Mi vida es nada pero palabras...
"My life is nothing but words..."
I don´t work with computers or numbers. I don´t make anything. I don´t fix anything unless it is broken and necessary to my life. I don´t write or play music. I don´t sell anything. I don´t test anything. I don´t invent. I don´t measure anything.
I talk... I listen... I read... and I write. I teach, I guide, I tell, I inform, I help, I sit quietly. My life is nothing but words.
When those are taken away, when I only know half of the things being said to me, when I only understand a third of the things being said around me, when I can only say an eighth of what I want to, I don´t know what to do with myself. I don´t feel complete.
Last night, my host mom wanted money from me for the purified water that I´ve been drinking. When I tried to tell her that I didn´t remember that I was supposed to be paying, when I tried to tell her that I didn´t know the other student had been paying her, nothing came out! Well, obviously enough came out to set her short-fused temper off. I can´t stand people who talk as though what they want is the most important thing to everyone in the room and who yell as soon as they do not get what they want. Welcome to my host mom...
She is usually a very nice woman, she just has a stereotypical (yes, I hate stereotypes, but...) Latina temper: quick to get pissed, quick to let you know when she´s pissed, quick to cool. It just so happens that her first little temper-tantrum directed at me happened in the week where I feel my most frustrated with my vocabulary.
I´m frustrated that I can understand so much, then learn that I can´t understand most of the people I run into on the street and that I am not understanding correctly what I hear in class and my home. I am frustrated that I have these random words floating in my head and that they are not attached to any sentences. I am frustrated that every time I think I have figured out how to use a certain verb, it turns out that it is actually reflexive and that there is a completely different word for what I just "figured out"!
I guess what frustrates me most is that I have no clue where to begin when it comes to memorizing/studying. Yesterday, I studied reflexive verbs because I felt like I was really lacking in those. I didn´t get good at them, but at least I read them and know they are there. However, today when I confronted my host mom about last night, I needed feeling words and had none. This weekend, I want to go to Leon and need traveling words.
I just don´t know where to find the time to study or the space in my brain to put these new words.
But, hey, at least my stomach is better!!! And, I love the fact that my teacher can make me laugh an hour after I was bawling my eyes out!!!
I don´t work with computers or numbers. I don´t make anything. I don´t fix anything unless it is broken and necessary to my life. I don´t write or play music. I don´t sell anything. I don´t test anything. I don´t invent. I don´t measure anything.
I talk... I listen... I read... and I write. I teach, I guide, I tell, I inform, I help, I sit quietly. My life is nothing but words.
When those are taken away, when I only know half of the things being said to me, when I only understand a third of the things being said around me, when I can only say an eighth of what I want to, I don´t know what to do with myself. I don´t feel complete.
Last night, my host mom wanted money from me for the purified water that I´ve been drinking. When I tried to tell her that I didn´t remember that I was supposed to be paying, when I tried to tell her that I didn´t know the other student had been paying her, nothing came out! Well, obviously enough came out to set her short-fused temper off. I can´t stand people who talk as though what they want is the most important thing to everyone in the room and who yell as soon as they do not get what they want. Welcome to my host mom...
She is usually a very nice woman, she just has a stereotypical (yes, I hate stereotypes, but...) Latina temper: quick to get pissed, quick to let you know when she´s pissed, quick to cool. It just so happens that her first little temper-tantrum directed at me happened in the week where I feel my most frustrated with my vocabulary.
I´m frustrated that I can understand so much, then learn that I can´t understand most of the people I run into on the street and that I am not understanding correctly what I hear in class and my home. I am frustrated that I have these random words floating in my head and that they are not attached to any sentences. I am frustrated that every time I think I have figured out how to use a certain verb, it turns out that it is actually reflexive and that there is a completely different word for what I just "figured out"!
I guess what frustrates me most is that I have no clue where to begin when it comes to memorizing/studying. Yesterday, I studied reflexive verbs because I felt like I was really lacking in those. I didn´t get good at them, but at least I read them and know they are there. However, today when I confronted my host mom about last night, I needed feeling words and had none. This weekend, I want to go to Leon and need traveling words.
I just don´t know where to find the time to study or the space in my brain to put these new words.
But, hey, at least my stomach is better!!! And, I love the fact that my teacher can make me laugh an hour after I was bawling my eyes out!!!