Mijn Hobby?

Often our Flemish teacher will call on people in the class to read aloud. It seems pretty equal and I'm not bragging, but when there's a long passage, he seems to call on me. I know! I find it hard to believe myself.

For those of you who know me pretty well, you know I have an awwwful Southern accent that would rival any Arkansan. Who knows where this comes from, I mean, other than growing up in Louisiana. My parents and grandparents weren't originally from the South and they definitely didn't have an accent like mine. I don't seem to have passed this on to my children so perhaps it will stop here.

But back to my Flemish class . . . when Jim reads aloud, he's really good at making all those gutteral sounds when pronouncing a "g" or an "r" - indicative of Flemish/Dutch and of coughing up a hairball. We used to have a cat so I know that sound when I hear it. Sometimes our teacher will even "help" Jim by correcting him and asking him to say it again.

Now I'm not bragging, but he never does this with me. He never asks me to repeat anything or feels the need to assist in my pronunciation.

So this past week we've had a substitute teacher and after we read aloud a time or two, she asked if any of us were learning Flemish as a hobby. I hadn't thought of it as a hobby, but I suppose I don't really need to learn Flemish so I raised my hand.

Apparently this confirmed her suspicions because she proceeded, in Flemish, to say something like "my accent would probably prohibit me from speaking proper Flemish anyway so it's probably a good thing I don't really need to use it to get a job . . . blah, blah, blah". Something like that.

And this confirmed my suspicions that our regular teacher has likely been calling on me to read purely for amusement and furthermore, not bothering to "help" me when I fail to cough up a hairball. Since apparently it's obvious . . . I cain't be helped.