This Took Two Weeks to Write... smh.
Dang I've been really busy recently. I might have to move my writing day to Tuesday or Thursday because that's when I'm free, but I was really tired this week so I spent my Tuesday afternoon sleeping instead of blogging. Sorry y'all but... priorities. As promised, you get to hear about some of the notable stories that have happened so far, but before we get there let's discuss what has gone down this week.
I started ballet and jazz and it's loads of fun. You can't tell but I'm saying that sarcastically. Okay let's try again. I started ballet and jazz and it's LoaDs oF FuN! Okay actually... it is pretty fun. It's just really hard for this beginner who can't balance on her tiny feet. The teacher is like, early-twenties, athletic ballerina type, super sweet, but also merciless when it comes to dance. This means I'll probably learn something though, so I can't argue with that. Rounds are just hard in Jazz because she expects double turns and beautiful pointed feet (my feet are anatomically messed up, with a doctor's confirmation, so this is extra hard for me) so I go out and give it my all but it's not pretty. I go with Fabiana who is the girl who lived in Orem, and she's on the advanced team so she makes it a lot easier for me. She was sick this week though, so Carolina came with me (I told her I was okay going alone, but she didn't believe me or something). It was overall fun and I found out I actually can do a cartwheel. Never knew that before. I've already got flexibility down so at least that's one less thing to worry about. Anyway, ballet and jazz are "fun" but I lowkey really do like them. On another note, I do Zumba now too which is also hard (endurance-wise) but it's zumba so you already know it's a party. I go with Caro three times a week after seminary, WHICH REMINDS ME! Oh man... God is good everyone. Thanks to a higher demand (and probably my fervent prayers too) we start seminary at 6:30 now instead of at 5. It's still early, but it's so much better in so many ways. There's a new seminary teacher in the area that teaches around 4 in the afternoon so all the kids who have school go to that, and all the home school kids get to sleep in for another hour and go in the morning. It's still every day for 45 minutes, so we end around 7:15 and come home. Before, we would all fall right asleep and wake up around 9 or 10, but now instead of going back to sleep I actually do stuff, and I'm productive with my morning. Usually I do need a nap later in the afternoon, but I don't waste nearly as much time sleeping as I did before. I never thought I would call sleeping a waste of time, but I love to start working accomplishing things so early. I don't know man, productivity just feels amazing.
(alright so past this point Google didn't save anything I wrote last week so apologies if I sound... unhappy. I just don't love rewriting 2/3 of an already finished blog post that took 3 hours to write, but life just likes to throw those kinds of curveballs sometimes ya know? Ughhhh okay let's do this again.)
So yes, I started this last week, was gonna wrap it up today to post, and then try to find time to write another short one this week to catch up and make up for missing one. Unfortunately this probably will take forever to write which means it won't be up until Thursday or later. So sorry y'all but writing these comes even before my online classes, so if it makes you feel any better, if I don't write a blog post it means I'm getting absolutely nothing done in the other aspects of my life as well. What a great reassurance... ugh this makes me so annoyed.
Okay. I'm back two days later and I've decided not to rewrite everything I had written before. It mostly consisted of the notable stories that have happened since living here, but I want to take this post in a different direction. I opted not to delete the two paragraphs above because I think it reflects pretty well the way my life has been going recently. After I wrote that paragraph above, I just felt too stressed and mostly annoyed so I just went in the other room and watched The Greatest Showman with everyone else. I was just really happy with what I'd had written, and it can just be so frustrating when technology doesn't work like it should. I was talking to my mom over text the other day, and she tried coming up with reasons it might not have worked or solutions for my problem. I reassured her that I had clicked the save button before closing the tab, and had even saved it manually several times as I had been writing. There was every reason for it to have worked, but unfortunately it didn't and I just have to deal with it. I feel like this situation of having to deal with things that don't work, even when they should, has carried over into a lot of other aspects of my current life. Mostly with Spanish.
