language

I woke up thinking of something my dad said last night on the phone. I had been telling him that it's hard or impossible for me to keep up with the reading for class and that I can't read 100 yrs. of solitude in a week if it's in Spanish, though I can read it in a single evening in English. And that it was hard to follow the discussion in class but got easier after a bit.

"Well then maybe if you can't keep up, you don't BELONG there."

Oh -- god. I mean, okay, maybe so. But that was mean of him. And how would he know anything about grad school? And how will I get better language if I don't try? I should have stuck with the basic refresher course I was in last spring. And this from the person who was so strongly against my going to some other country to study, when I was at the point when I should have done that as I had nothing tying me down, and people would have thrown money at me to do it. This is not an excuse as I consider all the other things he did not like that I still did. But a little encouragement would have gone a long way. And also on the other hand, I *live* in a spanish-speaking country already, if I would go to some kind of effort to be in it.

And I'm TRYING to keep up but it's fucking hard okay? Even being a lady of leisure who has her kid in preschool 9-4 on weekdays, it's always like there is something else I"m supposed to be doing. Even right now I have a giant list of errands that need doing and some of them TODAY. Even if S.E. did her PhD while working and while she had 4 kids. God! I feel like I suck!

giant waves of resentment towards my parents .. will I never be free of that? god. At least there wasn't open ridicule, which was how they'd both treat any other ambition I ever had. screw my dad, I was calling him to ask for help, and was going to call him this morning with grammar questions about how to phrase some things I want to say in class. but I realize I'd rather fuck up than ask him for help, as he will just make me feel horrible again. People, please don't ridicule your loved ones and tell them they aren't good enough and that what they want to do is not only impossible, but pointless and ridiculous. Just don't ever do it.

I have not worked on my magazine... I have not finished the digital feminary... I have not finished my homework for either class and haven't worked on my presentations for the conference in October. Nor have I translated anything in over a week. And last night I just laid on the couch reading. i guess i took a few notes. But didn't really work hard. Fuck! Panic!

Comments

[Jo]

Do you know, I really admire what you do. I think you are extremely busy and you get a hell of a lot done. You have a long ambitious list of things, but of course you do! If you got it all done at once, you would have another list in back of it, because that's how you work. And if taking a class in Spanish makes you have to read as fast as mere mortals normally do, then it just means that you are on the climbing slope of the learning curve and before you know it, you'll be eating up those books in a night, too. Stay true to yourself and don't listen to those voices that tell you not to.

[Prentiss Riddle]

I agree with Jo.

Can I hazard a guess that you're trying to read in Spanish with the same depth of understanding that you're accustomed to in English? And that you're trying to read prose as closely as you do poetry? A very hard lesson for me to learn, but one which I think I'm finally getting down after all these years, is not to sweat the details all the time when reading in a foreign language. Of course I'm reading for pleasure, not for school, but if I don't completely lose the thread of what's going on and if I'm enjoying myself, I give myself permission not to grab the dictionary at every third word. For a more rigorous approach I might read a text twice, the first time for general comprehension, the second time to clarify the most salient gaps. (Can a gap be salient? Isn't a gap an innie, not an outie?)

This is not only the path to surviving your return to grad school, it's also the path to getting to the next level of fluency. Looking up words and consciously memorizing them is only the tip of the iceberg of language learning; half-understanding words several times in context until you subconsciously triangulate their meaning is the bulk of it.

[squid]

You will/can. So say the faithful.

The tutor comes by tomorrow (Wed.) from 3 to 4. After we talked I realized I truly have no idea what her abilities are, so you should meet her if you have the time.