Como 'O'

I´ve been overdoing the pictures a bit recently, so here´s a nice wordy post without a lot of visual stimulation.  It´s a subject I´ve wanted to tackle for a bit, and now I´ll take some time to it.

My motto for the time that I´ve been here has been "Como 'O'".  'O' as in Owen.

First of all, do I have the cutest sobrinos in the world, or what?  (Caroline, Beck, Ted, give your Godchildren a kiss from me!)

The point is not to enchant you with the brilliance of my niece and nephew, well, maybe a bit, but to talk about learning language.  Pretty much I have admired the way that kids learn languages for a while now.  I am constantly saying that kids are smarter than their parents, since they amazingly learn an entire language from scratch, simply through listening and trial-and-error.  And they do such an amazing job.

I have watched Owen as he really started to learn how to speak and how to communicate his thoughts.  I´ve seen how frustrated he would get at times when he couldn´t get his meaning across.  But more than that, I´ve seen the enthusiasm with which he incorporates new vocabulary into his speech.  He loves to do it.  I think he is proud when he can participate in sharing more complex thoughts and words.  I´ve seen my other "nephew" Desmond do the same thing, as he regularly surprises me with his knowledge.  I´m sure Leah and Hudson are as surprising in what they pick up too (I´m not giving Jackson any love here, but he´s practically a man now, anyway, so he might be slightly past this age!)

I decided, when I got here, that I was going to try to learn as I see Owen and the others learn.  In other words, to actively attempt to incorporate my new words and expressions into my daily life.  It´s never going to be quite the same, obviously, but I´m really working hard to study as if each word is a little nugget of gold, and somehow it multiplies every time I can purposely insert it into the conversation.  At times, I think it is probably somewhat annoying to Loyola (still my teacher), as if I´m trying to show off because I´m purposely trying to use the concepts and phrases of the day before, but I figure that it works for O.  In the short term, it means over 900 flashcards and lots of studying at night; we´ll have to watch to see the long term implications.

I was reading Fides et Ratio the other day (I promise, this is not a segue into another topic, but is related.. eventually), which is Pope John Paul II´s encyclical dealing with the relationship between Faith and Reason, which is something I´m supposed to have read before I start at Mount St. Mary´s (two weeks from today, for those counting!).  In it, there´s a section where the Pope discusses a comment of St. Anselm, back in the 11th century or so.  To paraphrase, the Pope claims that the more we know something, the more we love it, and want to know it better.  Originally, St. Anselm was saying that although we were made to know God, we would never fully know God in this life, and that the more we tried to know Him, the more we wanted to know Him. 

To extend, and probably horribly pervert, the Pope´s message, I was applying the idea to the learning of language.  Clearly, Owen (and the rest of them) love to learn how to talk.  You can try to claim that it is simply for self-interest, that they learn in order to get their needs met, and not because they love it; but anyone who has spent any significant time with any of these little ones has seen the pure joy that new knowledge of words gives them.  They are so proud of their new abilities.  The more that they get to know the English language, the more they are driven to know it even more.  This is incredible to think about, that we are wired in such a way that we yearn to learn.  Obviously, this wears down over time; I know that I for one, am much more comfortable to exist in my own little sandbox rather than expand my sphere of knowledge.. even here, once I become familiar with an activity or a place, I´d rather continue working in that vein, or frequenting that place, than to learn something new.  Thank God for the way kids are, though.  I´m trying to emulate them, as much as is humanly possible!

And not to leave Eileen or Kendall or the little ones out of the picture.. while they may still be too young to really be experiencing the joys of learning how to speak, I´m conscious of their attempts at crawling, walking, eating, etc., and I´m trying to emulate them too.  For when they fall on their face, they pick themselves back up and try again.  Another trait of older humans is that we tend to back off from things once we make a mistake or fail.  As I am constantly failing here, I am very mindful of the lesson to just get up and try again.  (For instance, I was telling Carlos, the fourteen-year-old in most family that I really liked his friend, the priest at El Calvario parish.. but apparently what I said had particular connotations about the manner in which I liked him.. I was completely embarrassed when I learned this, but I thought of all times that Eileen has plopped back down to the floor, and I garnered some strength to try again.)

Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it, but I am mindful that the best students of language are the little ones, and I´m doing what I can to emulate them as best I can.

One last thing, totally unrelated, but noteworthy (to me, at least).. for the most part, I´ve been sleeping much better here than at home.  I attribute it to three possibilities, or some combination thereof: (1) a healthier diet, with everything being freshly made, with few preservatives or other chemicals; (2) the higher altitude with thinner air and a milder natural climate; and (3) the fact that I am so doggone tired at the end of a day trying to come up with *every single thought* in another language, that I just collapse under the mental strain.  Not sure if any of these is true, but they seem to be the largest contenders.

But my dreams have been much more wild than usual.  Now, I must admit, my dreams are often pretty vivid and wacky, but this takes them to a whole new scale.  I am constantly having dreams that include people with whom I rarely interact, or people whom I haven´t thought about it years.  Last week, for instance, I dreamt that Matt Bedard and Iason were down here in school with me; I don´t know if Iason speaks Spanish or not, but I know that the last time I talked to Matt Bedard, ten years ago, he didn´t.  I can honestly say that it was the first dream I´ve ever had involving either of these gentlemen.

But last night´s dream has got to take the cake.  Here are the salient points:

• First of all, I had just moved into an apartment with Dad (who knows where Mom was?), and we got a knock on the door.. it was Christa (of J.R. and Christa).
• Christa was trying to decide whether she was going to move in with me and Dad, or whether she was going to move into my old apartment; she really liked my old apartment, but she was intrigued by the science fiction show that Dad was watching.
• She then asked me to set her up with one of my friends (apparently, there was no J.R. in my dream, which is odd, considering that as long as I have known Christa, there has always been a J.R.).  I went through my list of friends on my cell phone, including Ryan Todd, Jason Crawford, and Gregg Smith, (nobody I had seen this millennium, by the way), but everyone was either involved with someone else, or I didn´t think they were good enough for her.
• She then asked me to set her up with Chris Rice, but I only knew his parents´ phone number offhand (which I *did* know in the dream.. keeping in mind that although I knew the Rice´s phone number, I didn´t remember that there was a J.R.!).
• When I was searching for Chris´ cell phone number on my iPhone, I accidentally called him.  He was pretty cross with me, because I woke him up.  
• As I hung up, I noticed that the time was 6:37 PM.  (Now, to be fair, Chris might be in Afghanistan right now, so it´s possible that 6:37 PM is horribly early there.. but in my dream, he was local, so I can´t even use that as an excuse.)

Anyway, I´m sure most anyone who reads this might not have any idea who 90% of these people are (pretty much everyone but Derrick.. maybe Mom too), let´s just say that apparently my sleep-addled brain has been constructing its dreams via a sort of "Whitman´s Sampler" of my entire life.  I´m not sure what this means, but it´s been pretty entertaining, if nothing else.