Pressed but not Crushed

Pressed, but not Crushed

In the past, in every learning environment I have been in, I have found myself near the top of the class. Call it luck, call it good genes, call me an over-achiever, or give me more credit than I deserve and call it perseverance, if you wish. For whatever reasons, in elementary school, middle school and high school, I got A’s and maybe a couple of B-pluses. In academics, I never really struggled to catch onto things.  Then came my freshman year of college. Fall semester, among other classes, I took Calculus 1 and Chemistry 101. I got an A in Calculus and a C+ in Chemistry!!  I had never received less than a B in my entire life! I was freaked out. I was devastated. I vowed to get an A in Chemistry the next semester. So, being a motivated over-achiever, I dug in and studied chemistry like crazy. Lo and behold, I got an A in Chemistry the second semester. However, in the meantime, I became completely confused in Calculus. My Calc. grade for second semester was…drum roll please…a C+. I just didn’t “get it”. For the first time in my life I found myself fighting to understand things and asking other students for help. I was used to being at the top and this was very humbling for me.  I was used to being the helper not the “helpee”.

To make a long story short, that was the last math class I ever took. I went on to enjoy myself more and get better grades in other subjects like biology, psychology, and literature. However, I still have nightmares of sweating my way through Calculus tests.

Fast-forward about 30 years. I am sitting in a classroom. I have the urge to cry. More than that, I want to walk out of the room. My head literally hurts from straining to comprehend the subject that is being taught. Only this time it isn’t really a problem of understanding “concepts”. Instead, it’s as if everything is in another language. Oh, wait…everything IS in another language!

Three hours a day, five days a week, you will find my butt parked in a chair at a language school, where I am trying (and hopefully learning) to speak and write and understand the French language. The last time I “officially” took a French class, Jimmy Carter was still President of the United States and John Lennon was still alive. But somehow, maybe due to some freak happenstance or odd alignment of the planets, I apparently managed to get a decent score on my entry exam and I have been placed in a class with students who seem far above my level of proficiency. In this room, for 15 hours a week, the English language is verboten. Oh…wait a minute, that’s German. What I mean is, there is NO ENGLISH allowed in the classroom. So, the teacher gives all the instructions in French. The students all converse in French. The answers must be given in French. Questions must be asked in French. Words fly by me like leaves off the trees on a blustery fall day. I catch a few of them but most of them fall around me indecipherable to my untrained ear. If I let my mind wander for even a moment, my train of thought will be completely derailed and I feel like I’m back in Calculus 2. Instead of integrals, asymptotes, differential equations and logarithms, there are definite and indefinite articles, direct and indirect objects, adjectives, adverbs, masculine and feminine nouns, personal pronouns, regular and irregular verbs, indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods, etc., etc. In English, these things are not a mystery to me, but put them in French, and as the French would say, “Oh, la, la”.
(SIDE NOTE: As Americans, we think the phrase “Oh la, la.” has some sort of sensual connotation, but in reality it is more like saying “Uffda!” in Norwegian or “Oy Veh!” in Yiddish, or basically, “OHHHHH NOOOOO!”)

Somehow, by studying a lot, I have managed to do pretty well on the written exams in my class. However, if I go to the grocery store, I cannot understand the clerk. If I go to the outdoor market, I am baffled by what the venders say to me. It’s comical, really. As soon as I look confused, they generally ask me if I speak German, because of our proximity to the border with Germany, I assume. When I say I speak English, they do one of two things: 1) They happily switch to English immediately, which is a drag for me because then I don’t get to practice my French, or 2) They shake their heads and seemingly begin speaking even faster in French, which is also a drag for me because if I couldn’t understand them before, how can I understand them at warp speed?

We have only been here for a little over a month, and I know that my French is getting better, but still it is disheartening. I wish it would just be easier. It’s hard feeling “out of it” a lot of the time. It’s tiring to go to the store or the bank or the post office and try to communicate in a foreign language. It’s embarrassing to not know what the person on the tram just said to me. It’s difficult to sit in class for three hours a day, trying to catch all those words blowing by me, and also attempt to put a few intelligible sentences together. It is humbling (maybe even humiliating) to feel, in a word, “stupid”.

Did God drag me halfway across the world just so I could feel stupid? I don’t think so. I hope not. But maybe He brought me some 5,000 miles to help me gain compassion for those who struggle to learn. Perhaps He did it to so I could appreciate the complexities of another language and culture. Maybe He did it to teach me to rely on Him and not my own abilities or to learn perseverance and develop my character. Most likely, it’s for all of those reasons, and a whole lot more.

I’m looking forward to understanding more of what is going on around me, and to feeling more comfortable in this new place. I’m even looking forward to learning a few more verb tenses so I can quit talking like a caveman. :-)

In the meantime, I take comfort in these words from the Apostle Paul:

“We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed…”

(2 Corinthians 4:8-9)

“Nous sommes pressés de toutes parts, mais non écrasés; inquiets mais non désespérés; pérsecutés mais non abandonnés; abattus, mais non anéantis…”
(2 Corinthiens 4.8-9)