Today, September 27, marks one month since I left Utah to come live here in Colombia. The time has gone by so so fast, and it feels like I've only been here for a couple weeks. I guess the novelty of living in a new country has lasted a lot longer than I expected it to, and it helps that I get to do what I love all day every day. It feels like I wake up in the morning and before I know it I'm back in bed watching Buzzfeed Unsolved before I go to sleep for the night. Everything about living here is practically perfect. Genuinely, I was so lucky to have landed in such a good place with such great people, and being able to do all the things I love. I could've ended up with a row boat version of exchange student living, but instead God gave me a yacht. I have every reason to be sailing smoothly, but there's this one thing holding me back. There's a twenty ton anchor dragging along the sea floor, and its name is language barrier. Everyone tells me that I'm making so much progress, and that all I need is patience, but I feel so stuck. Today's been another one of those days where I've barely spoken to anyone in Spanish, or really anyone at all (except at mutual this morning, that was great) and I feel so limited by my inability to communicate. Because of that, this post might be a little more pessimistic than realistic but right now, today, that feeling is my reality. I know I can't expect to be totally fluent in only a month, but I thought I'd be further along than I currently am. Back to my little analogy about technology not saving my blog post even though it should've, a part of me feels like I'm the technology trying to learn and remember Spanish, but it's just not saving in my brain like it should. My speaking skills are not much better than they were when I came here, and I'm just really struggling with my own incapability to have meaningful ineractions with other human beings on a daily basis. I just wish this wouldn't be so hard, but it's not easy for me when I make so little progress over such long stretches of time. I've thought about this a lot, and I have to be completely realistic with myself. I really have made progress since I've been here, and I have learned a decent amount of Spanish. If I think back to my first few days living here, I could understand the broad idea of what someone was talking about, but only by catching a word here and there that I already knew. Now, depending on what people are talking about, I can grasp the majority of what they're saying. It's still hard to get it all, even if I know the meaning of all the words they said, just because everyone talks so fast that I struggle to keep up with the constantly changing dialogue. By the time I've translated each word into a phrase in English that makes sense, they've already started talking about something else. Not to mention how impossible it is to understand what the heck they're saying when they mumble SO MUCH. It is almost impossible to know what they say unless they annunciate very clearly, and slow way down. I've communicated this to my family, because the twins are the ones who really speed through words the most, and it's gotten a little better. Even then, I just can't ignore that nagging feeling that I'm progressing too slowly.
This kind of thinking has been going on for the past couple of weeks. I was kind of banking on the fact that my subconscious would magically start knowing the meaning of words after hearing them enough, and one day I would finally be able to understand Spanish, but it was time for me to wake up. I did already know a decent amount of Spanish before coming here, and it has been super uselful so far. It's really unhelpful that I have my expectations and standards set so high that I'm never satisfied. I can get by with what I know, but there's so much more I'd like to say. Honestly, my ultimate goal is to be just as fluent in Spanish as I am in English. To give you a good idea of what level I'm currently at, I can understand and answer basic questions about well-being and physical state, I can understand the majority of a lesson at church, and if two or more people are talking about something simple and not too philosophical, I can keep up with the conversation. It's difficult however when people talk directly to me, because I have to be completely sure that I understood them correctly and didn't miss a key part of what they said. It's especially hard if I don't understand just one word--but that one word is crucial to what they're trying to communicate. These kinds of situations are good for helping me learn, but my brain seems to shut down whenever it has to actually respond to what's being said. Because I've been so heavily dependent on what I already know, my ability to speak has stayed more or less the same. Because I've been so stuck throughout the month, I've finally decided to take a new approach. Instead of just relying on my brain to "figure it out" I've actively been studying and practicing daily. I downloaded two more language learning apps (there's 4 total now), and now I spend more time on Duolingo and memorizing digital flashcards than I do on social media and my online classes. (Speaking of which, I finished Health last week! Not a major announcement, but it's nice to have it off my plate.) I'm hoping that with enough time and practice, this extra studying will pay off and help speed up the process significantly. I've been at it for about 2 weeks now, but only time will tell if it will actually make a difference. My fingers are crossed.
I have two sides of me that are both so strong but extremely conflicting. A huge side of me is trying to view this positively and be realistic. I have only been here for a month, I can't expect to be reciting Shakespeare in Spanish already. I genuinely have made progress, and little by little, day by day, if I keep working at it enough I will be successful. This side of me says, "Hey, you've still got plenty of time. Everyone says that the first few months are always the hardest, and eventually you'll have a breakthrough moment and everything will be worth it." I believe that side of me, I really do. I have a whole nine months ahead of me, and if I work hard enough at it I can be fluent by, or even before, then. Nonetheless, the other side of me, the one that's been very present throughout this blog post, is panicking. That side of me is equally as strong, and it's telling me that if I stay at this rate, I'll be lucky if I can even read a picture book and know every word in nine months. It's constantly reminding me that even if I can understand someone, I am awfully dreadful at responding and all these things I would like to say are completely out of my capability. Verbal communication is such a huge part of who I am (just look at how these blog posts) and I'm constantly discouraged that my level of communication in Spanish is so much lower than that of my English. All in all, I am making progress, but it's so miniscule day-to-day that it's very easy to believe it doesn't even exist. I just have to get out of my own way and not let my self doubt hold me back.
Alright that about wraps it up. Hopefully I can find some time to rewrite all those great stories I had, and get to telling about what it's like living in Colombia soon. I have loads of pictures in store, but this post wasn't really the kind to include them. Also, if you'd like to get email updates every time I post just click the subscribe button at the top. I'll try not to miss a week again because I know the handful of you who actually read this were waiting to hear from me (love ya Josi!) but I can't promise anything. Really truly, everything other than the language barrier is great here, and I can't wait to share it all with you. Life is good, and everything is chévere. Goodnight.
