Ava Sweat

Would be my name if I were a hip hop artist.  I'm just starting to realize how physically uncomfortable social situations make me.  I sweat.  A lot.  I went to deposit a check at the bank today and I was completely amped because one of the employees showed me how to deposit via their ATM's.  Armpits, groin, upper lip, check, check, check.  I wasn't passing bad checks, I'm not in default, there was no reason at all to be anxious.  To him, I probably appeared gregarious and at ease, delighted to finally have a branch nearby.   I was delighted with being able to deposit the checks but I also wanted to get the heck out of there and end the conversation.  I forgot to get money while I was there and was unwilling to go back because that would mean more social engagement and more sweating.  Parties are just a soaking pitt fest of short conversations and early departures.

I was sitting outside in the warm sun with Baloo on this beautiful fall day sweat free and feeling I could really do alright in a world with just the two of us and my friends.  Even then, some of my favorite memories don't have people in them at all; walking Baloo in the forest one sunny Christmas day, taking pictures of iced berry branches during a bitterly cold night, every single day it is warm enough to nap directly in the sun and having a spot to do so away from the hustle, watching Baloo watch and sniff the world.   I have been known to watch her sniff for 10 minutes at a time.  It's a very zen thing, watching her nose move back and forth, pinch to hold a smell for evaluation, begin anew, the occasional head raise when she catches something interesting.  I'm sure my blood pressure is in near coma stage while I watch her.  When it comes to down time, it doesn't take much to make me pretty happy and content (clearly).  It's nice to go somewhere new and see new things but if we could do anything at all, I'd rather be outside chatting and napping in the sun and if it's too hot or cold, inside watching people or watching a fire.  No sweat.

I had it pictured differently in my head

I had it all pictured differently.  This language study, my love life, my dog.  In my head Baloo was a beagle named Doozer.  I even had an engraved tag with that name on it.  My would-be husband and I would be well over a decade into an amazing partnership; we would be perfect for one another but flawed enough that I didn't worry we were so perfect it couldn't be true.  The first week, it seemed language would be challenging but fun.  Now in addition to navigating my studies, I'm navigating the volatile and emotionally immature waters of my non-teaching instructor and falling asleep at 8.  I will figure out a way back to you blogger.

Sucky Suckerson

I'm getting a lot of stuff done while in language for sure.  It's like being a full time student with half a day of study hall.  Problem is, I was never really good about studying in study hall or at all.  That's what class is for.  I study what I need reinforced from class.  In this class, that doesn't work.  We had the talk, it didn't change anything, and this week that's a problem.  We're moving on the second way to conjugate verbs in the future (of course there are several ways, why wouldn't there be) and she makes a point of drilling that the first and third person singular are conjugated the same as the present indicative blah, blah, and I told her that is no help to me when I can not conjugate the present.  Basically, she is telling me this is the same as the other thing I don't know.   Not helpful.  She told me I needed to go back to the present and learn the conjugations.  Yea, that was kind of my point in the 'I'm freaking out because we are moving on before mastery' discussion we had last week.  Not news to me that I have a lot of shit to memorize and kind of pissed with your vacillation on recognizing a) I speak ENGLISH and only ENGLISH;  b) I've been studying your language for 4 WEEKS; and c)  I speak ENGLISH.

This is a week where the bottom falls out (again) and even though I know it's going to be that kind of week, it doesn't make my attitude any less shitty.  Just once I think, I would like to be that person making yummy noises while eating a shit sandwich, going on about the journey, the growth, the privilege etc...lying to myself and others as a mind over matter exercise.  I guess the reason I'm not, aside from genetics, is those are the people in my experience that truly come unglued when they are ready or are forced to acknowledge that shit is nasty and they are not happy eating it.  It's a fine line I guess between being a 'Sucky Suckerson' as my language teacher calls me when I'm being contrarian and the bad kind of shit eating grin person.  Still, I wonder where the time goes everyday and struggle to prioritize my study when we are moving so fast that we're already building on beginning skills and concepts that I haven't even begun to recognize much less master.  It frustrates me, it angers me, it makes me want to become a language teacher so I can teach language the way I would want to learn it.

