Personal Post #10: Second Chances and Good Teachers

Second chances.

Third chances.

Fourth chances?

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of second/third/fourth/etc chances. I usually say, "If you're going to do something, do it right the first time." However, PSA: that's definitely not the best thing to say. It's actually ridiculous to expect that (something I still struggle with accepting). Anyway, this week showed me how important second chances really are, and this is why:

So, on Tuesday, I got my exam grade back for my Cervantes & Quijote class. It was less than good -- aka definitely failed. Luckily, as much as I always say I strongly dislike my professor, I can't say that any more because he totally let me redo part of my exam so I could improve my grade enough to pass the exam. Turns out I bombed the exam because I actually didn't have one of the documents...well, not only did I just not have it, I didn't know it existed. Good ol' misunderstandings. Let me explain. Before the exam, he asked everyone if we had Cervantes' biography, and I was like, "Yep, I definitely have it." Well, I thought he meant Cervantes' autobiography (autorretrato). That's not what he meant.

When I got the exam with questions on it with stuff I literally had never even seen before, I was like, "Welp. There goes my GPA." I have never BS'd an answer so much in my life. It's really hard to BS history, by the way. And by really hard, I mean impossible. I got half a point on that question, and that was probably only because I wrote something about him living in Sevilla at one point. Also, there were only three questions on the exam. The other two questions were, of course, on the most confusing poem I have ever read in my life, so my analysis of it wasn't the greatest, and then the other question was about a theatre piece Cervantes wrote, which I totally didn't understand. It doesn't help that the hardest stuff we had to learn was during the beginning of the semester when #1. I couldn't understand the professor because I wasn't used to the Sevillian accent and #2. I couldn't even understand what we were reading because my vocab skills were quite horrible (still aren't the best) to be reading such old writings from the 1500s in Spanish (so nothing means what you'd think it means anyway!), especially with no previous Spanish literature experience. Ugh...

After class on Tuesday, I stayed after to see if there was anyway to raise my grade, and when he saw me, the first thing he said was, "Kari, ¿qué te pasó? (Kari, what happened to you?). Yeah, my grade was that bad. After class when I was trying to explain to my professor that I didn't even know what an "arcabucero" nor did I remember even learning about that (which I now know that's the word for the type of soldier Cervantes was at one point), he was like "Did you even study?" and I was like "Yeah, but this definitely wasn't in the autorretrato...this wasn't anywhere!" I was so frustrated, and he could tell. After an awkward silence, he rummaged through a pile of papers, pulled out the actual biography pages, handed them to me, and said, "Don't you have this?" and I skimmed it and I said, "No, when did we get this?" Apparently we got it like the first day of class. I don't know why I didn't get it, but I think it might be because he didn't make enough copies those first few days of class and I probably ended up sharing with someone and never got my own copy. Or maybe I was trying out another class? Who knows. I'm just glad that conversation ended with him giving me those pages and telling me to study them for Thursday, and he would let me redo that question. Thank goodness for professors that are willing to give second chances.

Thursday came around, and after class, I went with him to his office, and he basically just had me recite as much as I could remember from the biography, and then he asked me some more specific questions. He told me it was obvious that I had studied the biography, so he gave me the minimum passing grade on the exam. He said if I could memorize as much stuff as I did in those short two days, he thinks I'll probably be able to even get an 8 or 9 on the final exam. It's so nice knowing that your professor believes in you like that. It definitely a confidence booster.

I wish more teachers/professors would make it known to their students that they believe in them. It was so encouraging to hear that from my professor. Earlier this week, someone was telling me that she had a bad experience with one of her professors recently, and I think when it's clear that your professor isn't really confident in your abilities in the classroom, you lose respect for the teacher, and it discourages you from learning the content. If your own teacher, whose job it is to teach you the information, doesn't even think your classroom performance is good enough or that you're not going to succeed, then why bother? I think some teachers forget, or just don't know(?), that teaching isn't just about literally teaching (providing information to the students); teaching is so much more than that. Teaching (and learning) is a process; you can't just throw the information at the students and expect them to learn it all on their own without any complications. It's not that easy. Each and every student is a completely different human being with different life experiences that are going to affect their learning styles, which are going to affect their classroom performance. And I know there are some teachers who think that being "hard" is the best for their students, but I have to disagree. There is definitely a happy medium. You can still be "hard" and want the best for your students by giving difficult work while making an effort to be there for them by letting them know that you believe each and every one of them can succeed by being by their side through the class to make it possible. Knowing that my teachers believe in me helps me believe in myself, and that's one of the most important keys to success.

