but, as I understand it, had recovered. It seems to have come back recently, which I wasn’t aware of and I was shocked to hear she was dead.
Forty five is no age, and it’s a great loss to music. I hadn’t realised previously that she was also a former eurovision entrant, as well as all those awards and collaborative projects. She really achieved a lot.
Hey, I didn’t tell you about my trip to Islington to see Manuel Cardoso’s gig, did I? I should do it in Portuguese, really, but my brain is still broken and I’m still feeling pretty terrible with the… cold or the sinus infection or whatever it is, so I’m going to take the coward’s way out and write in english instead.
The venue is called The Bill Murray and it’s near The Angel, one of my favourite parts of town, behind the Union Chapel. You have to get off Essex Road and go down a few very boring roads to get to the actual spot though. It’s like a small pub with the back room converted into a venue that holds maybe a hundred people on small chairs around a low square stage about five feet by five. I got there quite early and sat down at the side of the room, but it started to fill up and I moved to allow a couple to sit together. That left me in one of the only remaining empty chairs: right at the edge of the stage where I could reach out and touch the mic stand if I wanted to. I could hear people talking english, including the announcer. I started thinking, well, I guess the show’s going to be in english. Disappointing.
It wasn’t though! As soon as he came on, he started in portuguese, but he read the room and asked “por palmas” , (by round of applause) how many portuguese people were in. Then he asked had anyone brought a non-portuguese friend with them who didn’t speak the language. A few boyfriends were pointed at and raised their hands sheepishly. There might have been a few who had come on their own and didn’t even understand the question but we’ll never know. Anyway, he told them they were in for a rough ride and gave them a joke in english – an off-colour gag about Ronaldo – and then went back to his routine. I was really, really close to where he was standing and I felt a bit self conscious. If I looked completely baffled I was going to stand out like a sore thumb at that range, so I made sure not to let my expression go slack at any point.
I actually understood most of it though, thank god. Obviously, he was talking fast, using a lot of slang, and talking about things that would only make sense if you were steeped in the culture, so there were definitely gaps, but I laughed extra-loudly at the jokes I actually got, partly because they were funny, and partly because I was so happy to have understood them. I was especially glad to get the ones that made reference to pop culture memes: “My sex life is like Leiria. It exists, but it’s not that amazing” for example. Or politics “João Galamba was found to have weed in his house… well, at last we have a politician ‘sem filtro'”.
Sometimes, I got the words but not why it was funny. Like there was a stretch where he was pretending to be a lovestruck man talking to his girlfriend on the phone and I laughed at alost every protestation of love he made, but one of the compliments he gave her was that her breasts were like chips ahoy cookies. Er… OK…
Other times, I totally missed the reference. Like, at one point everyone in the room did that sort of wincing laughter, you know, when someone makes a really near-the-knuckle joke. He was already doing a routine about kidnapping children, which I wasn’t really vibing with, but people seemed to be enjoying, but he said something about you can’t just walk into the Hotel da Luz and steal a baby. “Now, the Praia de Luz, on the other hand…” I didn’t get it straight away but obviously should have guessed it was a Madeleine McCann reference. That’s an example where you’d probably laugh from the shock value if the timing was right, but if you’re on a slight delay while your brain processes it, the effect is lost.
The whole thing was over pretty quickly: started at 6.30 and finished by 7.30. I really enjoyed it though, and I definitely want to do this again. I must follow more comedians on instagram so I can see when their tours are coming up.
I mentioned a while ago that I was starting the Say it in Portuguese CAPLE Exam Prep course. I thought it would be worth taking a really focussed course to try and get myself match fit instead of winging it. In case anyone is in the same boat, thinking of taking it for a future exam, here’s what it’s like:
The course took place over 4 weeks because that’s how long I had from enquiring to the date of the exam. Following an introductory meeting, Cristina offered a range of three options, based on what I said my weak points were. There were different levels/prices, depending how much support I wanted and I went with the middle one. I won’t say what the prices were in case it’s a trade secret, but I’d definitely call it very good value.
As you might already know, there are four sections in the exam*, and I felt reasonably comfortable with the reading comprehension but decidedly iffy about some of the others, so the really important stuff for me was in the form of four weekly drops of one sample paper from the written part of the exam and a recording and set of multiple choice questions from the aural comprehension section. I completed them in my own time and emailed them back. Very detailed feedback would then arrive the following day for me to work through.
On Fridays we had an online meeting where we’d go through some of the homework feedback and also did a simulated parts 1 and 2 of the “produção e interação orais” exam format. Mistakes made in the meeting would prompt more feedback via email, including actually recording the lesson and doing a step-by-step feedback recording that I could listen to and hear my mistakes.
Cristina does other courses and she’s also host of one of the earliest portuguese podcasts, so she’s an experienced teacher, but I think I was one of the early adopters on this specific DAPLE course, and there were a couple of teething troubles – a few typos in the questions – which I fed back and will no doubt have been corrected by the time the next person takes the course. In the post-exam debrief, I also suggested she might change the order the aural papers were given in, since I think the first one was a real past paper and the later ones were close simulacra. They were very good recordings and sounded almost exactly like real exam questions, but the questions were a tiny bit less ambiguous and tricksy, so I thought maybe it would be better to start with those and finish on the real past paper.
