I was asked by my Spanish Professor tonight to reflect for ten minutes on a writing I had turned in. So, I decided to write a blog because, quite frankly, I just can't think about it anymore. Sometimes writing about it helps. This assignment, escritura #3, was originally an in-class assignment. That gets graded and then we have to re-write it with our corrections. Now, this isn't pages of stuff, it was two gut-wrenching paragraphs that took me 20 minutes to write. The revision took longer to do and I did WORSE than the first time around. And stupid mistakes that I really should have known better at this point in Spanish. Thus, the "I really want you to reflect for 10 minutes" speech. So, here I am, reflecting. I can't blame it on panic or migraines, I had neither when I wrote my revision. I was at home, albeit in a situation where my full attention was not on that particular homework assignment. Our kitchen faucet for the second time in as many weeks was doing its best Mt. Vesuvius impression and I was enlisted to help my husband fix it. Those home projects that are supposed to take an hour to fix, but end up taking weeks. I'm not even going into that whole issue. But, really that's not the reason. I should have been able to re-write my assignment in a semi-intelligent manner.
I really have no excuse why I did so poorly in my re-write. So, if no excuses, then why? I wasn't necessarily angry, or sad, or otherwise irritated I had to do it. I can't even really remember doing it, to tell the truth. Is it because it was such a small assignment that I didn't really feel the need to pay attention to it? But the things I got wrong on it are building blocks to the language. Is that what I'm supposed to be learning here? That I really need to pay attention to details in order to get a true understanding of the language? And how do I do that when memory recall is failing me? My Professor pointed out to me tonight that all he hears me say is, "I can't....." and tagged me with "Negative Nicki". I am not sure how I feel about that because, and he would have never known this, I've been labeled and branded as being "negative" for a good percentage of my adolescence and young adulthood. The "negative" label brought me nothing but heartache for several things I won't go into here, and is something I've tried for years to play down. But, maybe, when it comes to Spanish, I am. I do say "I can't" a lot, but it's not without reason. Nonetheless, it really hurt me a bit when he said it. I had thought that after all these years I would not have to deal with someone who still thinks I'm a negative person.
But, that still doesn't answer why I did so poorly on my re-write.
So, it's been more than ten minutes and I still don't have an answer. I feel like I have more questions than answers when it comes to Spanish, and I just don't think it should be this complicated or drama-filled. I have ten weeks left to this semester, and I really hope that I can pull it together and figure out what my problem is. So, like I remember learning in Eng 102 (Hi Azor!) I will take my crappy first (and second) draft and make it better. I will keep trying until I do get it right because, after all, I might be a "negative Nicki", but I'm not a quitter.
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