Last class last week. Final upcoming. A long, cold semester closes out. At year’s end, we’ve finished 15 of the 30 chapters in Swan’s First-Year Polish. Students of the early 80s must have been twice the students we are now. Wait a minute, that would have been me!
Over the course of this semester, I managed to ace my quizzes, but as I review for the final exam and retake them, hiding the answers and corrections under a note card, I’m either overly tentative or absolutely sure on every question, then dismally mistaken in both cases. How can that be? Knowledge as kittens ambient in my short term memory but now grown up and bored and wandered off. I can’t even honestly say, “I used to know that,” I can only say, “I got that right on my quiz back then” and “That’s vaguely familiar.” Just over forty eight hours, then school’s...out... for...sum..ma.
Supplemental vocabulary for this weekend: mlecz (“dandelion”), bez (“lilac”), kardynal and rudzik (“robin”).