The course definitely boosted my confidence and helped me approach the exercises in a more controlled, less panicky way. Yeah, the exam could have gone better, but it could have gone worse too, and it definitely would have if I hadn’t done the course! I would definitely recommend it to anyone planning on taking a CAPLE exam, especially if you’ve never taken one before and are not familiar with the format.
Yesterday was the day of the DAPLE (C1) exam. Usually when I do one of these exams I write it up straight away, but I’ve left it till the next day because I was feeling a bit miserable. It all went a bit piriform, I’m afraid. Let’s take it step by step:
I arrived at the embassy half an hour early. Better than half an hour late, I suppose, but they don’t open the gates till nine. No exceptions. Even when their own staff arrived the secrity guy wouldn’t answer the buzzer till nine sharp. I was in need of a wee, and I had a congested nose, so being out in the cold did not help at all. And then a brazilian and a…. venezuelan(?) guy arrived and started speaking spanish. I tried to ignore them. I don’t need to hear spanish today, lads!
When we were let in, she showed my to a nice reception room – much nicer than the noisy, echoey office the exams have been held in previously. I was the only student there, so I was just sat at a table, with the invigilator about fifteen feet away at a different table. My face was bunged up, I had to breathe through my mouth a lot of the time, and I had to keep blowing my nose noisily.
The Compreensão da Leitura went well. 90 minutes, 60 marks. There were some extracts from articles about modern life: an overview of the work of António Damásio and a missing paragraph exercise based on a story about how portuguese kids coped with remote learning during lockdown. The missing paragraph thing is quite annoying: it soaks up a lot of time for only 5 marks. I was worried that I was behind schedule but of course it was fine: The last 40 marks are fill-in-the-blank questions, which are much quicker than the ones where you have to read the text, so you don’t have to be strict about hitting one mark every minute and a half. It was definitely challenging, but I had done the preparation and I reckon I got most of the marks.
Break. Water, toilet, blow nose, eat a square of chocolate, suck a menthol sweetie.
Next came the Produção e Interação Escrita. 90 minutes, 3 exercies. I found myself getting writer’s block at first, suddenly doubting my spelling of almost every word. I wrote a formal letter to the local council, telling them they shouldn’t close the library, recycling as much from the question itself as I possibly could.
Next up was a discussion stemming from this article from the Expresso (the section beginning “O problema não é a ansiedade dos jovens quanto o futuro…”). I decided to branch off in the middle and talk about George Bernard Shaw’s novel “Back to Methuseleh” which takes as its premise that if you could only extend the human lifespan to hundreds of years then everyone would suddenly be incentivised to really work at dealing with entrenched, long-term social problems. This seemed like quite a fun diversion: the trouble with always having to write about environmental issues is that it can feel a bit preachy, so I was glad I made it more interesting. Generally, if you bore the marker they are less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. With hindsight, I think I might have confused some of the plot points with “The Trouble with Lichen” by John Wyndham, which is also about extending human life, but never mind; I doubt the marker will have read both, so I think I’m pretty safe.
The third of the three exercises was the usual mechanical rewriting of sentences into different forms: passing direct to indirect speech, switching in and out of subjunctive and using gerunds. I’ve done a shit-ton of fiddly grammar exercises lately in Qual é a Dúvida: about a hundred pages of them, in fact, so I felt really confident about my answers. Done, dusted, 5 minutes left over, so I skimmed the first and second texts, strafing the errors. Some really stupid ones! Probably saved myself about ten lost marks there.
Break. Water, toilet, blow nose, eat a square of chocolate, suck a menthol sweetie.
Hey, well, it’s all going well so far right, as the optimist said as he fell past the thirteenth floor.
Next up was squeaky bum time: the Compreensão do Oral, which is always everyone’s least favourite. It’s 40 minutes and 25 points. I have done six of these for practice recently and was starting to feel quite confident, so I just tried to stick to my new system and keep a cool head. I couldn’t though – I felt like I was swimming around in a sort of soup of words. And the questions were really ambiguous too, For example, there was a passage about the rehabilitation of the Iberian Lynx (I can’t find the exact recording but here’s a podcast that deals with the same situation). At one point he talks about a kind of rabbit called the Coelho Bravo which he said was essential to the Lynx because it was so specialised that the Coelho Bravo was “almost its only food” but he didn’t say what else it ate. The answers included one that just said it was “essential” and one that said it was essential because it was the lynx’s “only food”. I didn’t like the first because it’s not specific enough about why the rabbit is essential, but the second seemed to be overstepping the mark so I played it safe and stuck with the first.
Then there was one about wolves in portugal (I’ve listened to an audiobook about them, but it didn’t help much I’m afraid), a section from this interview with the author of a book called “Adeus Futuro”. The invigilator told me afterwards that even she couldn’t answer the questions for this section (cool cool cool cool cooooool).
