Dear Reader,
Have you ever experienced the disillusion that comes with returning from a trip? I'm two days back from Guatemala and I've pretty much just settled back into how my life was before I left. My mom is still yelling at me to clean my room (and I probably should cause it is pretty dirty). I'm still perpetually late to everything (today was the college t-shirt picture day and I missed it so basically according to Lovett archives I'm not going to college?). And most of all Mondays still suck. The only thing that actually has changed (not for the better) is that AP exams are much closer than they were 3 weeks ago, leaving me certifiably screwed, but lets talk less about my whiny teenage problems and more about the project shall we?
True to my promise I'm still studying and learning Spanish. I did four hours of work today, brushing up on the notes I took while in Guatemala learning with Jaime as well as using Duolingo and the Spanish website that I'd used before going to Guatemala. I feel like I'm pretty well versed in present tense so I decided that I would start learning how to use the past tense. In spanish there are two tenses used for the past. There is the preterite and then there is the imperfect. Today I started the preterite which is similar to Passe Compose in French. The preterite is used: to talk about a series of past actions, to talk about the beginning or end of a past occurrence and to talk about completed actions. Those are basically the same ways that I learned the Passe Compose was used so from that perspective it's not very difficult; however, memorizing all of the verb forms for the preterite is. I know I'll be working on this for at least today and tomorrow, while continuing to study and restudy what I learned in Guatemala. I kind of have this irrational fear that I'll wake up and have forgotten it all (that's low key how I feel about french as well) so I'll continue to study the vocab and make quizlets for it. I didn't get to this today, but I'm thinking about watching Spanish movies and listening to Spanish movies to also boost my learning of the Spanish language.
I met with Kit today as well and we talked a little bit about what we'll be doing for the next week. As I wrote in an earlier post, she's doing presentations to Lovett Spanish classes about our trip and it's benefits. We just talked about how she's going to formulate her presentations, because her format for these presentations will be very similar to our presentation in front of the board. We'll be making a powerpoint presentation, separating it into parts or the different aspects of Guatemala that we researched and learned about while we were there. We talked logistics and info for two hours before parting our separate ways.
Today was a good day for me. I think I made some strides with my project not only in the realm of Spanish, but also in defining for myself what this project has meant for me. Life abroad is very different from life back at home. At home I'm given a rather carefree existence (with the exception of APs and schoolwork), in Guatemala I took on lots of responsibilities and duties. I was a care-taker, a volunteer, a donator, a guest, an adult, and a woman (not a girl); I was more than I've ever had to be and I'm not sure I lost those identities when I left Guatemala either. It was good to diversify myself and be something that I'm not usually, to be a part of something bigger. Not only did my help give benefit to the shelter, but it also changed me too. I'm a better person for my experience and that's something I'll always be grateful for.
Sincerely,
Journey
No comments:
Post a Comment