Classes

I've been thinking about taking a Spanish class. We have a Hispanic ward in our Stake, some of the people that need to set an appointment end up not being able to communicate with me. (And there doesn't seem to be any sign at this point of my being released until the Stake President is released, which I'm ok with.) Right now, I have 2 people I need to get in for an appointment, I haven't found out how their English is yet, so I haven't called to set them up.

A few months ago, I was trying to get someone to come in for an appointment. I spent a number of telephone calls trying to communicate, and thought I finally had, when the time for the appointment came, the guy didn't show up. It turned out that I had been speaking with his roommate all along, but the roommate didn't really understand.

I rely heavily on one of the High Councilmen in the Stake to help with these things, but it would be nice to just be able to speak for myself, especially since there are often times on Tuesdays that people walk in for appointments.

For Fall semester, there are a number of Spanish classes offered by the Evening program. There are a number of different levels of class offered by the Evening program at 7am. I think just about all the Spanish I learned in High School is gone now, so I wonder if I should try to start at the beginning. They have a foundational Spanish set of classes for the uninitiated. Those 2 classes are pass/fail, which is more to my style, but I wonder how far they would get me. It's not like I need to learn how to buy bread, I just need to have Church related conversations. Maybe I need to go over to the department and talk to them about the Foundational vs University level classes.

Then there is the other side of the coin. I never really had a strong driving motivation to attend class, I was always 3 weeks behind by the 2nd class of a semester. I've got a lot of other things to worry about besides the workload a class will give, and work itself will most definitely get in the way of class. (I wouldn't be able to attend the first 2 days of the semester, that's our biggest load, and spend those 2 days in the data center...)

Now that I've written this last paragraph, I wonder if it's a good idea at all. That class is 7-8am Monday-Friday. I have a 4 day trip scheduled in the end of September, and I still have to take 6 days of vacation this year or I lose them. (I could take up to 28 days of vacation for the year total at this point. I don't have to work on Mondays for the rest of the year if I don't want to.) By October, I could be to the point of not working Mondays or Fridays the rest of the year, not that I would do that, but if we get to October and I haven't used any vacation time yet, I might seriously pick Monday or Friday to take off for the rest of the year, and have 3 day weekends for the rest of the year. 7am is also kind of early for me. I'm not sure all the cylinders would be firing that early, even if I got up. Maybe that's exactly what you need to learn a new language.

There is a "Weight Management" class in the PE department that's Monday and Wednesdays, it's only a 1 block class, so it wouldn't last too terribly long.