And finally an interview with friend of the blog Marco Neves. I’ve read one of his books, actually had another of his books on order at the time, and I once did a course he taught so I have a pretty good idea of the way he thinks. And Ainda bem, because the fourth question in the section was about a specific word – I can’t remember what it was but it began with “des” and the question was about whether the des- was there to reinforce the root word or contradict it. I didn’t catch it the first time around so I listened out for it really carefully the second time and I swear, dead ass, as the young folk say, that he didn’t bloody say it. I mean, I know he must have, but I didn’t hear. I made an educated guess, but I dunno. I was gutted. I’ve been scoring 17-20/25 lately and I’d be surprised if I got 15 in this. Horrifying.
Break. Water, toilet, blow nose, eat a square of chocolate, suck a menthol sweetie, say, when asked how I am, that I just want to die.
The final part of the exam is the shortest, but it’s quite nerve-wracking because it’s recorded on video: Produção e Interação Orais. 25 minutes, and you’d think it would feel like hours, but it doesn’t, it feels like about twelve seconds. With hindsight, I wish I’d written some reminders to myself on a card about controlling the rate at which I speak, and slipped it into my backpack. so I could have read it before that part of the exam and refocus my thoughts before the real thing.
Again, I’d spent quite a bit of time preparing for this and I had developed an apresentação which I hadn’t memorised but reckoned I could use all or part of in talking about myself. Weirdly, though, she didn’t really give me much room to expand on my answers. It was just Where were you born, where do you live now, how long have you lived here, how long have you been learning portuguese and a few other things. I even got cut off if I said too much. Gutted! I’d been prepared to give my silly discussion of running in the park, talk about the books I’ve read and maybe even get into talking about the comedian I’d seen on the previous evening, but I didn’t get a chance. My answers were fine, but I thought this would be my chance to shine and it wasn’t.
Me trying to finish my Apresentação before embrassy security throws me out in the gutter
The next part of the interaction is a visual prompt and I was handed most boring picture in the world, with two men and a woman sitting at a desk and almost no other objects visible in the shot. I talked about meetings and how a lot of work meetings were happening online now, and how I quite liked that as an introvert. I did some light-hearted banter about what it’s like when you’re trying to write an email and someone says your name but you have no idea what they are asking you because you weren’t listening. Not exactly comedy gold but it was reasonably grammatically correct. I suspect there were a lot of Umms in there though. I hadn’t quite filled the time, so she gave me a follow-up question: did I think there was a gender pay gap in the workplace. Oh shit, I thought, was that what I was supposed to talk about? Women in the workplace? Oh well, I started saying it depended on the specific company and that in my industry, social services, women were really well represented in senior positions, but that was as far as I got because we hit the time limit again. Probably just as well, really, I don’t normally want to give pat answers so I think I would have got into lifetime earnings after that and come a cropper on the vocabulary.
Lastly, we had to do an interaction about starting an export business. Normally, you’d do this with another student but since there weren’t any, it was me and the invigilator, with a third person taking notes. Why did they need to take notes when it was all on camera? I dunno.
The scenario was that I wanted to export olive oil and she had to persuade me to export cork instead. Wha’? What do I know about the relative profitability of those things? I didn’t really follow the sequence properly and kept fighting my corner even though the script said I was supposed to agree with her in the end. I finally took the hint but I was in the middle of saying that my wife has lots of bags but she doesn’t have one made of cork, so I turned on a dime and said that, now I thought about it, maybe I’d but her a nice cork bag. Except I started a clause with “talvez”, and the subjunctive circuits of my brain creaked into action, creaked to a halt again and I remember really clearly hearing myself entone in slow motion… “de…ver….ia…” and knowing it was wrong but just feeling so out of control at this point that I didn’t even try and correct myself. Feck.
They stopped the tape and asked me if I felt it had gone well and I said no, definitely not and I stood up. They asked me some more things while I was gathering my pens, stuffing menthol sweeties into my mouth, nose and ears and wriggling my coat on. I coudn’t even string a sentence together. At one point, I turned to them both and said “Juro que falo melhor do que…” and then couldn’t even think how to finish the sentence. Oh well, the recording had stopped so whatever.
I had lunch in Comptoir Libonais, then home, where I watched a movie and had some more nice food. First booze in months, too, but I’d earned it. Nose still streaming. Finished the rest of the menthol sweeties. Oh and there was a parcel. It was that Marco Neves book I’d ordered. God is mocking me.
Well, I guess it could be worse. There were some real low points but it could be a lacklustre pass. I’m not even pausing, I’m going to set my sights on DUPLE in May and start work now. I know I’ve said this many times before, but I absolutely have to talk more. I’ll never get there if I can’t talk naturally.
I think I’ve mentioned this girl before, and she’s well worth watching. This story in particular struck me because I’d never heard of the bloke but he really seems to be something of a national phenomenon.
Luso 