Personal Post 5: My Spanish is improving?!

You heard that right friends, I'm starting to notice improvements in my Spanish. My accent is still súper white, though. Poco a poco, I guess. Here are some events from this past week that made me realize that my Spanish isn't somehow getting worse in Spain (illustrated with gifs from Parks & Recreation):

1. The other day, I was watching the news on TV. Usually, I always turn on the subtitles, but the remote was too far away (read: I was actually just too lazy to reach for it), so I just decided to not use subtitles. Well, low and behold, I understood everything that was being said! I remember when I first got here, the news seemed impossible to understand, but now it all seems to be pretty clearly said. Success! 

Me when I first got here and tried to watch the news (with subtitles)

Me after understanding the news without subtitles

2. I had a whole conversation with Toni, my host mom, and I understood about 80% of what she said (as opposed the usual 50%). We were discussing comparative education, the Spanish school system, and she was telling me about how "back in her day" they didn't have to learn English in school. It was really nice to have a conversation with her, because usually I just keep it to small talk and simple things since I don't really know how to speak like a normal person in Spanish.

Normal conversation success!

3. The other day in my translation class, me and this girl were trying to translate a paragraph from Spanish to English as literally as possible. We were speaking in English, and I was trying to say, "What does this word mean?" but it almost came out as, "What does this word signify?" However, I only got to, "What does this word sig--" and then I realized how weird that sounded, so I tried to restart my sentence in English the "right" way, but at the time I could not remember how to say "What does this word mean?" -- the only thing I could think of was the Spanish word "significar" which means "to mean" or "to signify." Obviously, it looks the most like the English word "signify," which is why I could only think of that word! Finally, after stuttering and restarting my sentence like twice, I finally just switched over to Spanish and said, "¿Qué significa esta palabra?" That was a good moment.

4. I successfully ranted to my host mom in Spanish. I've been having some communication problems with my internship, so one day I came home from it and sat down and started complaining to my host mom. She understood everything I said, and she offered me some advice -- and it was like a completely normal conversation! I didn't have to look up any words, I didn't have to ask her to repeat herself 9,320,483 times (okay maybe like once or twice), and I didn't stumble over a ton of words like I normally do!

How I feel on a daily basis here, except during that rant!

5. I'm catching myself thinking (and dreaming) in Spanish! My dreams aren't completely in Spanish, but the other day, I did have a dream I was trying to buy bread in Spanish. It was just that one part of my dream though, not the whole dream. And the conversation went like this (the translated version): 

Me: Is this bread free?
Cashier: No.
Me: But the sign says "free."
Cashier: No, *points at other bread* that bread is free.
Me: Oh, well can I buy this bread?
Cashier: Yeah, it's 1 euro.
Me: Thanks!

I don't know why I wanted to buy bread, but I definitely think this reflects Spanish society -- bread is everywhere here. I don't really want to buy any, though. Especially that bread from my dream; it was just measly looking toast. Why did I want that?

6. And lastly, probably one of my more significant realizations, the other day I decided to listen to my Spanish playlist on my phone while I was walking to school, and I actually understood the lyrics! I never really understood what they were saying before, but this time I was just like, "So THAT'S what they're saying!" That's when I realized, "Dang, maybe my Spanish is improving!"

Personal Post #1 -- Settling In

I'd like to start off introducing myself a little bit. My name is Kari (pronounced like the name "Carrie," but here in Spain, my name is pronounced like "car-ee.") I'm 20 years old. I go to Sweet Briar College. I am a Spanish major, and I'm in the Teacher Education Program. I plan to do the 5th year Master's in Teaching program at Sweet Briar, as well. And as of right now, I'm spending my junior year studying abroad at the University of Seville with my school's Junior Year in Spain program in Seville, Spain. 