I started ballet and jazz and it's loads of fun. You can't tell but I'm saying that sarcastically. Okay let's try again. I started ballet and jazz and it's LoaDs oF FuN! Okay actually... it is pretty fun. It's just really hard for this beginner who can't balance on her tiny feet. The teacher is like, early-twenties, athletic ballerina type, super sweet, but also merciless when it comes to dance. This means I'll probably learn something though, so I can't argue with that. Rounds are just hard in Jazz because she expects double turns and beautiful pointed feet (my feet are anatomically messed up, with a doctor's confirmation, so this is extra hard for me) so I go out and give it my all but it's not pretty. I go with Fabiana who is the girl who lived in Orem, and she's on the advanced team so she makes it a lot easier for me. She was sick this week though, so Carolina came with me (I told her I was okay going alone, but she didn't believe me or something). It was overall fun and I found out I actually can do a cartwheel. Never knew that before. I've already got flexibility down so at least that's one less thing to worry about. Anyway, ballet and jazz are "fun" but I lowkey really do like them. On another note, I do Zumba now too which is also hard (endurance-wise) but it's zumba so you already know it's a party. I go with Caro three times a week after seminary, WHICH REMINDS ME! Oh man... God is good everyone. Thanks to a higher demand (and probably my fervent prayers too) we start seminary at 6:30 now instead of at 5. It's still early, but it's so much better in so many ways. There's a new seminary teacher in the area that teaches around 4 in the afternoon so all the kids who have school go to that, and all the home school kids get to sleep in for another hour and go in the morning. It's still every day for 45 minutes, so we end around 7:15 and come home. Before, we would all fall right asleep and wake up around 9 or 10, but now instead of going back to sleep I actually do stuff, and I'm productive with my morning. Usually I do need a nap later in the afternoon, but I don't waste nearly as much time sleeping as I did before. I never thought I would call sleeping a waste of time, but I love to start working accomplishing things so early. I don't know man, productivity just feels amazing.
(alright so past this point Google didn't save anything I wrote last week so apologies if I sound... unhappy. I just don't love rewriting 2/3 of an already finished blog post that took 3 hours to write, but life just likes to throw those kinds of curveballs sometimes ya know? Ughhhh okay let's do this again.)
So yes, I started this last week, was gonna wrap it up today to post, and then try to find time to write another short one this week to catch up and make up for missing one. Unfortunately this probably will take forever to write which means it won't be up until Thursday or later. So sorry y'all but writing these comes even before my online classes, so if it makes you feel any better, if I don't write a blog post it means I'm getting absolutely nothing done in the other aspects of my life as well. What a great reassurance... ugh this makes me so annoyed.
Okay. I'm back two days later and I've decided not to rewrite everything I had written before. It mostly consisted of the notable stories that have happened since living here, but I want to take this post in a different direction. I opted not to delete the two paragraphs above because I think it reflects pretty well the way my life has been going recently. After I wrote that paragraph above, I just felt too stressed and mostly annoyed so I just went in the other room and watched The Greatest Showman with everyone else. I was just really happy with what I'd had written, and it can just be so frustrating when technology doesn't work like it should. I was talking to my mom over text the other day, and she tried coming up with reasons it might not have worked or solutions for my problem. I reassured her that I had clicked the save button before closing the tab, and had even saved it manually several times as I had been writing. There was every reason for it to have worked, but unfortunately it didn't and I just have to deal with it. I feel like this situation of having to deal with things that don't work, even when they should, has carried over into a lot of other aspects of my current life. Mostly with Spanish.
