Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Oh my.
I've adopted a sort of Jim-Carrey-in-Yes-Man type attitude towards life here, especially since I never have anything to do after school. I told myself I would accept any opportunity that came my way, be it joining a soccer team, giving English lessons... whatever came my way. It never occurred to me, however, that the first opportunity to present itself would be joining the baton twirling troupe. So, folks, I am now a baton twirler. We'll see how this goes.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Language (Graph ahead-proceed with caution)
I got back from language camp on Thursday and it was, to say the least, amazing. In between meeting some really, really amazing people, going to the six pools, three jacuzzies, three beaches, movie theater, discoteca, and five restaurants at the resort we were staying at, we managed to take about a total of 20 hours of Spanish classes. They were pretty rough, and we would go through concepts that took months to learn in my French class at home in just a few hours.
Taking the Spanish classes, and being around so many people who speak all different languages got me thinking. Most of all, I realized that the concept of having different languages is so weird. To think that there are billions of people around the world who all speak and think and live their lives and do many of the same things I do... but in a different language just blows my mind. And what's more, they don't think anything of it. They're not thinking, "wow, it's so cool that I speak Greek" or anything. They just do. I have a friend here who asked me, "do you get hungry (angry) when you can't say something in Spanish?" and the truth is - I do, but I'm more amazed than anything. I think it's crazy that I can talk to someone and they can talk to me and neither of us has any idea of what the other is saying, but we know what we're saying. I don't know if any of this is making any sense, but that's all the ways I can think to explain it. Oh, by the way, I met a girl this week who speaks a language I didn't even know existed. Faroese. She spoke some for us and it seriously just sounded like she was making sounds, not saying words.
Another thing related to languages is that Ecuadorian Spanish is crazy because, to my American English ears, it doesn't really seem to have an accent. It just sounds like they're speaking English, but using words I don't know. Hopefully that means that when I speak Spanish I don't have that much of an accent, but I'm a bit worried that it actually means the Ecuadorian accent is really subtle and will be hard to master. Hm...
Now, about learning Spanish. This is, obviously, the main languagey thing I have to deal with. From what I've experienced, from what I've heard from other people learning languages, and from what I saw on a similar graph online, the process is a bit like this:
So, to explain: Section 1 is where you're learning basic words and phrases in present tense. Section 2 is where you're stuck there for a little bit, maybe learning a few new words, but for the most part, not being able to put coherent sentences together. Section 3 is the main language learning bit, where you learn more words, tenses, a few idiomatic expressions and such, and you're able to make sentences. Section 4 is where you speak the language nearly perfectly, and you're just separated from full fluency by the little nuances of the language and really mastering what you know. I've spoken to many a frustrated person stuck in section 4. Then, section 5 is where you finally get the last few bits of the language down and really reach full fluency. For me, I'm in two different sections for listening and speaking. I think I'm in section 3 when I listen to people - I understand what someone is saying about 80% of the time, and I can usually figure out what a word I don't know means from context. However, when I talk, I don't know a lot of the finer grammar points like linking words, direct and indirect object pronouns, and some vocab words I want to use. It would seem I'm stuck in section 2 for talking, which yes, is very frustrating. I think Spanish camp, where I took my first actual Spanish classes that taught grammar like one would in school, has taught me some of the things that will help me get out of that rut, and if I review what I learned, I should be able to do so soon. Hopefully.
So, that's about all I have to say, except that on Thursday I'll have been here for a month. It feels like a really long time, but it also seems way to short to be a whole tenth of the time I'll be here. Wow.
Taking the Spanish classes, and being around so many people who speak all different languages got me thinking. Most of all, I realized that the concept of having different languages is so weird. To think that there are billions of people around the world who all speak and think and live their lives and do many of the same things I do... but in a different language just blows my mind. And what's more, they don't think anything of it. They're not thinking, "wow, it's so cool that I speak Greek" or anything. They just do. I have a friend here who asked me, "do you get hungry (angry) when you can't say something in Spanish?" and the truth is - I do, but I'm more amazed than anything. I think it's crazy that I can talk to someone and they can talk to me and neither of us has any idea of what the other is saying, but we know what we're saying. I don't know if any of this is making any sense, but that's all the ways I can think to explain it. Oh, by the way, I met a girl this week who speaks a language I didn't even know existed. Faroese. She spoke some for us and it seriously just sounded like she was making sounds, not saying words.
