Challenges: Abstract and Actual

There are many things I believe I'd like to do someday. Having children, rock climbing, writing a book, a safari, visiting Alaska (during a Palin off-season), skydiving... It's not quite a bucket list, I wouldn't be devastated if most of those never happened but if the opportunity presented, those are some of the things I think I would like doing. Learning a language was on that list too. Something about being in on the secret, being an insider to the code of communication somewhere outside of America has always appealed to me. Old Boss would be on the phone sometimes with his parents speaking his mother tongue and I just loved it. I loved it but it also frustrated me because I wanted in. I wished there were some way I could understand what he was saying. Now I have that opportunity and it's daunting. I was thinking this evening about the big talk before the expedition on every documentary ever made; the thirst for knowledge, exploration, good of mankind...blah, blah. Then the journey begins and there's suffering,unexpected challenges, setbacks, pain and exhaustion, worry. Then the questions. Is it worth it? Why are you doing this? What are you trying to prove? But none of that matters once the challenge is underway. The challenge has been accepted. I can still ask those kinds of questions but they are completely irrelevant now. Now it is time for choices. I can chose to forge ahead, I can chose to quit. I can chose to spend precious energy lamenting that the one language I chose to study is the only remaining romance language with three genders or I can devote time to learning them even though I not so secretly think if you're the last language standing using three genders for nouns maybe you hold on to dying trends too tightly. What I will say is that it takes a special kind of person to teach a language. Not only in skill but in patience. I could not listen to an adult learn how to read English slowly and deliberately, sucking every word and ever sentence dry of its meaning be-ca-use e-ve-r-y l-e-t-t-e-r is r-ea-d l-i-k-e t-h-i-s. Stay in school kids, stay in school. Literacy is a gift.