wo wo wo!

WOW. How fast time flies. I cannot believe that it's May, that this is our last week, that I've somehow made it through this crazy semester.

The feeling of wow! (or, the Luganda version, wo wo wo!) is overwhelming me as I think back on the past year and the past semester. I feel that I've traversed quite a distance. Looking back on my first blog post of the year, I was energized and still deeply affected by the experience of summer study in Kampala. I think I was largely able to harness that energy and build on it in order to keep my motivation high all year long, though of course there were low points. This year I was able to expand my learning activities in some interesting ways, and I was more disciplined about spending time on language study. I spent many hours on Skype talking with my language mentor, and I used my friend networks for practice - a lot. I expanded my vocabulary and improved my reading and listening skills. And I deepened my commitment to Luganda- I can't imagine life without it now.

After getting through this final week of work, I am looking forward to the summer and another 7 weeks of study in Kampala. I have a lot of work to do to get to the next level of Luganda, but I'm confident that intensive study will help me get there. I'm excited to be back with my Ugandan friends and the Uganda Crafts artisans, and I'm sure I have lots of new friends in my future. But first - I must successfully complete this week and the numerous final papers that lie ahead.

This past week was a pretty good one for me. I was able to put in some good studying every day. I hit a snag when my language mentor texted me that he was home sick on Friday, and so I missed out on conversation practice (we'd been planning on doing a two-hour session that day). But I did my best to make up for it with two hours of somewhat intensive studying. I tried to direct some of my attention last week to my final Luganda assessment, so I've been working on getting my past participles down and also really focusing on vocabulary. It's been helpful - I can see my accuracy improving over time.

Here is what the week looked like in terms of activities:
Tuesday: Created a lesson and worksheet for my website, listened to the radio for an hour, did 100 words on Quizlet.
Wednesday: Watched 15 minutes of the Jesus film, Quizlet
Thursday: 100 words on Quizlet, listened to the radio for two hours
Friday: 2 hours of lesson work and reading a grammar book, 100 Quizlet words
Saturday: 100 Quizlet words, 1.5 hours listening to the radio
Sunday: Quizlet, wrote an email to friends
Monday: Quizlet, 1 hour studying verbs, texted with a friend

Finally, a little story. On Sunday evening, I wrote an email to my friends at Uganda Crafts letting them know my plans for the summer. The email was written completely in Luganda (and without consulting a dictionary). I'm sure it had many errors because of this, but I wanted to just send something off to them showing an accurate snapshot of my progress. The first word in the reply I received the next day?

"WOW!!!!!!!"

So, my progress isn't just in my head, but it's apparent to my Ugandan friends too.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be learning this language and for the support of the community I have around me - especially my comrades-in-vocal chords, the other students of the multilanguage seminar.

Wo wo wo, indeed.


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