Butterflies

This semester, I have challenged myself like no other. I have taken on greater projects, I have attempted new mediums, I have "taken over" social media. But, as if that wasn't enough I've added so much more to my plate (still working on a few more months of time before that reveal). One of those things is upcoming Tower Day at CSU.

Tower Day is an Honor Society function that showcases research projects from the entire school. Apparently this is a place where students get a lot of attention, as do the departments they're representing. None of the projects I've done so far really qualify for this, but because I've got a passion for Languages and I think it's just STUPID (yes I'm being a little immature in my wording) that the Department of Modern and Classical Languages cut the French Track without giving any of the students or professors the respect of being up front with us, much less telling us what we can expect as far as our Majors and Minors are concerned... I decided to just "do" a research project over spring break.

I've been collecting my research since late January and managed to reach my 100 surveys by March. I wrote 14-15 pages (including an additional 3 of references and my survey appendix) and went to submit it for Tower Day, only to find out there's an option for a 20 minute speech presentation of your paper... so I signed up.

What the Hell Hannah?!

So I jumped into the fray with my brain screaming at me the whole time: "20 minutes speaking by yourself? You're crazy, that's almost as long as a sitcom! What are you going to talk about for that long? No one cares about languages anyway! Now look, you've got to come up with PowerPoint's and a speech, don't you have enough to do?

As you can see my internal dialogue has been a little passionate, I'm pretty sure there was some "stronger vocabulary" thrown in there at a few points too. And I'm pretty sure I'm crazy for doing this, and maybe it's a lost cause... but I think learning a second language is important. And just because we can distinguish our Latino and Hispanic neighbors by appearance (think about that one for a little while) we think it's only important to learn one language. But there's a whole world out there of French Speakers, we should have that option. Heck, I say if we can ignite passion in language we should be speaking and teaching a whole heck of a lot more.

Why isn't Japanese big in Columbus? We have AFLAC sitting right there and one of their biggest markets is Japan. Why aren't we interested in learning Korean? We have a huge Korean network in Columbus. How many of our soldiers have been stationed in Germany -at least- once? How many of them have brought home spouses? There's an awful lot of Italian speakers over the river in Alabama, did you know? And back to French... don't think it's just France we're talking about, there are 40-something nations that speak French as a primary or secondary language.

I'm not saying Spanish isn't important, but I never wanted to take Spanish in High School, if I hadn't had other options, I don't think I'd be as passionate about learning a foreign language. People resent it when you take away their choices, and killing an advanced classes program is going to limit our choices. 4 Classes in a foreign language doesn't make you fluent or even give you an idea of what can be achieved! That's just the ABC's of global dialogue.

We NEED to have advanced classes in language and encourage our students to pursue minors in language.

So I'm going to talk about that, in front of a lot of people... about a project I did in a week.... and I'm nervous. But I just have to keep those butterflies to a minimum as I keep going.

... this semester will be over soon.