Poco A Poco

This has been the theme for my life recently:  "poco a poco."  Which essentially means, "little by little."

It's my first week in the B1 level of Spanish class.  The levels start at A1 (beginner) and progress to C2 (expert):  A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2.  As you know from previous posts and newsletters, becoming proficient at a language is sometimes difficult and frustrating.  There are days where it seems as though you've forgotten everything you ever learned and it'll never happen (today), there are days where you look back in astonishment at how far you've come, but most days you just try to keep plodding forward "poco a poco".

I recently signed up to take Hapkido class twice a week.  Call me crazy (and I wouldn't disagree with you) but I did it to capitalize on a few opportunities:  structured exercise time, to practice Spanish, and to meet a few more Spaniards ("poco a poco").  Two and a half weeks in:  I'm bruised, my body is constantly sore, and I continue to be pretty slow and clumsy with the Hapkido moves I have managed to learn.  Not unexpected given that I've never done this before.  My instructor keeps telling me, "poco a poco."

Also, I'm currently reading a book that a neat friend recently sent me, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller.  I don't have the brain power to sum it up well for you today, but here's a snippet from the book cover:

Every life is a story.  Whether it is a story worth telling and talking about, though, is up to you.  People set out with grand dreams of changing the world, falling in love, doing something amazing.  But the drift toward the merely acceptable happens almost without notice.  That does not have to be your story."

This book is full of good stuff, so you probably should go buy it.  Or come visit and I'll let you borrow it :).  But, a pretty consistent theme throughout the book so far is that good great stories require lots of hard work that will probably usually be painful.  Maybe even excruciating.  But God has placed us in this epic tale and if we choose to trust Him and risk everything to be part of it ("poco a poco"), we'll get to see and experience some amazing stuff.

The day I remember most while crossing the country [the U.S.A, on a bicycle] was the day we rode through Joshua Tree.  I got away from the group by perhaps thirty miles, and as the temperature broke a hundred degrees, I was forced to look for shade...  I just needed a break from the sun.  I knew I had fifty more miles to go, and the miles would be, perhaps, the most miserable of my life.  But in that place, I remembered about story, about how every conflict, no matter how hard, comes back to bless the protagonist if he will face his fate with courage.  There is no conflict man can endure that will not produce a blessing.  And I smiled.  I'm not saying I was happy, but for some reason I smiled.  It hurts now, but I'll love this memory, I thought to myself.  And I do.

- Donald Miller, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"

Encouragement

I finished my fourth week of intensive language classes!  And to be honest, I just feel like I have tons of information floating around in my brain and little to no ability to use it accurately or effectively.

This afternoon I was wandering aimlessly around the house trying to decide what to do with the couple of hours I had before meeting with my language exchange partner.  My brain was/is fried enough that it needed a break from studying - so that was out. Fortunately, a neat friend had sent this book with some neat visitors that came to Madrid this week!  Also fortunately, Nikki was there to suggest that I go read it for a while.

My Life in France by Julia Child
with Alex Prud'homme

Briefly, one thing that's important to know is that Julia Child is one of my absolute culinary heroes.  When I end up involved in a game of "If you could talk to any famous person, living or dead, who would you choose?"  My answer: Julia Child.

Anyways, I was reading and trying to banish frustrations with language study when I came across this.

"The longer I was in Paris, the worse my French seemed to get.  I had gotten over my initial astonishment that anyone could understand what I said at all.  But I loathed my gauche accent, my impoverished phraseology, my inability to communicate in any but the most rudimentary way."

Yay!!  Exactly!!  Why is that encouraging, you may be asking yourself?  Because eventually, Julia did learn to speak French fluently and then she ended up changing the culinary world.  So, maybe I can eventually learn Spanish :).

Then I went to meet my language exchange partner, whom I haven't seen in about six weeks.  We started chatting, and she was pretty shocked.  Her words "Stacy, your Spanish speaking has improved so much!"

So, you know, apparently things are going better than I thought they were!  And that's a nice way to begin the weekend, wouldn't you say? :)

Random Experiences

Since I've mostly been in class or studying somewhere the last couple of weeks, I haven't really thought of much to blog about.  That is, unless you're interested in Spanish grammar, vocab, and verb tenses.  Anyone??  No?  Hmm...  :)

And to be completely honest with you, I'm blogging right now because I seem to have developed an aversion to studying irregular verbs.  And that's kind of what I need to be studying right now.  Ok, one blog post - then I'll focus on irregular verbs - I promise!

Anyways, after intentionally deciding that I had zero desire to carry my umbrella around this afternoon, I found myself taking shelter from a  massive downpour.

When trapped by a downpour, the recommended course of action is
to take a picture.

As I cuddled next to the building and waited for the rain to lay off, I realized that I probably had enough randomly interesting experiences for a blog post.  Neat eh?
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So on Saturday, Nikki was able to convince me to join her in walking down to the La Latina and Lavapiés neighborhoods.  After buying tortillas in Lavapiés for taco night, we discovered where all of the Indian food stands were set up for the Bollywood festival.  This resulted in a great deal of excitement, as you might imagine :).

A plaza full of Indian food stands.

Too bad I had already eaten lunch...

But, I had room for a couple snacks and some dessert :).

On Sunday, I was finishing some cleaning when Nikki came in and said that our plaza was full of motorcycles!  I found this to be quite exciting news, because I sometimes miss having a bike.

My former bike...

So Erin and I headed out to admire the bikes in the plaza.  Then I studied a bit before heading to tutoring.

Harleys parked in the plaza.

How great is this one with a horse and a buffalo painted on it?

There you go :).  And now I think I'll take on some of those irregular verbs, because I'm probably going to need them.  Later!