Friday, April 29, 2005

(school) year in review

I had an interesting conversation with my sister-in-law on the way home from choir rehearsal last night. As the school year begins to wind down and our final concert of the year approaches, we had a moment of reflection. SIL, who never sang before joining the choir last September, told me how much easier it was for her to sing now, and she doesn't have as much trouble reaching the high notes as she did when she started. Then we talked about how far the choir itself had come. We sound like a real ensemble now, and I'm really proud to be in this group.

Then SIL shocked the heck out of me: she told me how far she thought I'd come with my French! I was surprised because the last couple of days I've been feeling a bit like I'm not getting anywhere at all, but that may be because my French class is still on vacation and while I'm trying to keep up the pace while studying a bit online, it's just not the same. But she insisted! She pointed out that she doesn't have to explain so much when she talks, and she thinks my vocabularly has vastly improved. When I think back to those early days of riding with her back and forth from the Convervatory, I can definitely see a difference.

I know I still have a long way to go to achieve anything close to fluency, but it's nice to pause for a moment and see how far I've come.

No comments: