Tomorrow we leave for the north. We will be traveling through the mountain deserts of Valles Calchaquíes, Andean altitudes of Salta and Jujuy, and finally Iguazú Falls. After that, we'll have a week or so in Buenos Aires to pack up our apartment, say our goodbyes, and leave again, this time for good.
We'll have more travel ahead of us. We just bought tickets to Colombia, where we will spend a couple weeks before continuing on to Mexico. We still don't have our tickets back to San Francisco—but it won't be another year. Sometime in October (2015), we will be home.
So even though we're at least a couple months away from home, our time living abroad is essentially over. What's coming up for us is a lot of motion, new environments, and different cultures. We're about to enter full-on travel mode, and as I attempted to explain earlier, there's a big difference between traveling and living.
It feels a lot of things to be at an end. It's bittersweet, it's exciting, it's reflective. I don't yet know what exactly this is the end of. I don't feel that different, but I'm not the same person; I haven't had epiphany, but I know this has been a life-defining experience. Clarity will come later, around the time that forgetfulness fades out the memories that don't pertain to the lessons we take away.
For now, I know the things that I am immediately proud of. I can name the things I hope I will take with me, think about the things I wish I did better, and guess about the things I'll miss.
My Spanish is a lot better now. I'm getting good enough that I finally realize that Spanish speakers, like speakers of all other languages, don't always speak with perfect grammar. When you're first learning a language, you tend to assume that all native speakers are expert linguists and their manner of speaking is correct like gospel. Now, when I pick up an error, I feel confident that it was in fact an error, proud that I was able to catch it, and then foolish when I think about English and all the offenses its speakers can afflict on it. Of course perfect grammar isn't practiced. But at least I can notice that now in Spanish.
I'm good enough that I can get puns, and if you know me, you know that brings me joy. I'm not good enough to make a lot of puns on my own, but I'll try, to Lauren's chagrin. We have a lot of opportunities to try here. I will miss the daily progress we can feel by learning Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country.
Fluency is a tough definition and I don't know if I could assign a word or percentage to my level of proficiency. I speak with an obvious accent. Group conversations are still insanely hard to join. For that alone, I wouldn't say I'm fluent. But am I proud of where I am? One hundred percent. And I can at least say this: I'm fluent enough to lead a class in Spanish.
I really like teaching. Before I started, I wondered what kind of teacher I would be. I still wonder that because my sample size is so small, but at least I have some indicators. I like to give tricky exam questions, especially when I'm restricted to multiple choice. I much prefer the whiteboard and just talking to PowerPoint presentations. I don't believe in uploading my notes online; I do believe that attendance is essential and if you miss a class, you should get the notes from a classmate.
All of the above are things that students despise. I'm kind of surprised I didn't get paper-airplaned out of the classroom. On the contrary, student feedback was generally positive. They especially liked the readings I assigned and the material I covered. Few complained about my exam questions. There were only four out of about a hundred who said something about my Spanish (one who wrote, "Let Derrick speak English!"). I thought there would be way more. I consider 96% "no complaint"s a victory in learning a language. It's also room for improvement.
As a teacher, I've found that I'm passionate about what I teach. I love knowing as much as I can about the topic I'm teaching. I like getting questions and I like being able to answer them. I love getting questions I don't know the answer to. I like that, when I go into the classroom and say "Buenas tardes," the class responds in unison, "Buenas." Who wouldn't like that?
I don't know what I'll be doing when I'm back in San Francisco. I'm pretty sure I won't have another opportunity to teach like I did here. But I hope that, whatever I do end up doing, it has elements of the things I loved most while teaching.
I'm proud of this blog. In fact, I'd say it's the easiest thing for me to be proud of from our time here. It's easy because it's tangible—as tangible as something that lives on the cloud can be. I'm proud because it's creation. I've never produced as much content out of solely my own volition. I've never felt like something was more mine.
I now have a better appreciation for professional content producers. That includes journalists, comedians, cartoonists, anyone who creates for a living (or part of a living). I think writing might be the most demanding form of communication because it can be so open to interpretation. I noticed this most when I was teaching: I could impart meaning using tone, timing, gestures, and real-time feedback. I could go in there with the basic idea and wing the delivery (in the most professional of ways, of course). That's not possible in writing.
