Si pensamientos o lenguaje empieza primero

Today, the world back home was sleeping peacefully, just as they do every other Monday night at 2am. However, in Catalunya, it was 9 am on a Tuesday morning, and I was sitting in class. I take eleven extra hours of Spanish classes a week in my institute. Because of this, I am generally accustomed to hearing the same lessons over and over again. However, what I heard that Tuesday morning, gave me an amount of insight that some people will never have. The class had been discussing a collective book of poems. The teacher began discussing how the poets wrote about their lives, how they could use language to show their life story and who they had become. She continued the discussion by begging the question; did language or thought come first? At first, I concluded that thought began first. I like to think that I was born thinking and analyzing the world around me. However, she further questioned, “If thought happens first, what do you think in? Numbers? Colors? You were not born knowing any language.” I assume that maybe one could think with emotions, but I do not remember a time in which I did not know language. For this reason, I can not say with certainty which came first. Maybe I will never uncover which came first. However, that debate seemed infinitely less important in comparison to what she said next. She said, “Language had to have come first. It is how we learn and grow; It is how we learn who we are. The more skilled and knowledgeable one becomes in his or her language, the more insightful and matured one grows. This is a process that begins in one’s childhood.” I have probably heard a lecture similar to this before. Yet, living in a foreign country and listening to a lecture in Spanish, it really hit home this time around. I thought of the millions of exchange students around the world that come home with newly found passions, discovered careers, and developed maturity. I thought of the large new vocabulary of Spanish and Catalan words that I have to explain to my friends back home “simply can not be translated.” I thought of the quote, “To know another language is to own another soul.” In conclusion, I believe that this has to be one of the keys, not only in the life of an exchange student, but in the world. The more educated we become, not only in our language, but in those of other countries as well, the better we will understand who we are and how to express our thoughts. Anyone looking for his or herself will only be able to do so with the help of some form of language. Whether it was language or thoughts that came first, it can be concluded that their use is what will lead one to self discovery.

ffff

I need to write again tonight. I need to give up my piece of advice. But it is not so much as good advice, as a command. A command to live by. Not something you should concider starting to do, but something you should have always been doing, as habitual as closing your eyes before you sleep. You need to do things that you don't like to do. And you need to do them extravagantly. You need to go for everything. Feel everything. Take the chance. Yes, I have something specific in mind, a hook up that i ignored basically and now looking back, i wish i had spent more time with him, maybe got his number, maybe be with him right now. But instead I just ran away. I am such ass, i am such an idiot. i am so dumb. Like good people come in your life sometimes. And you let them go. Just. i dont know right now. I feel like i can look proactively at the world today. And I have noticed that some people back at home, i have no idea why i'm friends with them. and others, i have no idea why i am not. And I think, what if i wasn't so awkward, what if I just approached people, decided to be their friend (or more than friends) and went after what I wanted while it was in my grasp. I'm not going to sit here today and reach back into the past, there is only nonsense in that. I am here to learn and grow and leave the past behind. But, from this point forward, I have to just go out on a limb with everybody. I don't know. I don't know if this makes sense. I'm just really dissapointed in what happened. And I don't know why I was so dumb and didn't go after what I now want to badly, even if it wasn't what I knew I wanted at the time.

One thing that Spain has taught me is emotion. I have learned to feel everything differently. I can feel with more passion. And maybe it is because of things I've done, boys I've kissed, culture aspects, or language differences. But I feel like I've learned, you should never do anything that doesn't thrill you, because life is 100x too short to do anything but what makes you completely happy. Its a feeling that you deserve, and should always have. In fact, you should always feel, happy, loved, and free. And many times in life you will not be given the best condicions to feel these emotions, but feeling is more about a mind set, then a point in time. Yes, where you are will affect you, but it shouldn't bring you down. And if it does, you better emphasize that sadness and romantisize it. You better let it take over your whole soul and turn into beauty, turn into a story, turn into sweet emotions of freedom, happyness, and love. I don't know if that last part made sense. Because it kind of doesnt. but what I mean, is passion. Passion, and romantisism are the key. Romantisism implys that things are infinite. and the feeling of infinancy is one of the best ones you will every feel, the best one you could ever live by.