Hey, everyone. Thanks for coming back to A is for Almost after a rather disappointing hiatus. In trying to think of the best excuse for not updating in a long time, I came up with two competing answers: The first is that I didn't do anything grand enough to blog about (especially nothing grand enough to follow my last post), and the second is that I've been too busy to post.
Every good story needs a paradox, right?
Every good story needs a paradox, right?
Semester Abroad, Part II.
The more I think about it, my faithful blogging in February, March, and April, followed by my subsequent laziness holds a little meaning in the context of my time in Córdoba. At the beginning of the term, every day was an adventure. There was a layer of uncertainty in almost everything I did, whether it was trying a new route to school or buying something at the supermarket. Every little victory felt like a big victory and felt blogworthy.
Five months later, the rhythm of my life has changed from the frantic tribal beat of the confused foreigner abroad to the steady (yet spicy) rhythm of a girl who feels at home in the urban gem of Córdoba, Argentina. Over the second half of the semester I've forged meaningful relationships with meaningful people, tried a few new things, and found peace in the chaos of life abroad. I also spoke a little Spanish. Prepare yourself for a photo explanation of my past few months.
Five months later, the rhythm of my life has changed from the frantic tribal beat of the confused foreigner abroad to the steady (yet spicy) rhythm of a girl who feels at home in the urban gem of Córdoba, Argentina. Over the second half of the semester I've forged meaningful relationships with meaningful people, tried a few new things, and found peace in the chaos of life abroad. I also spoke a little Spanish. Prepare yourself for a photo explanation of my past few months.
My Places
This is a nice profile of my neighborhood, Alta Córdoba.
Plaza Italia, my favorite thinking spot in the city.
Various parts of Córdoba as I walk. I walk a lot.
Luz Urbana, my second home.
My actual home.
My Friends
Los Englishtalkers.
A big part of my life (and sanity) revolves around English Talk, a group that meets weekly and gives Argentines the chance to practice speaking English for free. The characters in these photos and I plan the meetings and goof off together, and they've become a second family to me.
A big part of my life (and sanity) revolves around English Talk, a group that meets weekly and gives Argentines the chance to practice speaking English for free. The characters in these photos and I plan the meetings and goof off together, and they've become a second family to me.
The PECLA girls and me.
These girls (Megan, Jenna, Cherokee, Sasha, and Evelyn, respectively) are so important to me. We were all strangers in February and over the past five months, we've grown close. One of the best parts of study abroad is the opportunity to meet new people from your new culture, but I think people sometimes undervalue the importance of domestic (for lack of a better word) friendship. Study abroad teaches you to work around language and culture barriers, but sometimes there's no better remedy for homesickness or frustration than a pack of Oreos and US girl time.
These girls (Megan, Jenna, Cherokee, Sasha, and Evelyn, respectively) are so important to me. We were all strangers in February and over the past five months, we've grown close. One of the best parts of study abroad is the opportunity to meet new people from your new culture, but I think people sometimes undervalue the importance of domestic (for lack of a better word) friendship. Study abroad teaches you to work around language and culture barriers, but sometimes there's no better remedy for homesickness or frustration than a pack of Oreos and US girl time.
My Adventures
ASADO! May 25 marks an important day in history--the date of my first asado (coincidentally, it's also a national holidy, Día del primer gobierno). Asado is an Argentine barbecue that focuses on friends and food. For more juicy details on asado, check out this article, but I think my photos serve well to illustrate what an asado is all about. (Side note: No, the photo on the right is not Photoshopped. Yes, it was the best meat I've ever eaten. No, that's not an exaggeration.)
Mina Clavero. Mina Clavero is a small town about two hours out of Córdoba in the sierras (the not-quite-mountains-that-are-still-impressive-and-beautiful), and I went for a weekend of nature and hiking. It was the first time I'd been out of Córdoba, so the silence was simultaneously startling and nice.
English Talk! Every Tuesday, I meet up with Argentines & native English speakers for English Talk, a free group that gives non-native speakers that chance to learn & practice English. We eat snacks, play games, and divide into chat groups to chill and chat. The photo on the left is my team's photo from two weeks ago when we played charades and pictionary, and the photo on the right is my chat group from this week. The majority of the friends I've made in Córdoba have come from English Talk--everyone has buena onda, as the Cordobesians say.
Athleticism at its finest. Hockey femenino (women's field hockey).
I had no classes the first week of May because Argentines really enjoy holidays (this is my conclusion after 11 national holidays in 5 months). Most of my school friends were traveling, but my empty pockets had me lounging around in Córdoba....until the women's field hockey team from Messiah College in Pennsylvania arrived! Yep.
