Classes and Inspiration
So I've decided how my classes are helping me grow as a person and someday, a writer.
My linguistics classes are just fun. So that's a given that I'm gonna study that. If you can have fun learning something, then you're doing alright in life. My abnormal psychology class is a godsend, because it is giving me a lot of insight into the struggles and motivations of the people closest to me, like my sisters and my wife. And even my own mother. (Yes my family is all crazy, but we have learned to accept it. We're not dysfunctional like the other families that hide their neuroses behind excuses.) But perhaps the class I've had the most doubt about has been my Spanish class.
I took my intro classes in Warsaw. I started taking them there as a cost cutting measure, and because driving to Ft. Wayne four days a week and working full time just wasn't in the cards. My teacher was very kind and helpful, but the truth was the class seemed, in retrospect, to have been designed with the "I need a foriegn language credit for my degree" student in mind. I didn't get a lot of practice speaking extemporaneously, or with listening to things outside of the lessons. I was not challenged as much as I should have been, and now I find myself in a class that is entirely in Spanish. Half of the students are native speakers, and the other half are much more prepared that I. I am not a person who is used to being at the bottom of the class by default. Most of the time I can skate through the middle, though I usually end up working really hard at failing.
So for the past few weeks, I have been attending a class that I understand only about forty to seventy percent of what is said by the professor, and almost none of what is said by the other students. This is very frustrating. But today, I overheard one of the native speakers saying to another girl, in English, that although she is fluent, she feels sorry for those of us who aren't already. So, yes, this class is hard. But I also heard that I should expect to learn more from this experience than anyone else. I have more room to fill with knowledge than everyone else. So I decided to speak with the teacher after class. Then I spent the whole hour frustrated again, working with a group on an argumentative essay, and I had nothing to contribute. They were kind and helpful to me when i had to speak, though. But I still found myself wanting to find an excuse to bolt out of class. (I'm sorry, professora, I'm having a seizure and I think I just contracted typhoid fever. I have to go.) So when class was over, I had planned on skating out. But then the professor struck up a conversation with me about poetry and literature. She had printed a poem by Mario Benneti that she thought I would like. (She also is a huge fan of the book Grendel, which, for the uninitiated, the author shares my first and last name.) So there must be hope for me.
And this class will help me be a better writer. The background on one of the characters in my novel is that at an early point in his life he was dropped in a situation where he didn't speak the language and he had trouble coping with it. If this class experience doesn't help me portray that scenario with authority, then maybe becoming a writer should stay a pipe dream.
My linguistics classes are just fun. So that's a given that I'm gonna study that. If you can have fun learning something, then you're doing alright in life. My abnormal psychology class is a godsend, because it is giving me a lot of insight into the struggles and motivations of the people closest to me, like my sisters and my wife. And even my own mother. (Yes my family is all crazy, but we have learned to accept it. We're not dysfunctional like the other families that hide their neuroses behind excuses.) But perhaps the class I've had the most doubt about has been my Spanish class.
I took my intro classes in Warsaw. I started taking them there as a cost cutting measure, and because driving to Ft. Wayne four days a week and working full time just wasn't in the cards. My teacher was very kind and helpful, but the truth was the class seemed, in retrospect, to have been designed with the "I need a foriegn language credit for my degree" student in mind. I didn't get a lot of practice speaking extemporaneously, or with listening to things outside of the lessons. I was not challenged as much as I should have been, and now I find myself in a class that is entirely in Spanish. Half of the students are native speakers, and the other half are much more prepared that I. I am not a person who is used to being at the bottom of the class by default. Most of the time I can skate through the middle, though I usually end up working really hard at failing.
So for the past few weeks, I have been attending a class that I understand only about forty to seventy percent of what is said by the professor, and almost none of what is said by the other students. This is very frustrating. But today, I overheard one of the native speakers saying to another girl, in English, that although she is fluent, she feels sorry for those of us who aren't already. So, yes, this class is hard. But I also heard that I should expect to learn more from this experience than anyone else. I have more room to fill with knowledge than everyone else. So I decided to speak with the teacher after class. Then I spent the whole hour frustrated again, working with a group on an argumentative essay, and I had nothing to contribute. They were kind and helpful to me when i had to speak, though. But I still found myself wanting to find an excuse to bolt out of class. (I'm sorry, professora, I'm having a seizure and I think I just contracted typhoid fever. I have to go.) So when class was over, I had planned on skating out. But then the professor struck up a conversation with me about poetry and literature. She had printed a poem by Mario Benneti that she thought I would like. (She also is a huge fan of the book Grendel, which, for the uninitiated, the author shares my first and last name.) So there must be hope for me.
And this class will help me be a better writer. The background on one of the characters in my novel is that at an early point in his life he was dropped in a situation where he didn't speak the language and he had trouble coping with it. If this class experience doesn't help me portray that scenario with authority, then maybe becoming a writer should stay a pipe dream.