sra. gross

So I’ve been thinking a lot about my high school Spanish teacher these days. It strikes me that, really, what she taught me remains at the base of my ability to get around here. Even when my teachers here in Mendoza review grammar rules with me, I remember that Sra. taught me these first. And even though I have forgotten them through disuse, they remain a part of the deep recesses of my knowledge base.

Greg thinks its either remarkable or crazy that I am still relying, for the most part, on high school Spanish. Yes, of course, I took Spanish in college, but I think maybe I shouldn’t have been placed in the lit class or I never should have stopped taking the classes. Either way, I only remember reading Jorge Borges in that class (which is actually a great thing to remember, since Borges was from Argentina!).

I am excited to surpass my high school knowledge of Spanish—and starting to use the subjunctive is the first step toward doing so! But I have also been thinking about how many people from my high school class have gone on to spend their lives using Spanish—one friend of mine spent a Rotary year in Mexico and then married a man from Mexico. Another uses Spanish in her work as a doctor. And another spent time in Argentina after high school and I can only assume he still uses it. Sort of amazing how Sra. Gross, a teacher in a small town in South Dakota, grounded so many students in an appreciation for speaking a foreign language.