Another thing related to languages is that Ecuadorian Spanish is crazy because, to my American English ears, it doesn't really seem to have an accent. It just sounds like they're speaking English, but using words I don't know. Hopefully that means that when I speak Spanish I don't have that much of an accent, but I'm a bit worried that it actually means the Ecuadorian accent is really subtle and will be hard to master. Hm...
Now, about learning Spanish. This is, obviously, the main languagey thing I have to deal with. From what I've experienced, from what I've heard from other people learning languages, and from what I saw on a similar graph online, the process is a bit like this:
 |
| I made this on paint just for you dear readers. Also, I got really stressed when I realized I didn't have a title for it. School has made me crazy. |
So, to explain: Section 1 is where you're learning basic words and phrases in present tense. Section 2 is where you're stuck there for a little bit, maybe learning a few new words, but for the most part, not being able to put coherent sentences together. Section 3 is the main language learning bit, where you learn more words, tenses, a few idiomatic expressions and such, and you're able to make sentences. Section 4 is where you speak the language nearly perfectly, and you're just separated from full fluency by the little nuances of the language and really mastering what you know. I've spoken to many a frustrated person stuck in section 4. Then, section 5 is where you finally get the last few bits of the language down and really reach full fluency. For me, I'm in two different sections for listening and speaking. I think I'm in section 3 when I listen to people - I understand what someone is saying about 80% of the time, and I can usually figure out what a word I don't know means from context. However, when I talk, I don't know a lot of the finer grammar points like linking words, direct and indirect object pronouns, and some vocab words I want to use. It would seem I'm stuck in section 2 for talking, which yes, is very frustrating. I think Spanish camp, where I took my first actual Spanish classes that taught grammar like one would in school, has taught me some of the things that will help me get out of that rut, and if I review what I learned, I should be able to do so soon. Hopefully.
So, that's about all I have to say, except that on Thursday I'll have been here for a month. It feels like a really long time, but it also seems way to short to be a whole tenth of the time I'll be here. Wow.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Positivity!
This post is for my mother. She's pointed out that my last post only listed things that, without much interpretation from me, made it seem like I was a little down in the dumps with culture shock and such. While I can see where she's coming from, I was just trying to share interesting things that I've noticed or have happened to me. I'd just like to make an official statement that I am not hating it here. In fact, it's quite the opposite. So, in the face of the danger of you readers dying from list overload, here is a list of some of the fabulous things I've had the chance to experience in lovely Ecuador.
1. ORANGE JUICE. If I could choose my favorite thing about Ecuador, it would have to be the orange juice. It might be a little sad, but seriously, juice here is fresh squeezed from fresh fruit. And it's so. crazy. good.
2. Manicures! Instead of giving our nails the occasional trim and such, this lady comes to our house and gives us legit mani/pedis every Thursday. (As a side note, I would just like to let the world know that spell-check accepts "legit" as a word)
3. The ocean! It's just a five minute bike ride to the beach from my house. And the beach is beaUTIFUL. I don't have pictures of the beach itself, but here are some exciting pictures of what happens sometimes when the tide comes in:
4. Watching soccer with my host parents. We'll just sit on their bed in the evening and watch soccer. It's hilarious for two reasons (gahh! List within a list!): there's a GIANT rivalry here about Emelec or Barcelona that my host dad gets really into, and the commentators do the great GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL thing for like two minutes whenever someone scores, which is entertaining. Also, watching soccer with your parents is just such a normal thing to do; I love it.
5. Having all my toes intact. This one is a recent development. I've finally stopped stubbing my toes on this ledge thing whenever I go into the kitchen:
I have no clue how I accidentally turned that into a collage type thing, but it's kind of cool, right? Anyway, the zoo was definitely awesome, but that's like 95% because of the baby bunnies.
