Dead Ears

Mike is back in Calgary, and The Honeymooners have been visiting Iguazu Falls for the past four days, so I've been using my free time to buckle down on the old Spanish studies.  It's really embarrassing how little Spanish I've learned, considering I've been here for three months now.  I've been primarily hanging out with native English speakers, so I guess it's not too surprising.  Still, when people ask me how long I've been in BA, lately I've been tempted to say, "oh, a couple of weeks now."  I just can't stand the look of pity or derision that inevitably follows when people realize I'm still effectively a deaf mute after all this time.

When Russell Crowe was doing promotional work for Robin Hood, one of the interviewers chided him for his terrible accent in the film.  Crowe's response was, "you've got dead ears, mate."  I assume a telephone was also thrown.  I'm not passing judgement on Russell Crowe (I haven't seen the movie), but the phrase 'dead ears' has stuck with me.  I think I'm making progress, but when I try to have an actual conversation, I immediately blank out and can't make out a single word.  At first, I figured it was the same social anxiety that causes me to instantly forget people's names when I meet them, but what if my ears are dead?  This would also explain why I can't carry a tune.

Another problem is that I'm not really studying Spanish, I'm studying Rosetta Stone.  Straight A's man, I'm practically fluent!  I just need real live people to speak incredibly slowly, and offer me three different choices for my answer.  Ideally, there will always be a visual clue, so if the person is holding a cat and one of the answers has the word 'gato' in it, I can pick that one.