Dos anos de Espanol

Y todavilla, no puedo hablar muy bien.

(Two years of Spanish and I still can't speak very well.)

There's a quote from Winston Churchill about WW2 which I find fitting my life quite often:  "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

I'm one class and one final presentation away from completing the 6 terms of foreign language classes required by the graduate program I will be attending in the fall.  I can barely grasp what this means.

I've taken 29 credits of Spanish classes over the past two years!  With the exception of the summer term I took off, I've had classes two nights a week since June of 2010.  I've spent my commutes reviewing flash cards, weeknights completing seemingly endless homework assignments and weekends writing essays.  There have been skits and dialogues and group projects that make me want to tear my hair out.  There have been conjugations up the ying-yang and irregular verbs a plenty.  There have also been a few laughs and I made at least one friend in my classes.

Frankly, I'm exhausted.  

And it's not the end yet, it's not even the beginning of the end.  And in fact it's not even really the end of the beginning.  I'm just inching closer to the starting line of the marathon that will be graduate school.  I have two more per-requisites (Intro to Linguistics and a Grammar class) that I will need to complete before officially beginning classes for my Master's degree in Applied Linguistics.  

But this is the end of my Spanish classes.  After next week all of my studying, all of my homework, and all of my essays will be in my beloved native language!  Which I hope will be at least a bit easier.