8. Hammocks. Most people have one, either in their room, on the patio, on the balcony... where ever there's even a smidgeon of room. The best part is that whenever I have any down time at anyone's house they offer up their hammock to me. And really, how can I refuse soaking up the sun on a hammock that's swinging in the breeze? The ocean breeze. In Ecuador. It's times like that that I realize how very, very lucky I am to be having such an amazing experience here.
Though there are gazillions (also a spell-check accepted word) of other things I could add to this list, I need to go to bed because tomorrow I'm going to Spanish Camp on the beach for five days! Woo hoo! Anyway, I promise promise promise that next post won't be a list. I guess that's just how I think, because I'm up to 3/5 of my posts being lists. Oh my. (I was considering doing a "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" type thing, but then I realized that I'd just end up filling in lions and tigers and bears in with the word "lists." Which you probably didn't need to know.)
Well, folks, until next time. Actually, as a parting gift, I will tell you the most exciting coincidence (for you Minnesotans to understand) that I've discovered here: the radio station that only plays American pop songs is 101.3. My mind was so blown, and I hope yours is too. And I mean that in a nice way.
1. ORANGE JUICE. If I could choose my favorite thing about Ecuador, it would have to be the orange juice. It might be a little sad, but seriously, juice here is fresh squeezed from fresh fruit. And it's so. crazy. good.
2. Manicures! Instead of giving our nails the occasional trim and such, this lady comes to our house and gives us legit mani/pedis every Thursday. (As a side note, I would just like to let the world know that spell-check accepts "legit" as a word)
3. The ocean! It's just a five minute bike ride to the beach from my house. And the beach is beaUTIFUL. I don't have pictures of the beach itself, but here are some exciting pictures of what happens sometimes when the tide comes in:
 |
| First this (if you're wondering, yes. It is exactly like standing on the bridge after the wave ride at valley fair.) |
 |
| Which results in this (those are roads, fyi) |
5. Having all my toes intact. This one is a recent development. I've finally stopped stubbing my toes on this ledge thing whenever I go into the kitchen:
As far as I can tell, my host parents had it installed so they could learn how to swear in English, because I can't see it serving any other purpose. HOWEVER. I have defeated it, and almost never stub my toes on it anymore.
6. Helping out at a kindergarten. I only did this a couple times before school started, but it was really really fun to play tag with all the kids or help them color in big number 4s. Also, I had the chance to help out with their English lesson one day, which mostly consisted of me singing "Mary had a Little Lamb" to them like four times and trying to get them to repeat it, which they didn't. But it's the most rewarding thing in the world to be watching a little girl search for the number 5 to cut out of magazines and hear her humming "Mary had a Little Lamb."
7. Going to the ZOO! Though it was mostly birds, fish, bunnies and dogs, there was some pretty exciting stuff, I must say. Observe:
I have no clue how I accidentally turned that into a collage type thing, but it's kind of cool, right? Anyway, the zoo was definitely awesome, but that's like 95% because of the baby bunnies.
8. Hammocks. Most people have one, either in their room, on the patio, on the balcony... where ever there's even a smidgeon of room. The best part is that whenever I have any down time at anyone's house they offer up their hammock to me. And really, how can I refuse soaking up the sun on a hammock that's swinging in the breeze? The ocean breeze. In Ecuador. It's times like that that I realize how very, very lucky I am to be having such an amazing experience here.
Though there are gazillions (also a spell-check accepted word) of other things I could add to this list, I need to go to bed because tomorrow I'm going to Spanish Camp on the beach for five days! Woo hoo! Anyway, I promise promise promise that next post won't be a list. I guess that's just how I think, because I'm up to 3/5 of my posts being lists. Oh my. (I was considering doing a "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" type thing, but then I realized that I'd just end up filling in lions and tigers and bears in with the word "lists." Which you probably didn't need to know.)
