A Dilemma Solved

I used to want to teach myself to speak Welsh. It never really panned out, despite the Welsh dictionary and the "Teach Yourself Welsh" book that I bought at Powells one day when I was feeling inspired. I learned from this book that there are four (five?) ancient languages still spoken in Britain and Ireland: Welsh, Manx, Scottish Gaelic, and Irish Gaelic (and maybe one other that I can't remember.) Anyway, the point is that although I am probably never going to teach myself Welsh, I am going to learn to speak Irish (but I won't teach myself this time.) Yes, I am taking an Irish language class. Now when I go to Irish speaking (Gaeltacht) regions, I can communicate with the local people! I can use my huge, new Irish vocabulary. We will have scintillating, thought-provoking conversations with my newly learned Irish phrases, including (but not limited to!):

How are you?

Fine. How are you?

Good. Thank you.


Ah, yes. It will, indeed, be excellent.

At first, I wasn't sure that I wanted to take Irish. I was planning on taking a class on Irish narrative (I'm still not exactly sure what that it. I basically just signed up for classes that had "Irish" in the title), but when I went to it, it turned out that it actually didn't exist. This did not surprise me; things like that tend to happen over here. It's part of the charm.

I was left without a class. I had two, but I needed three. What to do? What to do? So I figured that I would give Irish a try. I will not regret it.

If I was forty-five or older, I would want to date my Irish professor. As soon as I saw him, I knew that I wanted to take his class. He looks like a sweet little elf with messy, very grey hair and rimless glasses that almost disappear against his face, and he has an under-stated, apologetic sense of humor that I find appealing. I want to give him a hug.