Little Victories.

At this point, I have walked to school entirely by myself on two, count 'em, two separate occasions in varying degrees of weather. You'd better believe I felt invincible each time. I'm still entirely off my game, don't get me wrong, but at least I can get from A to B.
We had an info sesh today about registration that was peppered with what I would call forceful encouragement to speak Spanish all the time, everywhere, think in Spanish, read in Spanish, shower in Spanish, breathe in Spanish. I am so impressed with CIEE. They seem to have pinpointed the places where students might get lazy or forget how motivated we were before we came here to really be fluent and revert back to English, just floating through the semester. But it's so true - it is absolutely possible to learn an entire language in four months, and I've got about six years backing me up. I really want to try while I'm here, because I really want to kick Spanish's ass. My friend Sarah told me about the girl who stayed in her homestay before her, whom she met when the girl came back to pick up her luggage the other day that she'd left at the homestay while traveling for a few weeks. (That was an abysmal sentence.) Anyway, the girl told Sarah that she began the program in the lowest language level, but was speaking with her senora like she was part of the family by the end of this. It clearly is going to take work. Even though I am still so tempted to just skype all the time, and go to starbucks, and listen to my american music (the irony of the fact that I have listened to Party in the USA every morning is not lost on me), I just have to keep trying. Immersion is no joke, it's exhausting to be sure, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's what I want, it's what I chose back way before I was homesick and vulnerable and surrounded by everything new. Anyway, CIEE has been great. I think it's really going to help me. For some reason, all these great people have come together to teach some dirty Americans how to be a little less American. It's something to take advantage of!