AndreaBlythe.com

En Julio, yo voy a México, D.F. para mi trabajo y para turísmo. Estoy muy feliz, porque me encanta Mexico y puedo regresar a la Casa Azul de Frida Kahlo, el Zocalo, el Palacio de Bellas Artes, y la Basilica de Nuestra Señora Guadalupe. Pero necesito practicar my Español y tengo un pocos possibilidades para esto.

All of which means:
In July, I am going to México, D.F. for work and for tourism. I’m very happy because I love Mexico and can return to Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, the Zocalo, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the Basilica of Our Lady Guadalupe. But I need to practice my Spanish and I have a few possibilities for this (or that).

At least that’s what I think it means, because I wrote the above without using any dictionary translation. So I’m sure there are a few spelling errors, some missed accents, and definitely some screwed up pronouns (since they are all feminine or masculine, as well as different for singular and many), but on the whole I didn’t do too bad.

I have a strong base for Español, because I’ve had multiple classes in high school and college and even spent a semester (10 weeks) in México learning the language. But upon returning home and not speaking it for a while, I feel I’ve lost a lot of what I learned and don’t know anything anymore. But I’m always surprised to find that when I put my mind to it, I do have limited conversational skills.

I’ve always wanted to be fluent, though, wanted to read Pablo Neruda’s poetry in the original language and have legitimate and soulful conversations with native speakers. This trip to México, even though I’ll only be there a week, is spurring me to work toward this goal. Here are a few things I can (and plan) to do to make this happen.

1. Leer libros y escribir blog mesajes en Español — Reading books and writing blog posts in Spanish are kind of two sides of the same coin. Upside: They both have the potential to improve my vocabulary (especially the reading) and both can help me work on the grammar.

Downside: Neither will help much with pronunciation or being able to understand when someone is speaking Spanish a million miles a minute. Also, I’ve tried both for very brief periods of time and then gave them up. The reading is especially hard, because even with children’s books I have to look up words so often that it makes the experience kind of stressful. Reading is supposed to be fun relaxing time for me, so I end up giving up too quickly. Writing is a bit easier, but I’m limited by my vocabulary and so end up repeating the same ideas or phrases over and over.

2. Ver peliculas y telenovelas en la lengua original — Great for getting used to hearing the language, building vocabulary and an understanding of how words are pronounced, and learning slang phrases. Also helps in learning to think in the language.

3. Ir a un café y hablar con una amigo en Español — Definitely the best option, especially if I get to talk to someone who is a native speaker or knows more than me. Nothing builds language skills like speaking the language with someone who actually knows it.

4. Usar unu lengua aprendiendo programa para la computadora — Rosetta Stone is the language learning program that immediately comes to mind, though I’ve seen complaints about it, such as this review that recommends Fluenz instead. Both are on the pricy side, but handle the learning process very differently.

Rosetta Stone is a total immersion program, which means they don’t incorporate any English into the learning process. They go straight to the Spanish words and pair them with images, so that learners are supposed to pick up on it intuitively. The program also has interactive games that allow you to connect with other learners online and live sessions with native Spanish speakers (the real boon).

Fluenz on the other hand provides instructions in English and can pair the Spanish words with their English equivalent. It also provides English instructions for understanding pronoun usage and grammar. The review I linked above notes, “Fluenz believes that while full immersion might work with children, adults don’t learn languages as instinctively. Fluenz believes that adults learn best when they can relate the grammar and syntax of a foreign language to the structure of the tongue they already know — in my case, English.”

I’m sure it really just depends on your learning style, though. For me, I already have a good groundwork of the Spanish language and I understand the grammar and pronoun rules in theory at least, so total immersion is more up my alley. I internally debated for a while whether to spend the money, but Rosetta Stone was having a sale and they do payment plans, so I went with that. It should be here in a few days.

5. Todos los ariba — Really a mixture of all of the above will probably get me the best results, and conversing (or attempting to converse) while on my trip to Mexico will also be a great help.

Have you learned to become fluent a second (or third!) language? How did it work for you?

Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment here or there.

Current Project: Under the Midday Moon
New Words: 1866
Current Total Word Count: 6,737
Goal: Put together an workable draft of the novel that I would actually let someone read.

