I just finished a meeting about my visa, which ended in a discussion about language and literature-- ¡que bueno! It doesn't happen all the time, and in ordinary conversations I find myself fumbling for simple words like spoon or grapes, but every once in awhile I get so excited by something or into a conversation that the words just come out of my mouth without the process of thinking in English and translating to Spanish. Yesterday I went for a run, and I found myself thinking in Spanish. Not real, complete thoughts, but the kind of nonsense I think when running, the kind of thought that doesn't really mean anything. The kind of thought that you need to think about afterwards to realize what exactly you were thinking. It reminded me a bit of when I ran in middle school. It was around the same time I was learning to type without looking at the keys, and so I ran with my hands in loose fists and typed into my palms. I often did not know what words I was typing until I took the time to think about it. Not surprisingly, they were often words like stop, tired, or running, running, running. Subconscious thought spelled into my hands. I did not know I was thinking them until I stopped to translate the typing to words.
It was the same thing yesterday with Spanish. There were little nonsense, sing-song phrases in my head that I later translated into English to see if they made sense. And most of the time, they did (as much as anything makes sense while you are running): No se de donde estaba, no se de donde estoy. (I don't know where I was, I don't know where I am-- this while I was finding my way along a path I'd walked before, but was still slightly uncertain about the direction). Probably sentences that weren't grammatically correct or very profound, but thoughts that came first in Spanish and only later in English.
It is not usually like this. Usually my host mother has to repeat things slowly so I understand. I have to point a lot, and I keep lapsing into English with the other students here. But occasionally the Spanish just comes, and at the meeting today, Yuki (one of the coordinators at the Fund) asked about my classes, about what my favorite books were, and the words just came so much more quickly than usual.
It is small things like this that seem to define the days here. One good thing makes Spanish and studying here seem wonderful, and the next day a bit of homesickness or some doubt makes me wonder if this is useful at all. I sometimes imagine myself coming back and letting the Spanish drift away, never using it again. And I wonder what is more important-- the skill of speaking Spanish, which has a practical use in jobs and society, or the literature and ideas that I have access to through Spanish, the philosophy that opens up from trying another language and getting a glimpse at the effect language has on expression and thought. I really don't know.
On that note, the real topic that I wanted to write about are the classes here. It is hard to say exactly how they will be, because it has only been two weeks, but so far I am enjoying them all. On Mondays I have 20th Century Literature (we are starting with my favorite Spanish story, San Manuel Bueno, mártir by Miguel de Unamuno) and Recent Spanish film (which should be interesting since I've never taken a film class, much less a Spanish one). The same professor teaches both of these classes, which means some repetition between the two, but so far he seems very organized and particular. He started the lit class by talking about how literature is not a book itself, but the act of reading. He called books on the shelf of a library "potential literature" because they don't become literature until someone is reading them. An interesting thought.
On Tuesdays I only have one class, Golden Age Theater. I think this will be a little more difficult to enjoy because the language is older and more difficult to understand (imagine reading Shakespeare... but in another language), but so far the professor is amazing and we are going very slowly and reading short passages. He also likes to relate the classics to modern works. He talked today about the relation of popular theater, literature, songs, etc. to classical works, saying that we had no idea what would become classics in the future, because the works we are reading now were considered popular works at the time. And then he talked about Bob Dylan and called him a ladron, a thief, for stealing ideas from the classics. And then he said that Bob Dylan's songs will probably be considered classics in the future, that a lot of classics are about retelling past truths with a little change to make it relevant to current times. I'm not sure if I agree, but it's definitely something to think about.
On Wednesday I have Theology and Spanish Mysticism. The professor is one of the most animated people I have seen. He concludes any earth-shattering thoughts with the punctuation JO-der! (translation: fuck!) I wish I could convey how it sounds. The first syllable starts in the back of the throat in a way that I can't replicate, and he just says it with so much force. Right now we are talking about Plato, and there are many, many ideas that he finds worthy of this exclamation. He is also fond of describing an idea as "Interesante! Interesantissimo! SUPER-interesante!" When he starts with the word interesante, the class can be guaranteed that he will arrive at the conclusion of interesantissimo and super-interesante. Nothing is just interesting!
My final class is Spain Since 1936, which was cancelled for today, so I can't say much about it. I really liked the first day of class, but I've been warned that the professor is perhaps biased and one-sided in his portrayal of the Spanish Civil War. There was an interesting class discussion the first day about censorship (apparently, Spain does not have censorship laws for television like the U.S. does) and he came pretty firmly in favor of no censorship, dismissing the ideas of another student who argued in favor of the U.S. censorship laws. I didn't mind much, though, because it was interesting to hear the debate. But he did give us a brief lecture about opening our minds and seeing more than one side to history and issues, which I suppose he failed to do in that discussion... so we'll see!
In conclusion: good classes, much to think about, and a mixture of languages in my head!
No comments:
Post a Comment