When I have been staring at my glowing rectangle (aka computer) writing grants, my mind often drifts to days gone by when school seemed so much easier. I remember fondly the days when school consisted of coloring, reading picture books, and playing. The past two weeks of language school has allowed me to go back to those care free days of education when one's hardest task was learning colors, numbers, and how to make simple comparisons of which lady is fatter and which tree is taller. It seems like it should be one of the easiest times in the journey to obtain my PhD. I should have mastered such things as telling time and reading numbers years ago, therefore I just need to learn the words in a new language. Well, the truth of the matter is that I have forgotten that I was not a good student till about the 5th grade, I really struggled with grades 1-4... and all those things I struggled with are coming back to haunt me.
Spelling, I can't spell in my own language that I have been speaking 'fluently' for 29ish years... how am I supposed to spell in a language that I have been learning for two weeks. I get really excited when I am one or two letters off (that means spell checker will know what I am talking about) but the language teachers do not see that as acceptable.
Telling time, I have decided long ago that a digital watch is the best method for telling time. It is quick, it is exact, and it has Indiglo. However, my language teachers insist that I practice my telling time words on a real clock. "Wait a second, which one is the hour hand and which one is the minute hand... and each number is worth how many minutes." To add insult to injury, they tell time here by saying 27 minutes till whatever o'clock, so I had to remember my simple subtraction skills also.
Left and right, I never learned my left from my right. I blame it on having pneumonia for a few weeks during kindergarten. We had multiple lessons where I had to use this skill...which person is standing to the right of Dewi, do you turn left or right if you want to go to the post office, and is the bank located to the left of the police station. I really struggled with those days. It was a constant, left, I mean right, I mean hmm, can I just say North?
I tried to explain to the teachers that it is not the language that is hard for me, it is the basic life skills that I some how missed mastering when I was younger. They don't get it and assign me piles of worksheets to do for homework, which I need to write neatly (another skill I did not master). It is a strange predicament indeed to go from planning research that has never been done before to having to answer, "The color of my shirt is blue." "Your pencil is not red." Given the choice, I think I would prefer to go back to reading journal articles and writing grants.
And watching Kai learn the kindergarten stuff, I realize it's really no less frustrating for her to learn to write her numbers than for me to try to write my thesis!
ReplyDeleteI think it's more "the grass is always greener" sort of thing: I'd give anything to be doing just about anything other than trying to write my dissertation! Even if that meant I finally had to learn my left from my right... :)
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha! You are great! Hugs!
ReplyDelete