I´ve decided that with this semester´s schedule, Mondays are way too fast. Not that it goes by too fast (I don´t think that could happen on a Monday), but that my professors speak too fast. And think too fast. And list information too fast. And come to conclusions too fast. Disclaimer: Those are probably very subjective statements from a very secondary thinker listening to a second language. But anyway, Monday is fast.
There was this thought that kept coming through my mind last week during my Sociology class. This reminds me of something. Oh, I know. OCTOBER! The first month of class in Spanish was happening all over again. When I have to focus on each word now as much as I did then, I know there´s something unusual about the accent, or the speed, or something. Interestingly enough, it was actually an encouraging feeling, because since it felt strange to have to work my brain muscles so hard to understand, I realized how much less I have to focus in order to follow a lecture in Spanish now.
Those little encouragements are very welcome in what we´ve been calling the “plateau” stage of a second language. As far as our community can diagnose, it´s a roughly universal experience that comes after the “able to communicate pretty comfortably” stage (which comes after the “there are more things I say wrong than right” stage.) The “plateau” stage leaves a feeling of I´m not getting any better…and will I ever?… because it´s hard to break out of the habitual errors when the conversation flow feels much more natural. Makes sense to me, because it rings a bell of plenty of situations in addition to learning a language.
The other thought that kept itself in my mind—as I tried to dig through the Spanish character of my Methodology professor and find the information on how to cite a bibliography—was how perfectly God knows how to time and guide my life. Long story short, I probably would have cried after fifteen minutes of trying to listen to this professor in October. Maybe that would have been good for me; I certainly would have learned something from it. But let´s just say I´m very grateful God decided to wait a few months for this challenge, and let me deal with other ones back then. In doing so, he´s giving me a new opportunity to grow now… a new challenge to nudge me outside of my comfort zone today…a new occasion for improving out of the plateau stage and a new moment to discover the best version of myself. He knows exactly how to do that in order to take my hand and lead me a couple steps forward, not make me want to curl up in a ball and stay there—because a curled-up-in-a-ball me is probably not the happy-and-flourishing me He dreams of. He knows when I´m ready, even and especially when I don´t. Sometimes he invites me to fly when I want to sit—while other times he invites me to take it easy when I want to run. Good thing he knows me better than I do.