Soo, Seville, Spain: my new home for the next 243 days. When I say the amount of time I'm staying here in days, it doesn't sound like anything at all, but actually, 243 days comes out to 8 months and 3 days, which sounds like a much longer amount of time. Nevertheless, I'm going to be here for quite a while. Part of my homework is to write personal posts here on this blog, so that's what I'll be doing here for my time spent here. 

I've been here for 11 days so far (not exactly a week, but whatever), but I feel like I have been here for much longer... and I'm a tiny bit homesick -- but it's nothing I can't handle. I mainly miss my friends the most. I'm very introverted, and there's nothing I hate more than talking to and spending time with a ton of new people, and that's all I seem to have been doing so far. I guess I'll just have to learn to deal with it though, because I'm pretty sure I'm never ever gonna escape things like that. 

So in this past week or so, I've experienced Spanish life first-hand. It's nothing like life in America, but so far, I think I prefer the Spanish lifestyle much more. I'm a laid back person, and the way of life here is perfect for me. Everything here is set to such a slower pace; it's great. But something I don't like? Communication problems.

My Spanish is far from perfect, but I still understand a lot, that is until my host mom, Toni, speaks to me. Don't get me wrong, she seems to be a wonderful person, but her accent is almost impossible for me to understand, and I feel like it makes it difficult to get to know her...or to even have a simple conversation with her. She drops letters, sounds, and she speaks extremely fast. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm stupid because there's almost never a time when she says something where I don't ask her to repeat herself (and even when she repeats herself, I don't understand a lot of the time because she uses less words but speaks just as fast...I'd rather her just slow down). I'm smart in my language, okay, Toni??? But really, I'm sure I'll begin to understand her...eventually...

Speaking of Toni, she's a wonderful cook. If I had to pick one thing I can understand from her, it's when she yells out "a comer!" (basically meaning "time to eat") from the kitchen. Food was probably number two on my list of concerning things when I came to Spain (number one being the language barrier). I'm a vegan (no meat/poultry/fish, dairy, eggs, honey, gelatin...basically, if it comes from an animal, I don't eat it), and from what I understand, it's really hard to be vegan here...but not with Toni. She has vegan cooking down pat. She even looked up how to make tortilla without eggs -- and for those of you who don't know, Spanish tortilla is basically an omelette. But let me tell you, that eggless tortilla was delicious. She used garbanzo flour and olive oil instead of eggs. I can always count on my meals to be both filling and yummy (much different than my experience working at summer camp this past summer, but that's a whole different story). 

As far as everything else like school, my living situation, and just getting accustomed to everything, those are all fine. School doesn't start until the 22nd, but my classes that I chose look like they'll be good (and 3 out of 4 that I want to take count towards my major, so that's relieving). The orientation classes are pretty cool. I really like the language class, but I'm not that big of a fan of the history class only because for some reason, I always get sooo sleepy during that class. I don't know what's up with that, but it's really annoying. If I could actually focus on the class instead of focusing on staying awake, I think I'd find it to be much more enjoyable (it seems to be like a very condensed version of my "Hispanic Themes: Spain" class I took last year, which was one of my favorites). I love my living situation. It's Toni, my roommate (who's more like a housemate because we have our own rooms), and me. I absolutely love having my own room. My "roommate" (housemate?) is super nice, so that's a giant plus. And as fas as getting accustomed to everything, I'm completely fine with everything. I've been told I am very flexible (and I suppose it's true), so getting used to this new way of life is not a big deal for me. 

Sooo...so far so good in Spain. A couple of minor issues, but as time moves on, the problems will move on, too. :) I just want to end this first post with some goals that I have for myself for this study abroad experience. I tried to keep them reasonable and within reach, so we'll see how this goes!

1. Improve my Spanish grammar and accent
2. Learn something new about myself
3. Volunteer for something I find meaningful/make a difference (aside from an internship, which I need to do for credit for the education program)
4. Travel to at least 2 new countries
5. Go hiking somewhere magnificent (in Spain)
6. Take lots of photos
7. Try my best in my classes
8. Comfortably take a curso regular next semester
9. Write a lot/document much of my trip
10. Try something I normally wouldn't ever do in the USA

¡Hasta luego!