Gosh, my heart just LEAPED right out of my chest! Literally, when I looked at my calendar and counted out only 48 days, my natural reaction was.."whoooooooooa". This is unreal.
FIRST FINGS FIRST! This past week, in my Fonética y Pronunciación class, a class in which:
-I BERELY know the words in English, northeless in Spanish
-more than half the class are native Spanish speakers
-I have been publically laughed at by one of my classmates before for using incorrect grammar
...I had the following conversation with my professor: (mind you, all of this is in spanish originally. However, I have translated for my eager little english friends!)
Professor Vigil: "Anyone notice anything strange about the way your native speaker spoke?"
(pause, the assignment was to record a native speaker reading a paragraph and then phonetically transcribe their speech. unpause)
Me, as I raise my hand cautiously: "May I answer in English"
Vigil: "English? Haha, English?"
Me: "Ok, well, I'm really bad at this but..."
As I continued, Vigil did something that changed my life. My ENTIRE LIFE. He he wrote "MALA" on the board and, when I was finished, said this in English:
-"Brittney, what is this word?"
-"Bad"
-"Bad. Now when you say that your Spanish is bad...if you say it enough, you start to identify yourself as that word. For instance, if we all said that your spanish was BAD, sooner or later, we would start to think of YOU as bad. 'Oh she's not good. Her Spanish is wrong. She's not worth the time'. Now class, is Brittney a BAD person? No. Instead, her Spanish is just 'off target'. And that's ok. Many native speakers speak in 'off target' Spanish. So don't ever think that your Spanish is BAD, okay?"
CHANGED. MY. LIFE.
Like seriously, those words are scribbled on every inch of my Spanish-speaking heart. Thank you thank you thank you, Jesus, for that sweet ENCOURAGING word.SECOND! For those of you that don't know me, I LOVE CRAFTING. So for the last couple of weeks my life has been a tizzy of sewing and hot gluing, organizing felt and beads, and single-handedly keeping the employees of Joann's, Michael's, and Hobby Lobby on their precious little crafting feet. Last night when my sweet friend, Meagan, asked me what I was doing, my response was, "opening back up my Mexican Little Sweatshop in my room". It has been a mess and a whirlwind of excitement! Well now that most of that is over, at least as far as joyously gifting my UNT friends, I am coming to realize that this whole Spain thing...its like...fa real. Who knew they actually expected me to go?!
I went to a UNT's Global Learning Experience (GLE) pre-departure orientation yesterday. (gosh, was that YESTERDAY?!) We sat for almost 2 hours talking about what do to, what not to do, who to talk you, and who not to talk you. My favorite part, though, was when I got to chat in a small group with a study abroad alumni. He went to France for a whole year. Seeing as how I was the only one in my group going to Spain, I figured France would just have to do. We talked all about host homes, getting antiquated with the language, culture, and how exciting it all would be. Even now my heart is beating deeply at the thought. I am in love.
It doesn't seem real. My family doesn't do things like this. IIII don't do things like this. No, I take that back. Because God loves me, I do things like this. I get the opportunity to learn more about him by knowing his nations. I have been on more adventures than I ever dreamed possible. Growing up in little apartments around Arlington with a single parent mother that never went to college, experiences like this were the candy of my dreams. As children we are told to "DREAM BIG" and "YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE". But, as we all know, that's not always reality. Circumstances arise, road blocks seem to large to climb over, and before we know it, those dreams fade. But how good my God has been good to me! My God gave me the gift of a wonderful college. And he gave me the strength to climb over those road blocks. In the light of my God, nothing seems too big. So I continue to press on. I continue to pray that my dreams would align with his glory and commit that if He opens the door I will follow hard after Him.
I wonder what it's going to be like in Spain. I'm sure I have the exact same image all of you do in my head. My visual expectations are merely a compiled assortment of every stinkin RomCom I've ever seen, some pictures on the internet, and a few MK&A movies thrown in to fill in the gaps. I bet it will be different than I ever imagined. Gosh, what. a. DREAM! When I lie awake at night, THIS is what I think of.
THIRD! These are two of my favorite songs right now. Both are by Kari Jobe from her Le Canto album. Now, typically, her sweet, sweet, very high voice is too angelic for me to try and sing along with, but it perfectly matches the words of my heart when she sings in these next two songs.
When I think of how beautiful and exciting Spain will be, I think of singing this song. How beautiful is He that has led me to this path. I want to apologize in advance for the cheesey pictures, I just wanted you to be able to see the words cause they are BEAUTIFUL!:
When I get anxious or nervous about leaving, or worried if everything will turn out okay... I think of singing this song. Wait on the Lord, my soul, wait:
Está aquí para el dolido y es vida para el que no puede más
Él es paz para el herido, y esperanza al que perdido está
Él está aquí, Él esta aquí
Espera mi alma espera, espera en Dios espera
Pacientemente a su voz, espera mi alma espera
Si las olas me acechan y de Ti el viento me quiere separar
Me pararé en la montaña y protegida por tus brazos cantaré, cantaré
Espera mi alma espera, espera en Dios espera
Pacientemente a su voz, espera mi alma espera
Sabrás que Él es Dios si le esperas aquí
Sabrás que El es Dios si le esperas aquí
Espera mi alma espera, espera en dios espera
Pacientemente a su voz, espera mi alma espera
Pacientemente a su voz, espera mi alma espera
EXCITED!,
Brittney
No comments:
Post a Comment