I've been picking up Spanish so much more quickly than I expected to, I feel really excited about it! I mess up my grammar constantly, but pretty much I can understand and communicate anything I need to... especially if people are willing to talk slowly. I think that living with a host family has helped a lot with that, as did the week of Spanish language school at ICADS.

I feel like the language networks in our brains are like these overlapping worlds... sometimes when I am searching for a word in Spanish, I come up with the French. Or the Pig Latin (that did happen once. Actually the word I spoke was a French-Pig Latin hybrid). But the Spanish pathways are getting stronger, and sometimes I find myself being able to just spit it out rapid fire and I feel so proud and excited about it! Like I can actually communicate with people. It's an amazing feeling. I also think that one of the main reasons I'm able to do this now is that I've traveled in Central American countries several times before, so I've been immersed in the language for another 3-4 months of my life besides this one. And every time you immerse yourself, it becomes easier and you get more right, and you dig a deeper well of words to draw from, and you strengthen the rope you use to pull up the words you need (ha. analogy.)

I loved the Spanish language school at ICADS, and thought it was extremely valuable... about 4 hours per day of speaking Spanish conversationally, with some grammar and vocabulary practice thrown in as deemed necessary by the teacher. Great experience, and I was in a group with Angela and an awesome teacher and 2 funny older guys from Vancouver and London, which made it even better.

The other awesome thing about this is that it'll increase my confidence when we get back to the States, working with ELLs... really really excited for that.

We're alll picking it up fast, since we've been thrown right in.