It is finished...with 2 hours to spare. Thank heavens! All 9 pages are typed, translated, proofread, and available for the slaughter.
Now I would like to post my thoughts on Rodriguez's book, but it's going to take a few days for my brain to kick out of "Spanish mode", so it may have to wait a while.

More billingual-ese

Well, my husband is off gallivanting this weekend, and I am stuck here at home doing homework. I have 20 pages worth of Spanish papers due on Monday and my brain is quite weary of thinking in Spanish. I got this rough draft back from my professor and almost cried because it was practically bleeding. Granted, he said I did a good job, it just looked absolutely horrible! There are so many little things, like accents and adjective agreement and direct object agreement, in Spanish that people take for granted in the English language.

Writing well in English has never been my forte. I thoroughly enjoy writing, my creative side was just never fully developed and so ideas and such do not come as easily to me as to some. Now, give me a research paper to write and I can have it taken out in a couple of hours with the proper research. But, ask me to write 8 pages about my thoughts on the book of Romans, in Spanish nonetheless, and my brain takes a vacation. It's not that I don't have any thoughts on Romans or lack the ability to critically think about the book, it's just that things don't flow nearly as well without quotes to back up my thoughts and make them feel legitimate.

For the other Spanish paper, I am writing about a very interesting book Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. I was expecting it to be another outlet for liberal garbage, but was actually quite impressed by this autobiography. He discusses how education allowed him to become more intelligent and "assimilate" (a word with a very negative connotation in Chicano Literature) into the American culture. Definitely worth a read for anyone with a long afternoon. But, for this paper, I simply outlined the book - from there, my mind drew blanks on what to write about, how to make it sound like I wanted, and get the message tumbling around in my brain onto paper. It is a very frustrating path to be placed upon, and one that is going to ruin me if I let it. But, I am determined, this afternoon and tomorrow, as well as all day yesterday, to not let it get the best of me. There are fantastic thoughts up there, critical thoughts about this book, I just have to figure out how to get them out and onto the paper so I can turn it in.

Spanish & English

As a Spanish minor, here at college, my brain becomes confused at times, trying to differentiate between these two languages, English and Spanish. For instance, for some reason in both of my Spanish classes today, my brain just could not function. I kept trying to translate every single Spanish word or phrase into the English equivalent, making it impossible to keep up with the discussion swirling around me.

You know, there was a time, back during my summer in Connecticut visiting the UN and other such fancy places, that I seriously considered becoming a translator. It seemed so glamorous, like such a great step into international politics. Now, as I become more and more entrenched in the Spanish language and culture, I realize just how difficult that life would be: constantly living in an ambiguous state, having to make your mind focus on the language at hand, constantly being stuck in the middle of noise. It is truly mind boggling to sit down and attempt to translate from one language to the other without your brain hurting.

But, think about all of the other countries in the world that require their students to know English as well as their native language! How behind we Americans are! It is sad and almost ridiculous that, at some point in our education, we are not required to learn another language to the point of being fluent. Now, this could definitely lead into a discussion about "minorities" in the United States and the growing problem we have with illegal immigration and the like, but let's stay focused upon the task at hand: being bilingual, or even better yet, a polyglot. There is a girl in my class, extremely bright and one of the nicest girls, that is from the Comoros Islands, off of the coast of Africa. She speaks and writes, fluently, English, Spanish, French (her native language), and German. She is currently learning Italian. She has a real gift for languages. Me, on the other hand...I struggle with having to speak English at an intelligent level most days. As for the Spanish side of my brain, speaking it is one of the most difficult tasks. Writing and thinking it has become no problem, but when I have to actually speak the words and ideas in my head, my tongue becomes twisted and tied in knots. I truly wish I could get past this hindrance - practice has not seemed to help. We'll just have to see what next semester brings.

First one...

Well, this is the first post on this new blog of mine. I still have not yet decided what I am going to write about in the coming days and weeks on here. I already have a couple of others that are just general blogs, but I really wanted this to be something special...something worth reading.
I guess we'll just have to see what the days bring to mind.