Word of the Day: to Be Good at Something/ Doing something

Have you ever asked yourself what you are good at?

If you are a bit like me, as old as I am I cannot say with certainty what I am good at, though I’ve always believed it is hardly a matter for me to decide. I’ve always believed it is up to the rest of the world to determine if someone is good at something so I can only, with some level of uncertainty, claim that I am good at making Spanish omelettes; and…. I can only say that because I once won a Spanish omelette contest where I beat all the restaurants of my village… they even gave a trophy which I proudly display on the shelf of my kitchen secretly wishing my guests would notice :)…. and that’s all about everything I am good at !


On the other hand, I can certainly enumerate a number of things I am really really bad at -the list is long but I promise I won’t get carried away- like ironing fitted sheets, cooking meals I don’t like (I never taste them so they are either very salty, insipid or burnt and given that I don’t eat any meat you can only begin to imagine, dealing with figures, texting, walking in heels, finding my keys, folding clothes neatly, remembering dates (that can be a problem , trust me!) remembering wedding dresses ( my mother always wants to know) and of course, makes and models of cars -but listen, don’t get me wrong here, I don’t necessarily think being bad at these things is really a bad thing or makes me a bad person.On the contrary, I am quite nice! And as Marilyn Monroe once said :I ‘m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

One last thing I need to confess is that I am very bad at drawing and it is a pity because if when you are a teacher this is an ability that comes in very handy especially to illustrate something but I’ve given up trying to draw things on the board. My students don’t understand my art. A five-year-old child can  certainly draw  a house better than me but what some people are bad at, some others are good  at; don’t they say there must be a bit of everything in the Lord’s vineyard? Chema Pérez Fernández, one of my students, is certainly good at drawing and he has kindly drawn one of the role plays we performed in class. I really appreciate his contribution the blog .

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