I've decided the reason I'm doing this is not for God and country (when is it ever really only about that), it's not for the money I save living overseas, it's not for career-I could stay here and do better.  It's because I'm curious.  How I got to this point has all the makings of a great story where the ending holds the great love I sometimes hope for or the life changing career moment--like meeting Tina Fey and starting a career in writing--or something equally awesom.  It's for the stories--I can't imagine I'll get out of eastern Europe without good stories, it's for the oddity of speaking a completely useless language and the trivia it will be good for.  It's for the bragging rights.  It's for the experiences that enrich my empathy for the experiences of others and inspire me to want to be better because of the hardship I don't want others to endure.  The schedule isn't bad either.

It's not that I can't, I just don't want to

These next two days will be it I think.  As Gob on Arrested Development would say, 'I've made a huge mistake.'  I'm totally unglued.  I slept most of today and now I'm right back here at 10 o'clock still not done with yesterday's homework and head thick with anxiety and escapist fatigue.  I was not getting my life errands done on the afternoon schedule but the morning class thing does not work for me.  It works against my brain rhythm.  I am not good for this kind of stuff in the morning.  Morning is my thinking time, not my reading out loud in a foreign language time or conjugating words I don't even understand time.  Something has to give.  I will need to be medicated for a year, I will need to muster the courage to quit, or something fairy godmother third option has to materialize.  Before the end of the week.  I'm happy to pay for this experiment out of pocket for two weeks as a mea culpa for wasting everyone's time, beyond that, I will feel compelled to stay.  I've had that 'what have I done' feeling before.  It's practically the story of my professional life, maybe my entire life.  But it gets harder with time, not easier, to put myself through the paces of another random challenge.  I just want to be left alone.

My instructor is a trip.  I always find people who declare themselves to be good at something like dancing or singing amusing.  I don't get it.  I would rather say I'm an awful dancer or even that I just like dancing rather than provide an assessment of my talent to near strangers.  Just not sure what I'm supposed to do with that information.  She's a snappy dresser and knows her way around a stiletto.  Prototypical hyper feminine and well credentialed woman.  I think the difference between me and many women are they like attention from men; they like to be appreciated physically, like to feel/look sexy, etc. I don't.  I don't want to be attractive to or noticed by men in general; I want to be noticed by one man.  But one can not have it both ways so here I sit, alone rocking the soccer shorts while my instructor puts on her makeup in thigh highs and stilettos.

"Somethings gotta give with the way I'm livin'

Seems I'm gettin' down every day.

The more I strive, the less I'm alive

And it seems I'm getting further away."

I haven't been this heartbroken about something in some time.  Hot, unspent tears behind the eyes troubled in my mind.  Frustrated, sad, mad at myself for choosing this and fairly certain that if I chose to stay the course, it will only get worse.  I'm am exhausted from fighting myself.  Exhausted. And it's still a draw.  I can't keep seeing how I feel by the end of the week before I add my own addendum to quitters never win; quitters know when to cut their losses and go on to something they can win at.  I don't want to match wits and be verbally wrestled in a foreign language.  I don't want to want to choke out an instructor who amubshed me in the coffee room.  I don't want to talk about myself more in a foreign language than I do in English.  I don't want to make up plans for my weekend because it is unacceptable to say I don't have any.  Again, I just want to left alone.