The team came to Argentina for a week through Score International, a company that works in sports ministry (for more information, check out their website!). They ran field hockey clinics and played local teams in Córdoba and San Franciso, a province located east of the capital and right on the border of the province of Santa Fe.
All of the girls on the team were excited for the
project. It was their first time in Argentina...and they needed translators during the hockey clinics and workshops.
A friend from English Talk welcomed the team to Córdoba Monday night and introduced me to the man from Score International who was accompanying them for the week, and by Wednesday afternoon, I was on a bus to San Francisco with a student from Brazil who was also itching to translate.
My experience with field hockey up to this May has been limited (limited to the point of non-existence, you might say..), but in three days I learned A Lot. I watched the girls practice and play, I learned the terminology, and then I learned the terminology in Spanish.
That weekend was the first time I'd ever officially translated, and it was a sample of what I want to do after I graduate from Wartburg. There were frustrating moments--like finding out there's not a clean translation for dribbling. Also, I was the only native English-speaking translator; there were 2 Argentine girls and the Brazilian girl with me, and their preferred language was Spanish. Often, the players would defer to them for translations with the mental assumption of that one girl is American, so her Spanish probably isn't very good. That was probably the hardest part--proving, in a way, that I could translate.
But all of the week's frustrations didn't stack up to the amount of fun I had. Field hockey is a really interesting, really fun, really intense, and really tricky game. In three days of hockey immersion, I became decently-versed in the sport's do's and don'ts. All of the girls from Messiah were friendly and enthusiastic, and, as you can see from the photos above, more than willing to let me and the translators try our hands at hockey.
I had no classes the first week of May because Argentines really enjoy holidays (this is my conclusion after 11 national holidays in 5 months). Most of my school friends were traveling, but my empty pockets had me lounging around in Córdoba....until the women's field hockey team from Messiah College in Pennsylvania arrived! Yep.
The team came to Argentina for a week through Score International, a company that works in sports ministry (for more information, check out their website!). They ran field hockey clinics and played local teams in Córdoba and San Franciso, a province located east of the capital and right on the border of the province of Santa Fe.
All of the girls on the team were excited for the
project. It was their first time in Argentina...and they needed translators during the hockey clinics and workshops.
A friend from English Talk welcomed the team to Córdoba Monday night and introduced me to the man from Score International who was accompanying them for the week, and by Wednesday afternoon, I was on a bus to San Francisco with a student from Brazil who was also itching to translate.
My experience with field hockey up to this May has been limited (limited to the point of non-existence, you might say..), but in three days I learned A Lot. I watched the girls practice and play, I learned the terminology, and then I learned the terminology in Spanish.
That weekend was the first time I'd ever officially translated, and it was a sample of what I want to do after I graduate from Wartburg. There were frustrating moments--like finding out there's not a clean translation for dribbling. Also, I was the only native English-speaking translator; there were 2 Argentine girls and the Brazilian girl with me, and their preferred language was Spanish. Often, the players would defer to them for translations with the mental assumption of that one girl is American, so her Spanish probably isn't very good. That was probably the hardest part--proving, in a way, that I could translate.
But all of the week's frustrations didn't stack up to the amount of fun I had. Field hockey is a really interesting, really fun, really intense, and really tricky game. In three days of hockey immersion, I became decently-versed in the sport's do's and don'ts. All of the girls from Messiah were friendly and enthusiastic, and, as you can see from the photos above, more than willing to let me and the translators try our hands at hockey.
Poetry. All semester, in addition to the classes I've taken, I've also been working on an independent poetry project to satisfy a requirement for my writing major at Wartburg. The idea was that I'd study Spanish poetry and write my own poems (15 in Spanish and 5 in English was the ambitious goal that my Wartburg advisers and I settled on in the linguistic comforts of Iowa, USA) under the tutelage of an Argentine poetry professor. I arrived in Córdoba in February with The Poetry Reader's Toolkit (Marc Polonsky, in English), Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, a Bilingual Anthology (edited by Stephen Tapscott, bilingual), and a Neruda anthology with English translations (an anniversary gift from Skar). Soon after my arrival, I met Carlos, a professor from the School of Philosophy and Humanities at the university. And then....I let my independent project sit for four months, occasionally reading, occasionally writing, and frequently fretting about how I was neither reading nor writing.
With the arrival of the end of the semester, though, my skills as a poet were called upon. English Talk hosted its first ever English Talk Art Night last Thursday, and I volunteered to perform poetry (in English). The following night, my study abroad program held its despedida, or going-away party, and I was asked to recite poetry (in Spanish). My five months of tranquil composition transitioned into two days of hectic gathering, revising, and performing.
How'd it go?
