Things I learned in two semesters of Spanish

• Es is pronounced ACE! ACE! ACE!  I will forever hear him yelling this at the class.
• I am terrible at speaking Spanish.
• I loved learning new words.
• I don't like Spanish verbs so much.
• One verb=one option, two verbs=two options.  Do I get extra credit if I tattoo this on my forehead?
• Younglings learn at a much faster rate than their much wiser elders.
• When swearing, be sure your mouth is closed and you use your inside your head voice and don't do it when the class is stone silent and el profesor is writing answers to el señor pop quiz on the board.
• El profesor has the ears of a hawk.
• After swearing, be sure to bring in cookies.
• Cookies are the solution for EVERYTHING!
• Cookies are great for making friends, and making them happy.  Lily gave me a hug!
• It was established that everyone loves cookies.
• I would not want to teach Spanish; too much drama and heartache.
• I have new emotions to deal with now.
• I didn't think I could have so many migraines in such a short period of time...and live.
• I am a black plague of English!  And proud of it!  MORE COOKIES!
• Without humor (see above) from el profesor I would not have made it. 
• The Dude definitely abides.
• You're killin' me Smalls! (Great movie, thanks for the reference)
• You can't just add an "o" to the end of every word, Scott.  It's el tenedor NOT el forko!
• Natalie is better at learning my flash cards than I am.
• I still want to give Jill my million dolares.
• I never knew a dictionary of just verbs existed.
• Secretly, I loved going to class and learning something new.  I just wish I could have been better at it.  I liked the mingles because I could get the kids to laugh.  I think I made them feel better about making mistakes, especially when el profesor would pick (ON?) me to answer questions.  (Sometimes twice and making it dependent on el señor pop quiz if I got the answer right or wrong)  If I gave just one of them a pass in their mind that it is ok to make mistakes openly, verbally, and in front of everyone and live to tell about it - I would gladly do it all over again.
• I think in words; flow-chart style; big picture.  I made a verb flow chart because I can't adapt to small parts without knowing how they fit into the world of language.  Several of my classmates loved my verb flow chart and I'm quite honored that el profesor felt it was good enough to include on our D2L website for class.  
• I know way more about English grammar by studying Spanish than I ever knew before taking Spanish.
• I take some satisfaction in knowing that the new gray hair on my head equals the number of gray hair I gave el profesor.  Sorry about taking the years off your life though....
• There is much crying in Spanish.
• The epic battles of ser vs. estar, para vs. por, saber vs. conocer, and preterit vs. imperfect.  
• There is ALWAYS an exception.
• And finally, I hope I never have to do this for college credit again.  I would love to learn this for fun and without the pressure of college degree requirements.  I would love to go to Spain and understand and speak and be understood.  Maybe someday.

Thanks Professor Kendall for all your help, humor, movie quotes, and banter.  It made a very difficult two semesters bearable for me.  Again, sorry about the hair and years.  No one should be THAT gray at 21!

  

I failed something very important this week

I failed something very important this week. I failed my spoken final for Spanish 105, and it's 10% of my grade. Why I'm choosing to publish this as a blog is beyond me, other than the fact that I'm hoping somehow to make sense of what happened. The final consisted of two parts. A one-on-one interview with the professor, and a role play activity with another student. There is no one else in the room, just the teacher and the students taking the test. I sat down, looked at my professor, and my mind went blank. I couldn't even return his greeting which, any person off the street with absolutely no experience in the language could have greeted back. I felt like a deer in the headlights, and after three questions, he stopped the test and asked if he should go on. All I could do was stare at him, hands over my mouth, and see nothing in my head but a blinding light. No words, no thoughts, no emotions, nothing. When I didn't respond to him, he called my name and snapped me out of whatever trance I had fallen into. He said he didn't even know how to grade me, and my response, which will haunt me forever was "just fail me".  And, he did.  I didn't leave him much choice.  I regret saying this, but it was so guttural and instinctual, that I could hardly even speak the phrase clearly.    

 He asked me to compose my face so that I didn't scare the confidence out of the rest of my classmates. Wow, that was a first for me.

 So, here I sit, writing a blog about it and trying to figure out why I failed so utterly. Usually I can muster some type of response, or a verb or two, but I couldn't even think in English, let alone translate something into Spanish. I was aware of my surroundings, I saw the look on his face when he realized this was not going to go well, and I saw the look of disappointment (or disgust?) on his face when I gave up. Yet, only now, am I able to have some type of reaction to the whole thing, and luckily I'm the only one here to see the meltdown. I don't feel any better, in fact I feel worse because I can actually feel the emotions now.

I know we all fail at things in our lives, and we hope for the best when these things do happen. I had some inkling that the oral final was not going to go well early on in the semester. I found that I could hear the words volume-wise, but for the life of me, I couldn't comprehend what they were. They were nothing more than noise with no meaning to me. It doesn't help I have hearing issues, but as I've been able to understand English, albeit with several repeats sometimes, I assumed I could do the same with Spanish. Well, on the oral comprehension test, no. Repeats lower your grade. There was a good chance I would have failed this test anyway because I would have had to ask for repeats. So, I thought maybe he could spell, in Spanish of course, some of the words I couldn't understand. But, when it came down to it, I didn't understand the sentence to even be able to ask what words to spell. I'm not sure what grade I got on the role play, but with the interview at 40% of the overall grade I would have had to score a perfect grade to even get a D. And there is no way I scored a perfect grade. I can still do math, and that adds up to a big, fat F.

 So, now what? I have the written composition and the written final left. In my heart, I believe I will pass this course, hopefully, but I need to ace both. The composition was handed in earlier in the week, but I worked really hard on it, took all the feedback into consideration and changed a lot of what I had written, and I hope that it will at the very least, cancel the oral final out. They are both worth 10% of my grade.

 I really am not coming up with any answers for what happened other than panic and anxiety. And, I'm really tired of those two excuses. I want the old me back, where I could take a test without this drama and nonsense. If this is what my future is going to bring, yeah, it's a bright light alright. One that obliterates my memory only long enough for me to fail and then leave me with the scorching memory of that instead of the answers. I now question if that's what I really want out of school.