Accomplished: A new draft of what I think will be Chapter One. At least, it resembles chapter one, though it may not be chapter one later.

Random Rough Sentence(s): I kissed the top of dad’s head before heading through the door and down into the basement. The stairs led down to a landing and then veered right. The basement was fitted out with a little seating area on the right, a bunch of random boxes on the left, and rows of wine racks along the back wall. One of the racks from the center had been removed, rolled out of the way on hidden wheels. Behind it a steel door with inch thick bars stood open, revealing a stone walled cell.

Notes: So, like I said a new Chapter One is down on the page, which works much better than my old chapter one (the version I was previously agonizing over). I’m resisting the urge to go back and reread any of it, because I know I’ll sit there and cringe and start hating everything I’ve just written, if I do. So, I’m going to move on to upcoming scenes, assuming I can just figure out what they are.

In other news: My foot is still acting up and what’s frustrating is I can’t really tell what’s triggering it. If I go on a walk/run it hurts, or sometimes it feels better. If I stay off it, it feels better, or sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts when I ice it. Sometimes it feels better when I ice it. Sometimes when I wear my regular flats, the foot feels fine. Sometimes when I wear the flats it hurts. Same with my comfy tennis shoes. I can’t seem to fully pinpoint what’s causing the resurgence of pain, so I’m not really sure what action to take to make it all better. At this point, I’m planning to just do what I’m going to do and get on with things, because waiting around for it to heal is driving me crazy.

In other, other news: Susie Subaru has been sold, which is both wonderful and a little sad.

Cross posted to my website. You are welcome to comment either here or there.

Apparently the rules are: You comment, I give you an age (please tell me how old you are, or risk having to time-travel to find out the answers) and you respond to the meme questions with what applied to you back then, and what’s true now.

The lovely wordweaverlynn gave me: 16, which was 1996 and I was a Sophmore/Junior in high school.

I lived in:
I’m trying to remember if my family made the transition from Willowbrook St to the mountain house before or after I was sixteen. It maybe have been during that year, because I remember my parents having to drive down the backside of mountain, bouncing over potholes in the dirt road and then drop the youngest off at elementary school, me off at high school, and the middle kids off at middle school – in that order.

Living in the mountain house was an interesting experience, not only for the drive, but also for the mountain folk, giant spiders, occasional fire warnings, snow, horses and wild dogs, and general sense of disconnection from town.

Now:
I live in an apartment with my good friend. It’s my first on-my-own-adult-home and I’m very happy there, in part because I was lucky to get the end apartment, which seems to have it’s own backyard. After being here, I don’t think I could live in the mountains again and having to deal with driving down HWY 17 and all the hassle of not living in town.

I drove:
Nothing. I didn’t even have a license, let alone a car until after I was 18. It’s was public transport all the way, baby.

Now:
I’ve recently sold my Susy Subaru Forester for M’Lady Cavalier. M’Lady is doing well by me so far.

I was in a relationship with:
Myself. I had a few crushes and some good buddies, but no romantic relationships.

Now:
Same. It was just me enjoying being with me.

I feared:
Being mocked, being made fun off, being embarrassed, being unloved, having no friends. I transitioned friendships every year of high school. It was like my friendships reset every summer and I had to start over at the beginning of the school year. I always had friends, but I was also always adapting myself to the new set of friends in an attempt to make sure I fit in.

It’s why I’ve always had a problem watching movies that rely on embarrassment humor (think Meet the Parents). If a character is being humiliated in some way, either from acting stupid or being mocked, I’ve been known to cover my face while cringing of even run from the room so as to not have to face it.

Now:
Embarrassment is still a thing with me, but not as much. I know how to process it better now, and my focus has shifted from friendships to career. All my fear of embarrassment and being mocked is now in relation to my writing and tied up with the main fear of failing as a writer.

I worked at:
Oh, I don’t know. I kind of worked at school, but not with much effort. I kind of worked at friendships. I only worked at art or writing when I felt like it, which wasn’t much. I just remember spending most of my time hanging out with friends. So maybe that’s what I was working at, trying to fit in.

