Frustraciones

Oh, I hate to complain and make you think that everything is not wonderful here (for the most part it is! I have so many good things to say that I can't contain them all!) but it is the bad that is on my mind right now and I hope by writing it down I will get rid of it.

I like to plan my life, to map out a specific, set direction and follow it. I do this with majors, with class schedules, with potential careers. And of course, I did the same thing with study abroad. When I was applying over a year ago, I decided what classes I wanted to take and where I wanted to take them: 3 classes and an internship at the Fundacion (the university for students studying abroad in Toledo) and 1 class at Universidad Castilla de la Mancha (another university in Toledo that is primarily local students). But after dozens of e-mails, lots of meetings, and a good amount of staring at my schedule, I need to choose between the internship (at a local school) or the class at UCLM.

Here are the problems:

The classes that I wanted to take at UCLM are on inconvenient days. And I am scared to death to take a class in an actual Spanish university now that I am here. I want to learn, but I am afraid of a lecture-based class where I understand nothing. Everyone at the Fund speaks solely in Spanish, but they are patient with all of us and speak more slowly (it still sounds fast, but it is intelligible). At the orientation today, a man spoke "normally" and it was almost impossible to understand. I might be able to overcome this, however, if the other options for classes at UCLM were literature courses, but since they are history and culture, I don't know if they count for my Spanish major (and I need them to count, or I will be one class short of the Spanish requirements).

My travel plans, however, are centered around this course at UCLM, because it goes until June, while the Fund ends in April. I planned to finish at UCLM early June, visit Ireland for 2 weeks, and return home June 22. So dropping the class means complicated decisions about switching flights or having a month of limbo.

Still, I am leaning towards the internship, because I think I would prefer being in a classroom with kids, possibly practicing teaching along with Spanish. However, this comes with its own set of problems. Even without UCLM it is difficult to find the correct space in the schedule because most of my classes interrupt the times that the schools are open. And 3 months in Spain seems so short-- I don't want to come back with a brief "cultural experience" and no improvement with my Spanish.

After letting this roll through my head for the entire evening, I came back to the apartment on the late bus and called my family to talk about it. I must have sounded a little stressed (or maybe more than a little) because instead of  sorting out details or trying to formulate a plan with me, my dad simply offered advice in how to make the choice and assured me that it would work out either way. I basically decided to see if I could sort out the times for the internship and drop the class at UCLM, but I was still frustrated. My entire summer had been planned based on my return home in June! There were internships and programs I had not applied to because I didn't have the time! There were plans made for flights and travel! But my dad said that was not important, that I could not focus on what I might have done or even what I might do. He said, "Try to separate out the things that you can control, and make the best decision that you can make." I could only make the best decision for now, and the rest would have to follow from that.

It reminded me of the Serenity Prayer, which one of my Spanish teachers at DeLaSalle made us recite every day. I've forgotten the Spanish (and probably everything else I've learned in that class, except how to properly number questions on the left side of the margin-- this was very important), but the prayer itself has the same ideas that my dad was trying to get me to accept:
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

And so, even if I do not come away with a vast improvement in my Spanish, or a life-changing cultural immersion, I have at least already learned what I thought I already knew: that no matter how much I plan my life, there are always things that disrupt that plan, and I need to learn to accept that. And I do not know the future, so how can I tell if it won't be better? Perhaps the course of my life is more like the winding streets of Toledo than the straightly planned paths I like to construct for myself. And I will tell you later, about how wonderful these streets are (the real ones, not the mixed up ones of my head!). No more complaining, I promise! Just appreciation and curiosity about the place I am in and the unexpected directions it may take me.