----
I started this post two weeks ago.  The third option has not materialized but I have had 'the talk' with my instructor which served only to go on record as being an unhappy camper as she didn't plan on adjusting how she teaches to suit my learning style.  In her words, 'I'm sorry boo, but that's just the way it is.'  I'm not sure if she calls me 'boo' because I'm black or just calls everyone that.  So there is still suffering but it is no longer in silence.  Brave faces are overrated and there is just too much to absorb to bother with one during this process.  Seems most if not all of us are dealing with the same emotional roller coaster as well. Nothing in academic language study prepares you for the hell of one on one language.  It doesn't even matter what language, the bottom falls out of your world every 2-3 weeks.  I came in today to see my colleague (and future boss) had illustrated this process by drawing stairs with long plateaus.  The plateaus had giant gaps which we all fall through and seemingly start from scratch.  So this is language and this is my life for the near future.  I knock on wood but I think I've come in from the window ledge and committed to seeing this ridiculous through.  God help me.  Seriously, God, sincerely looking for an assist here.  Would love that beautiful, smart, funny man if that can be managed as well.  You know who I'm thinking of.

Nevermind

I know what I said a couple of posts back about not questioning the journey once the challenge has been accepted but sometimes I'm wrong.  I'm over it.  The only thing I like about my life right now is the ability to get stuff done during the day because I'm not at work.  Everything else is a lonely frustrating verb conjugating, gender/article/number agreement hell.  I'm full circle back to America, fuck yea, speak English.  When you become the center of commerce and science, we'll speak your language.  Until then, I've got a smart phone with internet and Google translate.  You'll probably speak English; I'll get by with Google when you don't.

So this post won't be about growth and accepting professional dares because they sound cool or you're bored.  It will be about the courage of quitting.  Of letting yourself down and letting others down and realizing nobody dies when that happens.

Street Fair

'If I see you again, I'm going to attack and harass you.'  Might be the best thing anyone has said to me since I moved here.  I was a little worried when I left Philly I was leaving all the kooky fun and random encounters with strange people behind.  Not so.  That gem of a line above came courtesy of a visiting construction worker from New York who insisted even though he said 'attack' and 'harass' instead of 'say hello' or 'ask you out', he meant me no harm and my ninja would not be necessary.  Per Ronnel, that's how they say it in New York and it does not mean I should get some pepper spray in anticipation of our next encounter.  Phew!  Glad he cleared that up for me.  How awkward would that have been?  He'd be trying to rock his attack and harass mac and I would be bear-macing him and screaming.  I know I was sending somewhat mixed signals because I was smiling so broadly during his awful alarming pickup attempt but I just couldn't help it.  It was that awfully good.  Even better, this was after I told him I had a boyfriend.   Thanks Ronnel.  You were even better than the white lady with a little white dog who commented when Baloo barked, 'Well you know, big black dog, little white dog...' and trailed off like I knew something about the race wars between (colorblind) white and black dogs.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child

And shortly after I turned 36, I returned to speaking like a child.  I never thought learning a language would be so emotional.  I never thought I would get frustrated like a child just starting to talk. Every child has to cross that bridge between gesturing, sounds that mean words they would say if they could, and actual words.  There are tears on that bridge, meltdowns when a parent guesses wrong and the kid screams bloody murder because they are frustrated that they can't get their point across.  That's how I feel right now.  I can't be me in this language.  I can't say what I would say, I can only say what I know how to say and naturally after just one week, my repertoire consists of robot phrases; good morning, good night, thank you, the weather is ____, the date is _____.  Almost every piece of electronics I own can say or write these things. In at least 2 languages.

I'm feeling constrained both by my lack of vocabulary and ability to communicate but also by my imagination.  I can not conceive a day when I can even count in this language.  Wish I had the 3 years to learn that I had when learning how to count as a kid.  This process is like being introduced to numbers on Tuesday, doing a couple of multiplication tables on Wednesday, long division on Thursday, and Calculus on Friday.  Every night I want to sit down and figure out numbers to some level of mastery but I also feel a pressure to keep up with the Calculus because we are for sure moving on to theoretical physics.  I'm having mini-freakout meltdowns on the regular and it's only been a week.  So that's what this will be.  An emotional and educational journey.  Tantrums are to be expected.  After all, this process is taking away my words.