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2007-02-22 - 12:58 p.m.
So I am, FOR CERTAINLY, going to be taking language classes sometime within the next month. We at least found another school for me to try in Sitges and that takes a bit of the dread dread dread off the whole business. I am only at two dreads now. Nobody believes me, but trust me, after eight hours I will be speaking Spanish with ease. This is how I do things. It is not easy for me (owing to my severe lack of self confidence�check that, owing to my reluctance to make an ass out of myself because my self confidence is such that any minor chip in it will cause it to completely disintegrate) to be a language hacker like Eric. After two weeks here he was already hacking his way through sentences. Probably not making a lick of sense�but nevertheless, he was speaking. And he hacked on and on and every time someone saw him who hadn�t seen him in a couple weeks, couple months whatever they would say, �Your Spanish is getting really good!� And now we are at today when Eric can talk on the phone in French and speak with someone in his office in Spanish and be writing an e-mail in English all at the same time. Three things that helped Eric�s language progression along�1. He works. He is always around people speaking Spanish. 2. He�s done this before�the language thing. So he knows how to get it going. 3. He doesn�t care about hacking or about standing there throwing words out at someone until they understand what he is trying to say. Three things that hindered me in this language progression�1. I am a hermit and never want to leave the house. This is not just something that developed when I arrived in Spain. My entire adult life has been one big hermit fest. 2. I have NOT done this before. I know that if we were to move to another foreign country I would have at least one factor on my side. And that factor is that now I HAVE done this and I know what to do to make things easier. 3. One of the reasons I rarely ever talk in the first place is because I never have enough information to feel comfortable speaking. This has nothing to do with my self confidence�this has to do with the small part of me who is a perfectionist (and when it comes to relaying information about something it comes from my desire not to spread false information). With the language thing I often know a lot of the words I need to speak a certain sentence�but because I am missing one or two words or because I am not sure about a tense or the placement of a word�I just withhold it all. I�ve been gathering for the last year�gathering little tidbits of information about this language here and I think I finally have enough information to move onto the next phase�which is, putting it all together. So. I�ll show everybody. As long as the teacher I get will cooperate with the way I want to learn. (this means, total immersion shit DOES NOT work with me. If I have a question about something I am going to need to hear the answer in English because if I don�t 100% understand the answer once given it won�t help me. This is just me. I am sure the total immersion shit works for some, probably most, people. But not me.) ANYWAY. I am taking language classes so I can get through the summer without stressing Eric out anymore. I�ll give him some good last months here so that this whole Spain thing won�t linger so blackly in his soul. Yesterday we were looking at houses on-line and we were both awestruck at how green Michigan is. When you live there I guess you don�t really notice it�but leave for a year or two and damn�it�s green. It made my heart hurt to see it. I miss trees. That�s probably why I like my yard so much. We have actual grass (well, right now it is dead because of our inablility to deal with desert) and trees. I really do believe that by Christmas I will be back in Michigan. It is all I can do to not start packing right now. I mentioned to Eric last night that when I go back in April (I have decided, after all, that no matter what the circumstance is here, I need to go back for at least a week) I could pack one suitcase with colder weather clothes (that I don�t need here anymore but will possibly need in Michigan in April) and then I can just leave them there (at his parent�s house) and bring back my suitcase filled with other stuff I need (like cat treats, spices, Burt�s Bees, brown sugar, Carmex and shampoo). But he was right when he told me I better not start that cycle again. Last time I started bringing suitcases full of stuff to a place where I wasn�t currently living and then leaving them I ended up not having any clothing in my house for about six months. I also lived fo more than a year with my entire house packed up in boxes. So I should have learned NOT to pack until there is a definite move date. But I can�t help it, I just want to start packing. YAY! Packing! Maybe by the time my actual visit to Michigan arrives I will know, for sure, when we are going to be moving and I WILL be able to safely bring, and leave, a suitcase of stuff. Here�s hoping. Carnival was this past week and aside from an incident with some scorched chicken in a pan that set off the smoke alarm at 6 am and interrupted my precious sleep�it was less monstrous to me than it was last year when I found myself, at 5 am, driving through mass chaos to pick Eric and Dani up and then spending the next hour trying to inch my way home with a puking person in the backseat. This year I dropped Eric off and he found his own way home. And he didn�t bring any puking people back with him this time. So it was good. Carnival is funny and I am glad to witness it from a distance. What else, what else? Hmmm. Nothing. |
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