Thoughts that Come Faster than the Stars in Hyperspace
I’ve been struggling the past few days to begin to grasp the speed at which I am learning. Moments of gross significance come and leave, only to be immediately followed by another. Something is said, my mind processes it, and I am forever changed. At first I hardly even noticed they were there, but now I am so aware of them that I feel intimidated. When I first arrived in Clermont-Ferrand, I felt that I was dropped off into a city where time has stopped. Now I feel I lack the time to simply process the weight of the events around me. From international politics, to art, to religion, to my feeling of personal significance, to literature, to music, to everything, I am lost in this new world of ideas.
When I graduated from high school, I remember the burden I felt entering college. It wasn’t simply a matter of obtaining a degree. I had been home schooled my whole life. It was my first test of many. I remember the skeptical, and subtly condescending, questions about my ability to handle a real classroom. Could the home schooler really handle the social pressures, the academic structures, and separation from her family? I felt this need to not simply perform well, but to perform excellently. Maybe even to perform perfectly. I managed it. Bumps came, but I navigated them with strength that’s expected from every other young American adult.
There is a key there, though. American. I achieved such heights because I was raised for American culture. This may seem silly on the surface, but I think those home schoolers who do fail fail because of the fact they were not raised to live in our culture. Well, I was. I know how to communicate with my peers. I know how to communicate with authority figures. I know how to communicate differently with a professor or a police officer or a boss. I know how to identify good fashion from bad. Cool from unpopular. Funny from inappropriate. Right from wrong.
Now I feel like I graduated from high school again. But home schooling is not the source of skepticism, rather my nationality is. Americans and their money. Americans and their need for order. Americans and their ignorance of other languages. Americans and their ignorance of everything un-American. Again, I feel the need to prove myself. To perform not just well, but excellently… perfectly. But in college, I knew my goals: get A’s, get cool/smart friends, keep a job, impress the professors, maybe take a boyfriend who is smart and cute, etc. Here, though, the goals are lost to me.
My Polish friend walked into my room the other day, and complemented me on the messiness of my room. I thought he was joking, but he replied, “No, it has a lovely European chaos to it.” He makes fun of Americans and our worries about money, and our dedication to practicality. Efficiency and order, he believes, takes away from the flavor of life. It would be so easy to dismiss him. Efficiency and order gives Americans the time and freedom to enjoy to flavors of life. What does he know? He’s never been to the U.S.! But unorthodoxy runs in my blood. Just because I know one way doesn’t mean there is another way. And, I must learn this other way before I can know which one is the best. But how do I knowingly abandon order?
Grades here are important, but I am hardly expected to perform well. I am one of the worst students in my class. Oh, I know my French grammaire backwards and forwards, but I can hardly speak or understand French. I am constantly making stupid mistakes in class. Yesterday a girl was giving a speech and she asked a question. I thought she was asking to the other students to answer, so I responded, in my best French. Everyone starred at me awkwardly before the girl said, “La question n’est pas pour toi.” Of course. She was listing the question she was going to ask French people for her exposé. I just can’t understand French. Fortunately I felt some need to talk, so I made sure everyone else in the class understood that too. Isn’t great to make all of your peers aware of your failings? I have become a child again. I am unable to communicate, making the simplest mistakes, but I lack a parent. Instead, I have the lingering values and ego of an intelligent woman who used to attend a university in Oklahoma. I am left only to long again for the time when I am respected by others and self-assured.
When I graduated from high school, I remember the burden I felt entering college. It wasn’t simply a matter of obtaining a degree. I had been home schooled my whole life. It was my first test of many. I remember the skeptical, and subtly condescending, questions about my ability to handle a real classroom. Could the home schooler really handle the social pressures, the academic structures, and separation from her family? I felt this need to not simply perform well, but to perform excellently. Maybe even to perform perfectly. I managed it. Bumps came, but I navigated them with strength that’s expected from every other young American adult.
There is a key there, though. American. I achieved such heights because I was raised for American culture. This may seem silly on the surface, but I think those home schoolers who do fail fail because of the fact they were not raised to live in our culture. Well, I was. I know how to communicate with my peers. I know how to communicate with authority figures. I know how to communicate differently with a professor or a police officer or a boss. I know how to identify good fashion from bad. Cool from unpopular. Funny from inappropriate. Right from wrong.
Now I feel like I graduated from high school again. But home schooling is not the source of skepticism, rather my nationality is. Americans and their money. Americans and their need for order. Americans and their ignorance of other languages. Americans and their ignorance of everything un-American. Again, I feel the need to prove myself. To perform not just well, but excellently… perfectly. But in college, I knew my goals: get A’s, get cool/smart friends, keep a job, impress the professors, maybe take a boyfriend who is smart and cute, etc. Here, though, the goals are lost to me.
My Polish friend walked into my room the other day, and complemented me on the messiness of my room. I thought he was joking, but he replied, “No, it has a lovely European chaos to it.” He makes fun of Americans and our worries about money, and our dedication to practicality. Efficiency and order, he believes, takes away from the flavor of life. It would be so easy to dismiss him. Efficiency and order gives Americans the time and freedom to enjoy to flavors of life. What does he know? He’s never been to the U.S.! But unorthodoxy runs in my blood. Just because I know one way doesn’t mean there is another way. And, I must learn this other way before I can know which one is the best. But how do I knowingly abandon order?
Grades here are important, but I am hardly expected to perform well. I am one of the worst students in my class. Oh, I know my French grammaire backwards and forwards, but I can hardly speak or understand French. I am constantly making stupid mistakes in class. Yesterday a girl was giving a speech and she asked a question. I thought she was asking to the other students to answer, so I responded, in my best French. Everyone starred at me awkwardly before the girl said, “La question n’est pas pour toi.” Of course. She was listing the question she was going to ask French people for her exposé. I just can’t understand French. Fortunately I felt some need to talk, so I made sure everyone else in the class understood that too. Isn’t great to make all of your peers aware of your failings? I have become a child again. I am unable to communicate, making the simplest mistakes, but I lack a parent. Instead, I have the lingering values and ego of an intelligent woman who used to attend a university in Oklahoma. I am left only to long again for the time when I am respected by others and self-assured.
posted by Jesi E. at 11:46 AM
2 Comments:
Though what you are experiencing is difficult, how blessed you are to have the opportunity to have achieved a level of success in one arena and then to enter a completely different, yes foreign, arena and begin the climb again.
Too often people do not challenge themselves - they become moderately skilled at a limited number of things, in a limited number of situations and there they stay. It is almost like mastering the rooms of their own home but never leaving the building for the world outside.
This collection of experiences, this breaking down of your ego, the pressure on your self-confidence is priceless and will lead to a bigger, broader understanding of the world and the people who live here. You will succeed - and you will have the chance to yet again be confident in your ability to communicate.
What an incredible post! How amazing and how horrible at the same time.
You should tell your class that the reason you can't speak french well is because they speak too much english. That way, they will only speak french, thereby making your study worthwhile!
Genius, right?
-- Joel
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