My Heart Breaks Open

I'm watching "The Namesake" tonight while I work. The movie speaks about the troubles of growing up a first-generation American and trying to balance between deep cultural traditions and the American way of life. My mom is from Germany so I feel a lot of connection to the themes in the movie.

But there is something more about this movie. This movie hit me on a lot of levels. Seeing how Kal Penn treats his parents as they get older, disrespecting them when they clearly love him. And then his changing relationship with them. I worry all the time about how my kids will treat me and perceive me as they age and I do too. I hope they love me. I hope I am close to them and they know how important they are to me.

And then there's a whole other level to the movie that I do not understand. Every movie about India, and I mean every movie, has broken open my heart. And I cried. I can't explain it. It as if something inside me springs forth with joy with only the thought of the place or the sight. I know it is not some perfect place. I've seen the pictures. I've talked with my friends, and I know that there is much there that is bad. But still...

I don't know why this happens, and I don't know that I ever will. I don't know that I ever want to know. And sometimes it scares me. I have read about people who have idolized India and I don't think I am one of those people. I don't want to be one of those people. I don't want my identity to be subsumed by a whole nation. I want to be my own person not identified by one thing, and I feel like I am sometimes. But none of those thoughts stop me from breaking down whenever I see something about India.

Thoughts on my own Death

I just finished up a post about the album "Haunted" by Poe on Last.fm. The album crushes my heart every time I hear it because of the end. It is a gentle lullaby sang by Poe to her deceased father with recordings from her father talking to his kids when they were little.

Being a father I'm so deeply and personally attached my children (normal) but to the point that sometimes at night I think about the million things I could have done with my kids and the fact that I didn't get to. I think about the fact that I have to travel to work tomorrow and I could die and never see them again. I think about the fact that I could be at work and something could happen to them, and I yelled at them today. I spanked Owen. I flit through the untold horrors that could befall us all and cry. I weep like a child out of regret and fear and anger and disappointment. I weep in the middle of the night out of terror. For no reason at all.

I lost my father when I was 16 and I know how damned hard it is, and I can't bear to think about my own children having to go through that when I pass away. It is perverse that the one thing I wish I could help them with the most, the one thing I wish I could shield them from and keep them away from is the very thing that takes me from them.

More on Learning Spanish

¡Hola todos!  I've really thrown myself into learning Spanish and I wanted to let you know that I'm having a lot of fun.  I really like learning new languages so that's not a surprise.  However, I am kind of surprised by how easy it's been so far.  I don't think that Spanish is necessarily an easy language to learn, but I haven't really been having any problems.  I think that's as much a testament to some of the tools I've had at my disposal.

First and foremost I've been using Busuu.com, which I spoke about before at some length.  But I've also been using two podcasts which I've really been enjoying.  

The first is SpanishPod, which is part of Praxis Language Ltd.  They broadcast out of Shanghai, China, but the podcast is done by an American Spanish teacher from Seattle, JP, and two native speakers from Mexico, Leo and Liliana.  The podcast is funny, it's professionally done, and they produce a LOT of content.  They have different channels available on their website, Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced, Advanced Media, two video podcasts, including one on grammar, and a cultural podcast that is done in both Spanish and English, and a question and answer podcast done in both Spanish and English to expand on the vocabulary.  They even run a Mexican radio soap opera that's very funny and campy voiced by the hosts themselves.  But it doesn't end there.  They have a large community of listeners who lurk on the forums and help people out and the hosts go on the forums to answer questions from listeners as well.  They also provide extension vocabulary and quizzes to help you remember what you've studied.  You can access portions of the site for free, but have to pay for the rest.  It's been valuable enough that I am going to pay for the basic membership.

The other is Coffee Break Spanish.  Coffee Break Spanish is part of the Radio Lingua Network and broadcasts out of Scotland.  Like a lot of things Scottish, Belle and Sebastian, the Vaselines, etc, it is a touch twee, but not overly so.  Where SpanishPod is more flashy and lively and vibrant, Coffee Break Spanish is more gentle and quiet.  Neither one is necessarily better, at least in this case.  Coffee Break Spanish has two hosts, Mark and Kara, who are both Scottish.  Marc is a Spanish teacher, and Kara is a beginner (or was when the podcast started last year) and learns along with the listener.  It is sometimes amusing to listen to because their Scottish accents are awesome, and do occasionally sneak through, but Mark is a clearly a patient teacher and will repeat the pronounciations a few times until Kara gets it right, which helps me get it right as well.  Coffee Break Spanish also offers a set of additional materials, extended vocabulary, and extra podcasts to reinforce the language.  They also offer downloadable flashcards of the language you can put on your iPod to use while listening to the podcasts, something SpanishPod does not offer.  It's offered differently however: in an ala carté fashion where you buy the additional materials you want instead of a monthly subscription.  Part of the problem here is it can quickly add up to buy what you want, especially because the prices are in British Pounds, which at the current exchange rate means that the £20 you'd spend for the additional materials on lessons 1-10 would cost you more than $36.  Still, the basic podcast for Coffee Break Spanish will always be free on iTunes, and that's good enough for me now.

I'm planning to stick with this for a while.  I haven't given up on maintaining my Hindi or my German, but as an addition to those skills.  I think it's good to be multilingual, and I hope that it will encourage my kids to learn multiple languages.  I also hope that it will insulate me from any possible instability in the market.  I'm seeking any advantage I can get.

Someone Take My Kids Please

I feel like a failure as a parent today.  We went bowling with friends we haven't seen in a while, so the kids were excited, and it bubbled up in some really bad behavior.  The kids were all over the lanes, pushing each other, dropping bowling balls, laying down in front of other people's lanes, yelling.  It was horrible, and embarrassing in a big way.  

My kids are always a little rambunctious and energetic.  They are spirited, and sometimes they have a really bad attitude, but today it was like watching an episode of "Nanny 911".  People kept glancing at me as I kept yelling at them to move, to sit down, to stop misbehaving.  What I should have done was removed them from the bowling alley and not let them play anymore.  But I didn't honestly think about that then.  I don't know why.

The more distance I get from it, the more upset and embarrassed I get.  And I hate feeling like this.

Soccer Practice Yesterday!

I ran my first soccer practice yesterday.  It went very well.  I've got 9 kids on my team, including my two, and we played a lot of games.  I made it clear to the parents that my goal is not to win the World Cup, or even to pressure the kids into winning their games, but rather to teach them the fundamentals of playing soccer and having fun.  One of the things I said clearly was "Even if we lose every single game we play I will consider this season a success if the kids come back for the spring season".

I truly mean that.

And the great thing with coaching at this level (U-6) is that I get to be a big kid.