Well, folks, until next time. Actually, as a parting gift, I will tell you the most exciting coincidence (for you Minnesotans to understand) that I've discovered here: the radio station that only plays American pop songs is 101.3. My mind was so blown, and I hope yours is too. And I mean that in a nice way.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Two Weeks: Sickness, Mood Swings, Food, Cell Phones, and School
As of Sunday night at about 10 o'clock, I'd been in Ecuador for two weeks. This is kind of significant, because before this, that's the longest I'd ever been away from home. So, as of yesterday, I've set a new record.
Several things have happened within those two weeks, and I've made plenty of observations about lots of things. So here you have it. Irene Duba on sickness, mood swings, food, cell phones, and school.
First: I was sick Wednesday-Friday last week. Apparently it happens to a lot of people who come to Ecuador for the first time, since the food and water is so different. Still, needless to say, it wasn't fun. All Thursday and Friday I was stuck in bed, and if you are/have been an exchange student, you know that being alone with your thoughts isn't always very uplifting. Being alone certainly brings out the homesickness, which is not helped by feeling crappy. Also, there's a whole different attitude about being sick here. It's treated as both a bigger and smaller deal. If I were at home, I'd just sit in my pjs either lying in bed or watching tv until it passed. However, after just a day and a half of being sick here I was taken to the doctor to get blood drawn for tests, and I was given pills to take every day. At the same time, though, my parents were setting up outings to the beach and to get ice cream for me. In the midst of my illness. Very different. That's all I really have to say about being sick, except that it sucks (which I kind of already covered).
Second, mood swings. Another exciting thing about being an exchange student. I think having crazy mood swings is part of the culture shock. One bit of culture shock is the irritability stage, which is one of the moods that I swing to, if I may extend the metaphor. I can be hanging out on cloud 9, then at the drop of a hat I'll be down in the dumps, feeling homesick and pissy. It's definitely weird. And the strangest things get to me and bring me down. We can be just riding along in the car, perfectly content, and my friends will sing along to and English song on the radio or Hector will honk at a bicyclist. I normally don't care about these things (since they don't matter), but sometimes I'll just feel like yelling "you don't know English! Stop pretending you do! These are MY songs." or "is it really that hard to slow down for them?! At least we Americans have a little respect!" or something. And it's not that big of a deal. Again, weird.
Third, food. It would really, really, suck to be a vegetarian here. When I was sick, I told my parents that I didn't want to eat chicken or meat (which are mutually exclusive here, for some reason) and we went to three different restaurants and I finally had to settle on chicken soup (which, by the way, I later realized had noodles in it, so I felt okay with eating it while I was sick). You might be asking, "why didn't you just eat at home?" Because we never, ever do. Thursday and Friday I wouldn't have eaten anything, much less gotten out of bed, other than going out for lunch. About the food itself, it's all kind of the same... meat or seafood with rice and sometimes beans. This is kind of random, but still on the subject of food: one thing that kind of bothers me about food culture around the world is that it's kind of widely accepted that American food is worse than every other food ever. When exchange students come to the United States it's totally okay for them to say that they miss their food. However, if I said that, it would seem kind of rude and xenophobic. By the way, I'm not necessarily saying that I do miss my food, though I wouldn't mind a little variety here and there.
Fourth: cell phones. As I think I mentioned earlier, everyone has blackberries. Or, at the very least, everyone has a cell phone. My English teacher (from New Jersey) put it best. He said "I've taught kids who can't afford some necessities, but they still somehow manage to have a cellphone." By the way, I hope you were reading that in your head with an accent. And I hope when you got to the word "taught" you imagined it being said hilariously, because it was. Oh, New Joisey... Anyway, cell phones. In addition to everyone having one, everyone is always using them. I guess it's not rude here, but I'll be sitting at lunch with my parents or in the living room with my friends and everyone but me will have their phones out. It makes for a lot of awkward situations. Sometimes, when it goes on a really long time I take out my phone, even though I don't have anything to do on it and just kind of stare at and press a few buttons in order to fit in. That's not even a joke, by the way.
