Author Archives: wjjones

Started Wide Open… Still Wide Open

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So this is weird. Everybody else gets to write all kinds of sentimental reflections about their time at UMass and I still have another year to go. That being said, a lot of stuff has gone on in the last year so I’ll see what I can come up with.

One year ago I was just finishing up SPAN 240. I was a declared Spanish major but hadn’t gotten to any real courses, never mind have any idea what I was going to do with my degree. The only certainty I had was my semester abroad in Montevideo, Uruguay in the fall of ’13. My time there was unforgettable and as cliché as I can sound, it was the best 5 months of my life. My host family, I swear, is the nicest family in all of Uruguay; I had two great host parents that helped me with everything I needed and were always up for a chat at any time of day, and four host sisters and one brother who were all relatively close to my age. Staying there was the best part of my trip. Continue reading →

I Wish I Was an Intern in Miami

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So today David Beckham announced his plans to start an MLS franchise in Miami. I think this is great for the sport and the league but I was watching the press conference and noticed a reporter who asked a question in Spanish. This is obviously not a surprise in Miami but I wanted to point out what I saw as a mistake by the interpreter. Check out this video at around the 45:30 minute mark. The reporter asks a question about including diverse ‘American’ backgrounds in the new members of the Miami team. I believe that the reporter was more interested in the Latin American representation in the club because the Latin American people and culture are what makes Miami, Miami. Nothing huge but I found it interesting, check out the video and let me know what you think.

Chau

Two Weeks of Ignorance

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Buen día a todos, espero que todo vaya bien.

I’m 8 days away from my Uruguayan tourist visa running out which means I’m 8 days away from the 3 month mark of my stay in Montevideo. Like Siobhan has mentioned a few times, the time flies, so take advantage of it, I can only imagine how fast her one month program went! For any future generation students reading this a one month program is a great experience, a semester is an awesome experience but the best has to be the year long program. I was planning on the one year plan down here in Montevideo but I’m going to be mixing up my academics a little bit back at UMass which means I have to get back home after just a semester. At first I was excited because I had been feeling overwhelmed by the idea of a year down here, but now that I’ve been here for almost three months I feel settled. Continue reading →

Really Interesting Take on Second Languages

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A friend of mine posted this article on Facebook today. She has traveled pretty extensively in Eastern Europe, spending a year in Romania and this past semester in Austria so she’s gone through the new language process a few times. I read the article and although it can be at times a little more philosophical than I was thinking it is a really interesting take on the transformation that we’re all going through. Check it out!

Having been here in Montevideo for two weeks now I definitely understand where the author is coming from. When you first arrive in a new place with a new language, even if you’ve been taking classes for years, you feel like an infant. You have no idea how to express yourself, you don’t know what to call things, and communicating with locals is humiliating. However, piece by piece you start to reinvent your language skills from the very very bottom. (He talks about reinventing  yourself completely which might have been true in the past but now I have too many attachments to my English speaking world with other English speaking students, Facebook, email, etc. that I’m developing a new part of myself, not a new self) It’s also promising to hear the author talk about all these authors that started a new language and became esteemed authors because it can be difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel amidst all this incompetence. He was definitely right when he said “Changing languages is not for the fainthearted, nor for the impatient”.

Here we go…

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I’m about to go to bed for my first night in Montevideo, UY and what a day… I didn’t think that flying was going to be too bad but after getting off a 3 hr flight from Boston to Miami and having to rush right onto my 9 hr flight to Montevideo I think it’s safe to say I hate flying, for the time being at least.

What’s hit me the most today is the reality of culture shock. We talked about it in class and I read about it and checked out the culture exercises that Grace put up on Moodle last semester, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this. Ever since I got in line boarding my flight from Miami to Montevideo I have been a minority. Not necessarily in skin color but absolutely in language and culture. Frankly it’s terrifying. I thought I was going to be able to hold my own with my Spanish, that was wrong. Listening to these people (or any native speakers I would think) is so far from a classroom, even Luis, that it’s like everyone is speaking Swahili. I think I’ve found that the best way to get through this is to completely swallow your pride. I have never been on an international flight before so right off the plane in Montevideo I had no clue where to go. I must have asked six different people directions between getting to customs (40 feet in front of my face), getting through customs, getting my baggage, scanning my baggage again, and then finding the exit (again right in front of my face) and getting in my taxi to go to the university. Continue reading →

Pre-Departure Ponderings

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So even though school’s been out for over a month and I still don’t ship out to Uruguay for another 5 weeks I have to say that I miss this group and the support and advice we shared with each other. It seems that now, more than ever, I need advice on how to go about getting ready but I’ll manage.

The worst part about being home, and being away from this group, is the closed-minded-ignorance of practically everyone I talk to about traveling. Everybody asks me how stable it is where I’m going and if I’m going to be safe and if I’m really going to try to backpack South America for 2 months and it just seems ridiculous. Continue reading →