Well, my flight for Madrid leaves in just under 72 hours, and I'm sitting here wondering just why the fuck I have so many ties and why the hell I think I'm going to need all of them and shit, where did that stain come from? Because if I didn't have something as idiotic as that to worry about, I'd probably be having a legitimate panic attack.
'Why would I have a panic attack?' you ask, instantly regretting it. (Tip: I'm slightly more tolerable when drinking. Clarification: When you are drinking.) Well, to begin, there's a minor hiccup in my inability to form a coherent sentence, let alone one in Spanish. For legal reasons, I'm not naming names here, but if you were to ask Professor Ara-Say Enneis-Bray, she (or is it a he?) would back me up on this. And probably dock you a letter grade just for admitting you know me. (Haha! But seriously.) So, yes, that I'm going to a country where they don't speak a (and I hesitate here to say 'real') language is a little intimidating. My hope is that my usual approach, that is assuming that it'll all be intuitive, will work. And that eight years of classroom Spanish has not been completely replaced by 30 Rock references. There is also the fear/reality that this is not in fact a vacation and that I have to go to class, that I'm being graded and that attendance counts. Not that I don't like school, of course - it's a warm and cozy little bubble sheltering me from the real world - but I'm, how you say, lazy and easily distracted. So there's that potential failure, too. And, dear reader, there is also you. And how much I'm going to miss you, particularly if you're related to me or were my roommate or have written on my facebook in the last twenty-four hours. Where does separation anxiety disorder hurt? Everywhere.
I've decided, however, that I'm willing to suck it up. (Though the more astute reader may have noticed that this paragraph follows one of me decidedly not sucking it up, it would be kind of a dick move to point that out.) It's going to be difficult, I'm sure, but nothing ventured nothing gained, why do you climb the mountain?, etc. There's something to be said for experience, however poorly it might turn out. You build character, and God knows I'm in desperate need of some of that. And, ignoring the language barrier and the occasional lapse into fascism, the Spanish really have perfected culture. They wake up late. They eat a big breakfast. They work for an hour or two. They eat a big lunch. They take a nap. They work for another hour or two. They snack. They eat a big dinner. They drink. They stay up late. And forget any of that working on weekends bullshit - overtime is for the Germans. The Spanish are the Romans just as they invented wine, orgies and vomitoriums; the English at the eave of taxation and gin - they know they've gone one step too far, but, goddamnit, they're not giving up their naps or their pork products. History be damned, this is what life should be like. And hopefully the deans' office is going to respect that attitude, too.
So I don't know that I've actually made much headway in terms of the panicking (I still don't know how that stain got there), but I think that I've at least (sort of) come to terms with why I'm (sort of) leaving the happy irreality that is my life with my friends and family/at Amherst/in the God bless the United States of Amuhrica. Because you have to live every week like it's Shark Week, Liz Lemon. That's why.
About the author
- Geoff Millener
- Geoff was born in New Zealand, raised in Tennessee and educated in Massachusetts (where he spent a great deal of time reading, writing and being cold). Chattanooga, though, is home, and, after stints in 3-D printing and the world of gigabit startups, he now works for the Public Education Foundation, managing innovative programs transforming public education, including Teachpreneur, a startup incubator for educators with big ideas; Dev Dev, a community-wide digital literacy initiative; and Policy Fellows, an 18-month fellowship infusing teacher voice into public policy. In his spare time, he plays old-timey baseball, which is both a real thing and a perfectly normal hobby.
1 comment:
Hi Geoff,
Nice blog! As you know your Uncle Geoff and I spent our first year of marriage in Peru (I was 19), and I remember feeling much as you do at first--it's weird and disorienting to find yourself living in another culture and it's hard when you feel you have the verbal expressive skills of a child. I went after having one year of college Spanish, and I'm not naturally good in foreign languages. I found myself pointing a lot in stores and saying things like, "Thank you, yes, I like this thing, how you say, a red color that goes on my mouth" when trying to buy a lipstick. I also remember buying a rabbit--I can't even remember why we thought having a rabbit in our walled backyard to join the guinea pigs and ducks the previous renter had left us would be a good thing--but I was in the open-air market and marched up to the woman selling rabbits and said something like, "Good afternoon, I need a rabbit, do you have a rabbit who is a woman?"
After about a month, when I started to have my own routines, I began to feel more like I belonged, but it took a few weeks. I would collect the mail at a downtown mail box, buy the English addition of Time magazine that arrived every Tuesday, and would go to a certain cafe for some flan, for example, and after a short time, this all felt normal and like a routine.
It really didn't take too long for little habits and routines to embed themselves and before long it felt RIGHT to be living in Trujillo, if you know what I mean. But I had to get over a few weeks of feeling a bit lost and disconnected and mourning the loss of my ability to express myself like an adult in Spanish. Your Spanish skills are way better then mine were, so you won't have to battle that too long. At some point it will just click and you'll get used to the accent and speed at which people speak.
(I used to have quite vivid dreams in Peru where I was quite fluent, but I have no way of knowing if I really was more fluent in my dreams, or if it was all a...well, dream.)
Give yourself a few more weeks and I'll bet you feel much more settled in and part of the culture.
Meanwhile, keep writing! It's fun to read your observations.
Aunt Karen
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