...more recent posts
Saturday, Nov 03, 2001
Motivación
2 Noviembre, 2001
For most people, learning a new language is a difficult thing. Having a strong motivation, such as wanting to travel, learn about another culture, or eat, can be quite helpful to the process.
The carnivore expedition and travel to remote quarters in Argentina were designed to provide motivation to stretch my limited Spanish. By the end of the trip, I was amazed with my ability to have simple conversations. As long as the topic was limited to things like animal trapping, bus routes or related topics, I did okay.
The three grad students on the Argentine team have limited English, but were eager to practice. The three volunteers have varying degrees of knowledge of Spanish (from poco to poquito), but were also eager to practice. Hiding from the rain in a tent for hour on end gave us plenty of opportunity to have conversations in bad English and bad Spanish. Sometimes it took the six of us to get all the words straight in a particular sentence.
This close order drill in Spanish prepared me to venture to the northwest. In Buenos Aires, you can fumble through with a tiny Spanish vocabulary. You can almost always find someone who speaks a bit of English. But in the interior, English doesn't go very far.
Traveling in the Jujuy (who-hooey) province with my new friend, Mary from the north of Scotland, I suddenly became the bi-lingual expert. We arrived at the hectic omnibus terminal in the town of Jujuy about 9:00 PM with a mission to get on a bus to Libertador General San Martin.
Mary wasn't sure of the name of the bus line serving Libertador. My 3-year old guidebook gave the name of a bus line we couldn't seem to find. The terminal is served by about 7 major bus lines, plus a few minor carriers, and the terminal was abuzz. We went from window to window asking for the bus to San Martin, but the town we wanted is known as Libertador. Mary was trying to ask questions in Spanish so broken I only understood because I knew what she wanted to say. On top of it all, the accent in the northwest is considerably different from the Buenos Aires accent I had just learned.
Eventually, we found the right bus, reserved rooms for the night, and made our way to Libertador. The thought of being stuck in Jujuy and missing a rendezvous at Libertador with two other travelers kicked my Spanish up a notch or two.
While in Argentina, one of the grad students caught my eye. She's warm, expressive and has a lust for life. But her English is quite rough -- about as bad as my Spanish. I didn't get a chance to talk with her much. Somehow my Spanish faltered a bit when I wanted say something to her.
I got a friendly email from her a couple days ago, in English. She obviously put some effort into the letter. To write a reply in Spanish, I carefully selected and bought two reference books, labored over vocabulary, struggled through present indicative, imperfect indicative, preterite, future and participle conjugations. I dodged the subjunctive, muddled my way through a couple reflexive verbs, spent time sorting out a few idioms, and tried to work in some Rio de la Plata regionalisms.
Motivation is a powerful thing.
Di Fi
November 2, 2001
Well, I finally got a response from Feinstein to my "let's keep God out of this" letter. Glad to see she took the time to address my concerns.
From: senator@feinstein.senate.gov
Subject: Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 22:55:29 -0500
October 31, 2001
Thank you so much for contacting me to share your thoughts and concerns. As I am sure you know, letters containing anthrax disrupted Congress by forcing the closure of the House and Senate office buildings. We are also deeply saddened to learn of the deaths and illnesses of Postal workers and other innocent victims infected by anthrax.
Through these trying times, the Capitol has remained open and legislative work is continuing. Also, some of the other office buildings are being reopened. Unfortunately, it appears the Hart Senate Office Building, which is where my office is located, may remain closed for an undetermined length of time. During this period, I am working out of a one-room office with many of my staff in the basement of the U.S. Capitol with only one computer having access to our Senate network.
In the average week, we receive approximately 30,000 letters and e-mails, but the mail is being held up by the Capitol police pending the establishment of a better screening process. And even when the mail service is resumed, because of the closure of my Senate offices, it is simply not possible to respond individually to the letters and e-mail I am continuing to receive.
Because of these unprecedented events, I have asked my constituents who require a specific response, need assistance with a Federal agency or have a specific request for information, to call or write one of my California offices. The lead staff member at each office is listed below along with the address and telephone. I plan to have a conference call every day with my California offices specifically to be updated on the issues raised by these calls and letters and staff will continue to respond to specific casework requests.
And while it is not possible at this time for me to respond precisely to the issues and questions you have raised in your letter, I thought you might be interested in what is happening in Congress and what is apt to happen in the coming weeks.
Currently, we are in the process of completing the remaining appropriations bills that provide the funding for most of what the Federal government does, be it health care, transportation projects, defense, foreign affairs or law enforcement.
As chair of the Technology, Terrorism and Government Information Subcommittee and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I have been actively involved in legislative efforts to strengthen our country's defenses against terrorism and I hope to see passage of measures to provide protection on our airlines, at our ports of entry and from bioterrorism. I am also hopeful that a new economic stimulus package will be approved, providing a careful balance of tax cuts and financial relief.
Finally, I want to thank you for your patience and understanding at this time of great certainty. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Below is a list of my California offices and contact information:
San Francisco
One Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
Russ Lowe, Office Manager
415-393-0707
Los Angeles
11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 915
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Guillermo Gonzalez, Acting State Director
310-914-7300
Fresno
1130 "O" Street, Suite 2446
Fresno, CA 93721
Juliette de Campos, Office Manager
559-485-7430
San Diego
750 "B" Street
San Diego, CA 92101
Mike Richmond, Office Manager
619-231-9712
Let's all pull together and get through this.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
http://feinstein.senate.gov