Aloha mis amigos!
Have you ever seen writing in an alphabet you cannot read or heard music that sounds like utter gibberish?
If not, you are living a very isolated life, my friend.
In year seven of school, I had to choose a language to learn. I had three options: Spanish, French, or Latin. Everyone took Spanish and French–Latin was for the weirdos and nerds. My heart yearned to study the French language, but, alas, my parents told me I could learn either the dead tongue of Virgil or Spanish. I had no interest in Spanish. I remember watching taco commercials on TV with the generic Mexican-sounding narrator saying”Muy bien!” and “Delicioso!” If I had to choose, I would choose Latin with the weirdos, I decided.
I made a mistake. I was subjected to translating stories about people named Marcus and Sextus (oh, yes, the middle schoolers though that name was hysterical.) We spent, like, ten chapters translating about how a carriage got stuck in a ditch on the Via Appia and I was bored to tears.
Somehow, I fell in love with Spanish. No idea how it happened, but the summer before year eight I bought a Spanish song off iTunes, wrote the lyrics down, memorized every rolled “r” and accent in those words, and taught myself more Spanish in a few months than all my friends had learned in a year of taking the class in school. I tested into the class with only a few months left of my eighth year.
Apparently I had some uncanny ability to transform gibberish into words or something. It’s kind of funny how I ended up hating French for a while after that. Life is weird.
~Withering Thyme~ 