So apparently this week we’re telling our life stories to the class. In Spanish. Out loud. Standing. With everyone looking.
Cool.
Totally not a nightmare.
The teacher announced it Monday like it was nothing. “It’s good practice,” she said. “You’ll speak for three to five minutes about who you are, why you’re here, what your life is like.”
Three to five minutes. That’s a short time to speak in your native language. In Spanish, it feels like preparing for a TED Talk while underwater and concussed.
Prepping for Disaster
I sat down to write mine Tuesday night. Got about six lines in before spiraling into an existential meltdown. I’d start with “Me llamo Jake,” then stare at the ceiling for ten minutes.
How do you explain your whole reason for being in Spain when you’re still not sure you can properly describe your breakfast?
Eventually, I got something down. Not good, but something. Scribbled on a napkin, typed up messily in my phone. Something about California, surfing, Marisol, my parents living here now, and how I came not just to surf but to learn the language. To change. To grow. I mean—none of that sounds good when I say it in English, let alone translated into verbs I barely understand.
Also somehow I threw in a line about how I’d looked at country houses for sale in Spain because I was dreaming one night and got stuck scrolling this site and thinking, “Maybe someday.” I don’t know why I included that. I said it like it was nothing, but I meant it like something.
Go Time
Thursday, 11:45 a.m. I’m up. I stand. My palms are gross. I forgot everything the second I left my chair.
But I start. “Hola. Me llamo Jake…”
And I keep going.
The sentences are crooked. The grammar’s off. I say “estaba” when I meant “estuve” and confuse “por” and “para” like they’re out to trick me (they are). But I don’t stop. I tell them about surfing. About Marisol in Sydney. About moving here with a vague plan and a full heart and no real idea how language learning works.
I even mention how I started looking at country houses for sale in Spain like some lunatic fantasizing about a cottage with a lemon tree and a broken-down Fiat out front. They laugh. Not at me—just at the idea. It lands.
I talk for four minutes and seventeen seconds, not that I was counting.
Aftermath
When I finish, there’s silence. Then clapping. Real clapping. One guy whistles. Someone shouts “¡Bien hecho!” and I want to fall over and nap for three days.
The teacher corrects a few things. Gives me a thumbs-up. Says I spoke with heart. That means more than perfect conjugations ever will.
Later, over lunch, one of the quieter students says she didn’t know I came here for someone. She tells me about her breakup. In Spanish. I catch every third word, but the emotion’s loud and clear.
I didn’t just survive. I connected.
That’s the point.
No surfing in this one. No wave metaphors. Just words. Hard-earned, broken, brave little words.
Next post: I try to go a full day without using English once. Could be glorious. Could end in mime-based trauma.
We’ll see.