Spanish.

My classes begin today at Metropol escuela de Espanola where I will be studying Spanish four hours a day five days a week. I’m excited about school. I’m such a shameless student. I laid out my clothes just like I did before my first day of the first grade with my patent leather shoes and my new lunch box. I hope the teacher will like me.

First day of class and its all in Spanish. My teacher is a gorgeous, sassy Spaniard with perfect pronunciation. Her name is Raquel. I am the only Americana in the class and I love that. So many different countries are represented. People speak French, German, Dutch Filipino, Irish English, and British English. I love all these people, automatically and unconditionally.

I am struggling though. I feel like when I was young and I rode around in the car trying to read the billboards listening to my big sister read them wondering if I was ever going to be able to make out this magic code. I haven’t felt so starved for comprehensions since. There is a Spanish bookstore next to my school and on breaks I go in and look at all the books hoping everyone will think I am a native speaker.
I don’t think I’m fooling anyone.