Today, September 27, marks one month since I left Utah to come live here in Colombia. The time has gone by so so fast, and it feels like I've only been here for a couple weeks. I guess the novelty of living in a new country has lasted a lot longer than I expected it to, and it helps that I get to do what I love all day every day. It feels like I wake up in the morning and before I know it I'm back in bed watching Buzzfeed Unsolved before I go to sleep for the night. Everything about living here is practically perfect. Genuinely, I was so lucky to have landed in such a good place with such great people, and being able to do all the things I love. I could've ended up with a row boat version of exchange student living, but instead God gave me a yacht. I have every reason to be sailing smoothly, but there's this one thing holding me back. There's a twenty ton anchor dragging along the sea floor, and its name is language barrier. Everyone tells me that I'm making so much progress, and that all I need is patience, but I feel so stuck. Today's been another one of those days where I've barely spoken to anyone in Spanish, or really anyone at all (except at mutual this morning, that was great) and I feel so limited by my inability to communicate. Because of that, this post might be a little more pessimistic than realistic but right now, today, that feeling is my reality. I know I can't expect to be totally fluent in only a month, but I thought I'd be further along than I currently am. Back to my little analogy about technology not saving my blog post even though it should've, a part of me feels like I'm the technology trying to learn and remember Spanish, but it's just not saving in my brain like it should. My speaking skills are not much better than they were when I came here, and I'm just really struggling with my own incapability to have meaningful ineractions with other human beings on a daily basis. I just wish this wouldn't be so hard, but it's not easy for me when I make so little progress over such long stretches of time. I've thought about this a lot, and I have to be completely realistic with myself. I really have made progress since I've been here, and I have learned a decent amount of Spanish. If I think back to my first few days living here, I could understand the broad idea of what someone was talking about, but only by catching a word here and there that I already knew. Now, depending on what people are talking about, I can grasp the majority of what they're saying. It's still hard to get it all, even if I know the meaning of all the words they said, just because everyone talks so fast that I struggle to keep up with the constantly changing dialogue. By the time I've translated each word into a phrase in English that makes sense, they've already started talking about something else. Not to mention how impossible it is to understand what the heck they're saying when they mumble SO MUCH. It is almost impossible to know what they say unless they annunciate very clearly, and slow way down. I've communicated this to my family, because the twins are the ones who really speed through words the most, and it's gotten a little better. Even then, I just can't ignore that nagging feeling that I'm progressing too slowly.
This kind of thinking has been going on for the past couple of weeks. I was kind of banking on the fact that my subconscious would magically start knowing the meaning of words after hearing them enough, and one day I would finally be able to understand Spanish, but it was time for me to wake up. I did already know a decent amount of Spanish before coming here, and it has been super uselful so far. It's really unhelpful that I have my expectations and standards set so high that I'm never satisfied. I can get by with what I know, but there's so much more I'd like to say. Honestly, my ultimate goal is to be just as fluent in Spanish as I am in English. To give you a good idea of what level I'm currently at, I can understand and answer basic questions about well-being and physical state, I can understand the majority of a lesson at church, and if two or more people are talking about something simple and not too philosophical, I can keep up with the conversation. It's difficult however when people talk directly to me, because I have to be completely sure that I understood them correctly and didn't miss a key part of what they said. It's especially hard if I don't understand just one word--but that one word is crucial to what they're trying to communicate. These kinds of situations are good for helping me learn, but my brain seems to shut down whenever it has to actually respond to what's being said. Because I've been so heavily dependent on what I already know, my ability to speak has stayed more or less the same. Because I've been so stuck throughout the month, I've finally decided to take a new approach. Instead of just relying on my brain to "figure it out" I've actively been studying and practicing daily. I downloaded two more language learning apps (there's 4 total now), and now I spend more time on Duolingo and memorizing digital flashcards than I do on social media and my online classes. (Speaking of which, I finished Health last week! Not a major announcement, but it's nice to have it off my plate.) I'm hoping that with enough time and practice, this extra studying will pay off and help speed up the process significantly. I've been at it for about 2 weeks now, but only time will tell if it will actually make a difference. My fingers are crossed.
I have two sides of me that are both so strong but extremely conflicting. A huge side of me is trying to view this positively and be realistic. I have only been here for a month, I can't expect to be reciting Shakespeare in Spanish already. I genuinely have made progress, and little by little, day by day, if I keep working at it enough I will be successful. This side of me says, "Hey, you've still got plenty of time. Everyone says that the first few months are always the hardest, and eventually you'll have a breakthrough moment and everything will be worth it." I believe that side of me, I really do. I have a whole nine months ahead of me, and if I work hard enough at it I can be fluent by, or even before, then. Nonetheless, the other side of me, the one that's been very present throughout this blog post, is panicking. That side of me is equally as strong, and it's telling me that if I stay at this rate, I'll be lucky if I can even read a picture book and know every word in nine months. It's constantly reminding me that even if I can understand someone, I am awfully dreadful at responding and all these things I would like to say are completely out of my capability. Verbal communication is such a huge part of who I am (just look at how these blog posts) and I'm constantly discouraged that my level of communication in Spanish is so much lower than that of my English. All in all, I am making progress, but it's so miniscule day-to-day that it's very easy to believe it doesn't even exist. I just have to get out of my own way and not let my self doubt hold me back.
Alright that about wraps it up. Hopefully I can find some time to rewrite all those great stories I had, and get to telling about what it's like living in Colombia soon. I have loads of pictures in store, but this post wasn't really the kind to include them. Also, if you'd like to get email updates every time I post just click the subscribe button at the top. I'll try not to miss a week again because I know the handful of you who actually read this were waiting to hear from me (love ya Josi!) but I can't promise anything. Really truly, everything other than the language barrier is great here, and I can't wait to share it all with you. Life is good, and everything is chévere. Goodnight.
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