Fifth: School. Yesterday was my first day of school. This week is just kind of a test week for me, and then I have Spanish camp four out the five five days of next week, so I think the hope is that I'll learn Spanish enough to actually understand class in the next two weeks, and I'll start actually participating in class the Monday after next. This week, though I'm kind of testing out different grades, so yesterday I hung out with a bunch of 9th graders, and today some 10th graders. I believe tomorrow I'll go see what 11th grade is like, but I'm not sure. What I've discovered about school so far is that there are only four or five classes a day, and lots of breaks in between. It's kind of like, and hour on, hour off, hour on, lunch and recess, hour on... and so on. The only classes I understand so far are math and English. Since math is the only class I actually participate in, everyone thinks I'm a some math superstar now. Like, I'm so good at it that I choose to join in with that class and ignore the others. One thing I have learned in school, though, is that teenagers are very, very hard to understand. They talk really fast, and then after I inevitably ask them so go slower, they still slur their words and use slang. So basically they all think I suck at Spanish. A teacher came into the class and asked someone if I spoke Spanish, and someone was like "un poco" and this kid gave her a look and was like "nada." I have sort of made some friends though. Also, most of the guys introduced themselves to me or wave when they see me, since I have blue eyes and "blonde" hair (anyone who doesn't have black hair here is blonde). So, although I'm guessing it's at least partly just skin deep, that's kind of nice. I pretend they're my friends too.
Bonus sixth! Even though this post is already crazy crazy long: Scary stuff. After our Rotary meeting on Monday night, all the exchange students and I went for a walk through town. Marcus, from Alaska, was telling us about how one night he was walking home from something with his brothers, and they came upon a street cop. As they approached, he blew his whistle really softly twice. Marcus didn't think anything of it, but his brothers told him, "okay, now we have to be really careful, because that was a corrupt street cop and he just alerted the muggers that there are people coming." So, naturally, we were all like, whoa. But we kept walking and talking and eventually stopped thinking about it. BUT. Then, we saw a street cop (I'm not even kidding). And Marcus was like, "guys, I think that's him," so we turned the corner before we got too close. However, when we came to the next corner, he was there again! We decided to just walk past, since there were five of us, and there was no whistling or mugging. So that's good.
WELL! That might be the longest blog post in the history of the world, but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll be back later with more about my actual life and less about general stuff.
Irene
First: I was sick Wednesday-Friday last week. Apparently it happens to a lot of people who come to Ecuador for the first time, since the food and water is so different. Still, needless to say, it wasn't fun. All Thursday and Friday I was stuck in bed, and if you are/have been an exchange student, you know that being alone with your thoughts isn't always very uplifting. Being alone certainly brings out the homesickness, which is not helped by feeling crappy. Also, there's a whole different attitude about being sick here. It's treated as both a bigger and smaller deal. If I were at home, I'd just sit in my pjs either lying in bed or watching tv until it passed. However, after just a day and a half of being sick here I was taken to the doctor to get blood drawn for tests, and I was given pills to take every day. At the same time, though, my parents were setting up outings to the beach and to get ice cream for me. In the midst of my illness. Very different. That's all I really have to say about being sick, except that it sucks (which I kind of already covered).
Second, mood swings. Another exciting thing about being an exchange student. I think having crazy mood swings is part of the culture shock. One bit of culture shock is the irritability stage, which is one of the moods that I swing to, if I may extend the metaphor. I can be hanging out on cloud 9, then at the drop of a hat I'll be down in the dumps, feeling homesick and pissy. It's definitely weird. And the strangest things get to me and bring me down. We can be just riding along in the car, perfectly content, and my friends will sing along to and English song on the radio or Hector will honk at a bicyclist. I normally don't care about these things (since they don't matter), but sometimes I'll just feel like yelling "you don't know English! Stop pretending you do! These are MY songs." or "is it really that hard to slow down for them?! At least we Americans have a little respect!" or something. And it's not that big of a deal. Again, weird.
