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Day 29 - 1 August 2005 Lingua di Terra so i dunno if this is just a week 4 rut i’ve fallen into, but i feel like i’m fallin behind in language class...in a class where the language e txeu fácil and the experience outside of home definitely very supplemental to the learning in class. so why do I feel like I have no idea what my teacher is sayin? why can’t I understand the story we’re translating? I knew this would be tough and maybe it’s just been easy up until now. I dunno. I seemed to understand it last week and maybe I was just comfortable not understanding anybody in my host family except mom half the time, and maybe now I’m just starting to get frustrated with not bein able to communicate with them on the level I want to. who can say? all I know is that it’s not enough, my language competency is in my mind much lower than I need it to be. what is everybody else feelin? seems that we all sorta feel this way, but it’s not like I compare myself to others. I’m only tryin to keep up with the natives around me who are starting to expect me to understand them. and for the most part, with a repetition or two of the same sentence, I can. now I just need to be able to respond. when will that come? months I’m sure. I just have a li’l more to say than what I can say in the language of the land (lingua di terra). if I had lots to say and wanted to discuss abstract topics on complicated levels of opinion, insight or speculation, then I wouldn’t be beatin myself up, cuz that’s just hard in general. but when I just wanna be able to explain how I like to eat a certain dish my mom made again sometime soon or ask my bros what they like to do during their summer break and how I want to do things with them around town and elsewhere on this island, and just not havin the vocab or quick brain-to-vocalization path, it just gets frustrating. so much that I just dun wanna even try to talk. I just go to my room and say I have homework. and no, I don’t wanna watch novellas and yes I do wanna chat durin dinner, but somehow it just doesn’t happen. I almost wonder if my host siblings feel the same way- do they just not even wanna try cuz they think I won’t understand them or vice versa? are they just waitin for me to talk? the older of the two boys doesn’t even vocalize. he uses his right hand to answer anythin I ask him and we can actually have entire convos about food, what he’s doin on the weekend and what he likes to do during his summer vaca without him ever having to make a peep. the few times he ever actually says anythin, I don’t even recognize his voice. how sad. so dun get the wrong idea that I’m givin up or that I’m mad at anybody (including myself), I guess I’m just venting. I just had to write about it and get it out there. maybe it’s just the 4th week blues? maybe next week will be better...who can say? <--- Praia & Praia Baixo                back home --->