Now:
So, so many things, including my day job and trying to be a working writer and trying to be healthy and be a good friend and be responsible about adult things like paying rent and more than I can seem to fit in a day.

I wanted to be:
An artist, as in painter. Though I think about that time I was starting to become disillusioned with that idea, as I realized I didn’t have the kind of dedication to really hone the craft or be creative in a way that would stand out. About that time, I was starting to shift my interest into becoming a writer.

Now:
A lover of life everyday in every way. And, yeah, a prosperous writer, too.

Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment either here or there.

1. Because I thrive (go mad-hatter crazy on) deadlines, I have put off compiling this poetry chapbook until the day before the competition ends. At least it’s only 16-18 pages. *sigh*

2. Oh, and I’ve also signed up for the 10 by 10 Short Script Challenge, which has begun this week. I now have ten nine days to complete a short indie horror script that challenges the genre’s portrayal of women.

3. And lets not forget that I have to provide a rewrite of Chapter One and/or Chapter Two of Under the Midday Moon, my YA werewolf novel to my writing group by next Wednesday.

4. Did I also mention that my entire Saturday will be taken up by attending the AMC Best Picture Showcase, leaving me next to no time to do any of this stuff? No. Well, I am.

5. Somewhere in there, I’m also supposed to exercise.

6. *dies*

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment either here or there.]

I’m doing this a little different. While I liked my Massive List of 2012 goals (everything was together!), it was a little unfocused, allowing me to hop through willy-nilly. Instead I’m going to try working with primary goals (those that must be accomplished first) and secondary goals (things I would like to get done at some point, but only after I’ve made progress on my primary goals). If I can complete these four primary goals in 2013, I will be a very happy lady.

Primary Goals
1. Finish a coherent draft of Under the Midday Moon (my no-longer-untitled werewolf novel)
The spirit of this goal would be to submit a new chapter to each meeting of my writing group and thus produce a novel I can edit and feel comfortable sending out for beta reads. Using the writing group meetings as a way to break it up is a good way to keep me progressing.

I’ve worked on this one a number of times, beginning with some scenes posted online and with a previous Nanowrimo attempt, which provided me some good exploratory pages as I tried to figure out where I wanted to go with it. Since then, I’ve been pondering and been doing some mental stewing on the novel. I’ve decided to add another character point of view to the mix and have more clear ideas of the challenges my characters will need to face. The only thing causing me to hesitate at this point is that I don’t have Claire’s voice, which would give me the launch point into the novel. I don’t want to do a ton

Accomplishing this will require me to, as whipchick so wisely put it, “Write First,” which means before I do anything else (TV, reading, websurfing). I’m pretty sure I can pull this off, if I stick to that motto.

2. Work up to running three miles
I really, really, really, really, really want to do this. I’ve tried and failed to complete the Couch-to-5k program, and part of it was because the increases were too quick and partly because my head gets in the way (from “I don’t feel like it” to I can’t!”). Listening to music while I run will help some, and I’m also trying another version of the Couch-to-5k via an iPhone app. The app alerts me as to when to start and stop the running intervals, which takes the metal calculations out of it. I can just listen to my music and do as I’m told.

If anyone has any advice on how to beat the mindf*ck while running, I would love to hear it. I may just start with some affirmations for the time being.

3. Submit a chapbook- or full-length collection of poetry for publication
I have enough poetry written to do this. So it’s just a matter of selecting the poems and putting the package together. I know of one chapbook that’s open for submissions this month, so I’m going to start there. I plan to also submit a larger manuscript to a poetry book publisher that I’ve been looking at for a while. So that means two submissions in January/February.

I may have to follow up this submission with another manuscript in the middle of year, depending on the reply I get.

4. Address finances
This encompasses a number of factors that I may need to work on and adjust to as the year goes on. Essentially, I need to spend with in my means by sticking to a budget and set up a savings plan and making progress to pay off my debt, as well as begin an IRA or other retirement investment plan.

I would also like to earn an additional income from my poetry and fiction writing. I don’t have control over who chooses to publish my work, but I do have control over who I send it to. So, I plan to work toward sending my work to markets that pay something (rather than nothing) as my first choice.

*
Secondary goals are behind the cut, because it\’s a big dang list.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to either comment here or there.]