This blog has been an important tool for me. For one, it's a way to keep my friends and family and whoever is interested updated on what we're up to. And in the process of writing and selecting photos, I'm forced to synthesize my thoughts and observations into cohesive stories. There couldn't be the writer without the reader. You give me support, but more importantly, you give me accountability. I spend a lot of time trying to make my writing precise because my greatest fear is misrepresenting something by writing inconsiderately. I make myself more aware when I write to an audience. Taking that perspective invariably makes me respect the topic more after writing about it. So thank you for reading.
My goal when starting this blog was to write a post every week. I averaged about half that. But I feel okay—as documentation of our experience living in Buenos Aires, I've covered food, language, money, transportation, movies, bureaucracy, summer, and the city. I've tried to describe what it was like when we first got here, after half a year, and now. I hope that in giving each aspect individual depth, I've provided a more complete portrayal of our experience. What is this blog about? It's not really travel writing. It's about getting used to being in a place. That's not going to end when we leave Argentina, and neither will my writing.
There are other things I'm proud of, but speaking, teaching, and writing are the ones I can most readily articulate. There will be more, and I'm sure some will surprise us. I recently realized that I'm actually more proud to be Chinese here than in the Bay Area. Obviously, there are way more Asians around San Francisco; here, the only time you'd see one on a typical day is when you walk into a small grocery store (which are so typically run by Chinese that people call them chinos). When I go in, they'll speak to me in Mandarin, give me free plastic bags, and say hi when they see me on the street. It's a positive aspect of being a minority that I wouldn't be able to experience at home.
I'm also proud that in all our time here, not once did we step in dog poop. That may not sound like an achievement, but you'd be impressed if you saw the sidewalks here. There are at least a couple land mines on every block. I thought hitting one was inevitable and am amazed that we have avoided them all this time. Knock on wood; we're not out of here yet.
I'm proud we did this. We decided to move here for a year and we did it. But more strongly than pride, and more importantly, I'm grateful we were able to do it. Whatever it is we take away from this experience, we will never forget that we were lucky to have the chance.
We'll have more travel ahead of us. We just bought tickets to Colombia, where we will spend a couple weeks before continuing on to Mexico. We still don't have our tickets back to San Francisco—but it won't be another year. Sometime in October (2015), we will be home.
So even though we're at least a couple months away from home, our time living abroad is essentially over. What's coming up for us is a lot of motion, new environments, and different cultures. We're about to enter full-on travel mode, and as I attempted to explain earlier, there's a big difference between traveling and living.
It feels a lot of things to be at an end. It's bittersweet, it's exciting, it's reflective. I don't yet know what exactly this is the end of. I don't feel that different, but I'm not the same person; I haven't had epiphany, but I know this has been a life-defining experience. Clarity will come later, around the time that forgetfulness fades out the memories that don't pertain to the lessons we take away.
For now, I know the things that I am immediately proud of. I can name the things I hope I will take with me, think about the things I wish I did better, and guess about the things I'll miss.
My Spanish is a lot better now. I'm getting good enough that I finally realize that Spanish speakers, like speakers of all other languages, don't always speak with perfect grammar. When you're first learning a language, you tend to assume that all native speakers are expert linguists and their manner of speaking is correct like gospel. Now, when I pick up an error, I feel confident that it was in fact an error, proud that I was able to catch it, and then foolish when I think about English and all the offenses its speakers can afflict on it. Of course perfect grammar isn't practiced. But at least I can notice that now in Spanish.
I'm good enough that I can get puns, and if you know me, you know that brings me joy. I'm not good enough to make a lot of puns on my own, but I'll try, to Lauren's chagrin. We have a lot of opportunities to try here. I will miss the daily progress we can feel by learning Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country.
Fluency is a tough definition and I don't know if I could assign a word or percentage to my level of proficiency. I speak with an obvious accent. Group conversations are still insanely hard to join. For that alone, I wouldn't say I'm fluent. But am I proud of where I am? One hundred percent. And I can at least say this: I'm fluent enough to lead a class in Spanish.
