On French and Football

The past several weeks have kept me on my toes with busyness and excitement. Busyness because of ministries and other various things. Excitement because January means the start of French classes. It's not my first time to take a language class (I've taken a semester of Mandarin), but still, I couldn't keep back the excitement and nervous-anticipation that I felt ever since enrolling. It has always been my dream to learn French and to speak and write it fluently, and the fact that my dream is turning into a tangible reality just makes the butterflies in my stomach dance and roll.

We started with the class last Saturday at a little place in Makati. We're around 13-15 students all in all, mainly girls except for one, actually—the unico hijo. I was almost late, no, actually I was late. One minute late, but still late, nonetheless. Everything's just slow and lazy on Saturday mornings. The wheels of the jeepneys don't move as fast as they should. The MRT stations are farther apart on weekends than on weekdays. So that meant I had to fly down the sidewalk to catch up with the time. Anyway, we arrived, trickling in by ones or twos. Some of the students enrolled with a friend. Some with many friends. Some, like me, ventured out into the unknown on their own.

Classes were supposed to begin at 8 o' clock, but a few minutes after we arrived, we were told that our enseignant would be late because he was commuting (for the first time, I think) to the school center, and that he had gotten quite lost somewhere along the way. After waiting a several more minutes, the German teacher came and—irony of ironies—taught us French. He was a pretty good teacher. He taught us the basic French phrases: Bonjour! Comment ça va? Comment tu t'appelles? Où habites tu? Tu as quel âge?

We recited numbers, days of the week, and months in a year. We couldn't pronounce quatre (four) properly, however, so we all gave it up for a loss. The real French enseignant did not get to arrive, even towards the end of the class, so we wrapped up at noontime, with the German teacher still teaching us French, according to schedule.

After class and a quick lunch, care of Wendy's coupons, I made my way to Vito Cruz, to Rizal Memorial Stadium to watch the opening of the United Football League and the two soccer matches: PAF Phoenix versus Kaya Cignal, and Green Archers United versus Loyola Meralco Sparks, with my family. So, readers, if you haven't noticed before or if you had no idea before, I'm very much into football (soccer). I like the game and the hype of the game. Period. I'm not an expert, but I know some of the rules, thanks to my brother who's really into soccer and who plans to play with a club someday.

While sitting around and waiting for the games to start, we managed to meet and have some pictures taken with our favorite players:

with Señor Angel Guirado, member of Global FC and the Philippine Azkals

with Señor Carli de Murga and Señor Angel, both members of Global FC and the Philippine Azkals

with Misagh Bahadoran, also a member of Global FC and the Philippine National Azkals
(we've dubbed him Peter Pan, by the way)

I had wanted to memorize the new French words I learned earlier in the morning. But in an exciting football game, even if you are really on neither team's side, you just can't shut out the world and drown yourself in your French notes. Something is sure to wake you, make you wonder, make you cheer and scream, leap out of your seat in excitement. I gave up the memorizing. Temporarily. But I'll definitely get back to it within the week.

After the UFL opening and the two games, after cheering and screaming and clapping, and doing all sorts of things fans do at an exciting football match, we went home. Tired. Sleepy. Attempting to think in French and failing. But happy.