Long Time no Blog

Long time…no blog. Sorry about that folks.

Things have been a little bit rough lately. And I’m referring only to Spanish here. Everything else is fabulous…I have great friends, a wonderful family, and I’m passing my Calculus class. But lately I’ve been in sort of a rut when it comes to the language.

It’s really frustrating to go so long without actually expressing my true personality. I’m sure that my family and friends are getting glimpses of the real Lindsay, but it’s so hard to move from using the language in a purely functional way (“Hola, me llamo Lindsay…” etc.) to expressing emotion, humor, and SARCASM…wow I miss sarcasm.

I also feel painfully unoriginal in Spanish. I have to run to wordreference.com to translate what I want to say. I have to wait until other people use certain phrases until I feel secure using them myself. It’s like everything that I say has already been said. In English I obviously feel comfortable enough to play around with the language until it fits my mood. I can use different accents and different voices without confusing everyone.

Thanks to my Psychology minor, I’ve analyzed the way I’m feeling from all different angles. I think that what gets me down is the fact that I’m dependent on the patience of pretty much everybody around me. It’s tough feeling helpless and being unable to repay the favor. I know that it doesn’t bother my Chilean friends to explain everything to the Gringa but no matter how much I tell myself that, I still feel a little annoying.

Now I know that this seems very negative but I’m hoping that by the end of my time here it will serve as a contrast to a blog posted by very-fluent-and-confident-Lindsay. The truth is that I understand the Spanish here way better than I did at the beginning. I’m finding myself catching bits and pieces of conversations on the bus and when I’m walking through the crowds of people downtown—conversations that would have just been white noise when I arrived in February.