Pretty well. I've been writing poems here and there, on-and-off all semester, and I didn't realize how much I'd actually written until I sat down last week and sorted through it all. I couldn't find anything respectable enough for English Night, so I composed two poems between Monday and Thursday (I wrote one of them 45 minutes before reciting it). The two poems I read at the despedida were poems I'd written in April and May; one was humorous, and the other verging on Nerudain-drama. *I'm working on another blog page for Collegiate Hypocrisy that will contain all of my Spanish poetry! Stay tuned!*
I'm very critical of the poems I write because I've never worked with poetry before and writing in a non-native language brings its own unique set of challenges. Nevertheless, I'm chipping away at my 20-poem goal, and although I'm not sure I can write 20 decent poems by August, I'll keep the words flowing.
With the arrival of the end of the semester, though, my skills as a poet were called upon. English Talk hosted its first ever English Talk Art Night last Thursday, and I volunteered to perform poetry (in English). The following night, my study abroad program held its despedida, or going-away party, and I was asked to recite poetry (in Spanish). My five months of tranquil composition transitioned into two days of hectic gathering, revising, and performing.
How'd it go?
Pretty well. I've been writing poems here and there, on-and-off all semester, and I didn't realize how much I'd actually written until I sat down last week and sorted through it all. I couldn't find anything respectable enough for English Night, so I composed two poems between Monday and Thursday (I wrote one of them 45 minutes before reciting it). The two poems I read at the despedida were poems I'd written in April and May; one was humorous, and the other verging on Nerudain-drama. *I'm working on another blog page for Collegiate Hypocrisy that will contain all of my Spanish poetry! Stay tuned!*
I'm very critical of the poems I write because I've never worked with poetry before and writing in a non-native language brings its own unique set of challenges. Nevertheless, I'm chipping away at my 20-poem goal, and although I'm not sure I can write 20 decent poems by August, I'll keep the words flowing.
Improv. Remember Gustavo, the improv actor/coordinator of the festival back in April? Well, now I take group improv classes with him through Impro Escuela Argentina. Every Monday night. In Spanish. Yes.
I think I could write another post dedicated entirely to what I've learned from improv (I probably will when nostalgia pangs cripple my kidneys mid-November), but I'll give a short summary and a few nifty connections:
- Never say no. The first rule of improv. When you say "no," the scene has nowhere to go. When you're learning a second language and you say no to immersion experiences or challenging situations, your language proficiency won't improve.
- Embrace failure. There's something valuable in every mistake you make, something salvageable. And if you mess up in a scene..so what? Who cares? Chances are, if you don't pay attention to it, the audience won't either. In your second language learning, you will make mistakes. You will make many silly, stupid, confusing, frustrating mistakes, and you'll be tempted to give up. But you know what? 95% of the time, the native speakers you're talking to are so excited that a foreigner wants to learn their language, that they'll help you out. They'll ignore your grammatical inaccuracies and help you find the word you can't remember.
- Just keep going. And if you can't think of something to say, say the first thing you can think of. And if you can't think of an action, try pantomiming a basketball dribble or guitar playing; they're pretty distinguishable. Don't let what you're doing intimidate you. Nerves will hit when you're learning a new language, and you'll doubt yourself, and you'll fear sounding stupid. Get over it.
- Building a story. The platform for a good story is the following: "Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?" If those three details are clear, the story will be clear. Get those down and pressed before slinging other details willy-nilly throughout your scene. (The rather cheesy study abroad equivalent) Don't forget who you are, where you're from, or what you're doing while you're abroad. It's important that you try new things, speak your new language, and immerse yourself. But don't forget about you--what you like to do, the foods you like to eat, the songs you like to sing. Don't change your personality to fit into the culture of your host nation.
- If you are the non-native speaker who ALWAYS waits to be last to participate in games and activities, eventually your instructor will notice this oh-so-sneaky tactic and push you to the front of the room to start the next scene. You can scrape by with the bare minimum when you're learning a language. It's possible to live six months in Argentina and speak Spanish for 3 hours of class a day and then revert to English outside of the university. It's possible and it's what many students do. Just be prepared for that push, though.
El Más Allá
I have exactly 4 weeks left in Argentina before returning to the US. Wow. It's hard to imagine that the months have passed so quickly.
I'm not going to end this post with something cursi, or a bout of nostalgia...that will come later.
I have a bucket list, I have friends, I have activities, I have a few books to read, and I have time. That's good enough for me.
Gracias por leer,
Ally.
I'm not going to end this post with something cursi, or a bout of nostalgia...that will come later.
I have a bucket list, I have friends, I have activities, I have a few books to read, and I have time. That's good enough for me.
Gracias por leer,
Ally.