I really like teaching. Before I started, I wondered what kind of teacher I would be. I still wonder that because my sample size is so small, but at least I have some indicators. I like to give tricky exam questions, especially when I'm restricted to multiple choice. I much prefer the whiteboard and just talking to PowerPoint presentations. I don't believe in uploading my notes online; I do believe that attendance is essential and if you miss a class, you should get the notes from a classmate.
All of the above are things that students despise. I'm kind of surprised I didn't get paper-airplaned out of the classroom. On the contrary, student feedback was generally positive. They especially liked the readings I assigned and the material I covered. Few complained about my exam questions. There were only four out of about a hundred who said something about my Spanish (one who wrote, "Let Derrick speak English!"). I thought there would be way more. I consider 96% "no complaint"s a victory in learning a language. It's also room for improvement.
As a teacher, I've found that I'm passionate about what I teach. I love knowing as much as I can about the topic I'm teaching. I like getting questions and I like being able to answer them. I love getting questions I don't know the answer to. I like that, when I go into the classroom and say "Buenas tardes," the class responds in unison, "Buenas." Who wouldn't like that?
I don't know what I'll be doing when I'm back in San Francisco. I'm pretty sure I won't have another opportunity to teach like I did here. But I hope that, whatever I do end up doing, it has elements of the things I loved most while teaching.
I'm proud of this blog. In fact, I'd say it's the easiest thing for me to be proud of from our time here. It's easy because it's tangible—as tangible as something that lives on the cloud can be. I'm proud because it's creation. I've never produced as much content out of solely my own volition. I've never felt like something was more mine.
I now have a better appreciation for professional content producers. That includes journalists, comedians, cartoonists, anyone who creates for a living (or part of a living). I think writing might be the most demanding form of communication because it can be so open to interpretation. I noticed this most when I was teaching: I could impart meaning using tone, timing, gestures, and real-time feedback. I could go in there with the basic idea and wing the delivery (in the most professional of ways, of course). That's not possible in writing.
This blog has been an important tool for me. For one, it's a way to keep my friends and family and whoever is interested updated on what we're up to. And in the process of writing and selecting photos, I'm forced to synthesize my thoughts and observations into cohesive stories. There couldn't be the writer without the reader. You give me support, but more importantly, you give me accountability. I spend a lot of time trying to make my writing precise because my greatest fear is misrepresenting something by writing inconsiderately. I make myself more aware when I write to an audience. Taking that perspective invariably makes me respect the topic more after writing about it. So thank you for reading.
My goal when starting this blog was to write a post every week. I averaged about half that. But I feel okay—as documentation of our experience living in Buenos Aires, I've covered food, language, money, transportation, movies, bureaucracy, summer, and the city. I've tried to describe what it was like when we first got here, after half a year, and now. I hope that in giving each aspect individual depth, I've provided a more complete portrayal of our experience. What is this blog about? It's not really travel writing. It's about getting used to being in a place. That's not going to end when we leave Argentina, and neither will my writing.
There are other things I'm proud of, but speaking, teaching, and writing are the ones I can most readily articulate. There will be more, and I'm sure some will surprise us. I recently realized that I'm actually more proud to be Chinese here than in the Bay Area. Obviously, there are way more Asians around San Francisco; here, the only time you'd see one on a typical day is when you walk into a small grocery store (which are so typically run by Chinese that people call them chinos). When I go in, they'll speak to me in Mandarin, give me free plastic bags, and say hi when they see me on the street. It's a positive aspect of being a minority that I wouldn't be able to experience at home.
I'm also proud that in all our time here, not once did we step in dog poop. That may not sound like an achievement, but you'd be impressed if you saw the sidewalks here. There are at least a couple land mines on every block. I thought hitting one was inevitable and am amazed that we have avoided them all this time. Knock on wood; we're not out of here yet.
I'm proud we did this. We decided to move here for a year and we did it. But more strongly than pride, and more importantly, I'm grateful we were able to do it. Whatever it is we take away from this experience, we will never forget that we were lucky to have the chance.