Third, food. It would really, really, suck to be a vegetarian here. When I was sick, I told my parents that I didn't want to eat chicken or meat (which are mutually exclusive here, for some reason) and we went to three different restaurants and I finally had to settle on chicken soup (which, by the way, I later realized had noodles in it, so I felt okay with eating it while I was sick). You might be asking, "why didn't you just eat at home?" Because we never, ever do. Thursday and Friday I wouldn't have eaten anything, much less gotten out of bed, other than going out for lunch. About the food itself, it's all kind of the same... meat or seafood with rice and sometimes beans. This is kind of random, but still on the subject of food: one thing that kind of bothers me about food culture around the world is that it's kind of widely accepted that American food is worse than every other food ever. When exchange students come to the United States it's totally okay for them to say that they miss their food. However, if I said that, it would seem kind of rude and xenophobic. By the way, I'm not necessarily saying that I do miss my food, though I wouldn't mind a little variety here and there.
Fourth: cell phones. As I think I mentioned earlier, everyone has blackberries. Or, at the very least, everyone has a cell phone. My English teacher (from New Jersey) put it best. He said "I've taught kids who can't afford some necessities, but they still somehow manage to have a cellphone." By the way, I hope you were reading that in your head with an accent. And I hope when you got to the word "taught" you imagined it being said hilariously, because it was. Oh, New Joisey... Anyway, cell phones. In addition to everyone having one, everyone is always using them. I guess it's not rude here, but I'll be sitting at lunch with my parents or in the living room with my friends and everyone but me will have their phones out. It makes for a lot of awkward situations. Sometimes, when it goes on a really long time I take out my phone, even though I don't have anything to do on it and just kind of stare at and press a few buttons in order to fit in. That's not even a joke, by the way.
Fifth: School. Yesterday was my first day of school. This week is just kind of a test week for me, and then I have Spanish camp four out the five five days of next week, so I think the hope is that I'll learn Spanish enough to actually understand class in the next two weeks, and I'll start actually participating in class the Monday after next. This week, though I'm kind of testing out different grades, so yesterday I hung out with a bunch of 9th graders, and today some 10th graders. I believe tomorrow I'll go see what 11th grade is like, but I'm not sure. What I've discovered about school so far is that there are only four or five classes a day, and lots of breaks in between. It's kind of like, and hour on, hour off, hour on, lunch and recess, hour on... and so on. The only classes I understand so far are math and English. Since math is the only class I actually participate in, everyone thinks I'm a some math superstar now. Like, I'm so good at it that I choose to join in with that class and ignore the others. One thing I have learned in school, though, is that teenagers are very, very hard to understand. They talk really fast, and then after I inevitably ask them so go slower, they still slur their words and use slang. So basically they all think I suck at Spanish. A teacher came into the class and asked someone if I spoke Spanish, and someone was like "un poco" and this kid gave her a look and was like "nada." I have sort of made some friends though. Also, most of the guys introduced themselves to me or wave when they see me, since I have blue eyes and "blonde" hair (anyone who doesn't have black hair here is blonde). So, although I'm guessing it's at least partly just skin deep, that's kind of nice. I pretend they're my friends too.
Bonus sixth! Even though this post is already crazy crazy long: Scary stuff. After our Rotary meeting on Monday night, all the exchange students and I went for a walk through town. Marcus, from Alaska, was telling us about how one night he was walking home from something with his brothers, and they came upon a street cop. As they approached, he blew his whistle really softly twice. Marcus didn't think anything of it, but his brothers told him, "okay, now we have to be really careful, because that was a corrupt street cop and he just alerted the muggers that there are people coming." So, naturally, we were all like, whoa. But we kept walking and talking and eventually stopped thinking about it. BUT. Then, we saw a street cop (I'm not even kidding). And Marcus was like, "guys, I think that's him," so we turned the corner before we got too close. However, when we came to the next corner, he was there again! We decided to just walk past, since there were five of us, and there was no whistling or mugging. So that's good.
WELL! That might be the longest blog post in the history of the world, but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll be back later with more about my actual life and less about general stuff.
Irene
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