I had a long talk with a young thoughtful woman named Lena from Bulgaria, and she was asking about my life in Los Angeles. âEvery time I come to Denmark,â I told her, âI feel a belonging that I havenât really felt in years. Honestly, Iâm not sure if itâs that I do belong here, or that itâs just such a stark difference from the sixteen years I spent not belonging in Los Angeles.â Itâs a hard city to find your place, your people or your purpose, and after years of striking out, you start to think that those simple things arenât for you. At Askov those things feel within my grasp. âLos Angeles is only one city in the huge state of California,â I promised her, âItâs so much more.â I told her about the coast, the sequoias, the mountains, the Pacific Crest Trail, and all the produce they grow in the central valley. All of it is California. When I told her it took me seven-and-a-half hours to drive to my parentsâ property, her jaw dropped.
âAnd youâre still in California?â
âOh yeah, and it could take you another seven hours to get to the Oregon border.â
This idea blew her mind. She told me that it would only take five hours to drive through the entire country Bulgaria. Iâve noticed this about a few of the people here. I donât think they really comprehend how far away I live from New York, and it surprises them that I donât know the geographical details of the East Coast. But I told Lena that it was weird for me to imagine if each of our states spoke a different language. Can you imagine? What if Nevada, Oregon and Washington all spoke a different language? Thatâs what itâs like for Europeans, so they treat language study much differently than the US does.
Most students here start by speaking their native language and English. âWe have to learn English,â Lena told me, âbecause nobody else speaks Bulgarian.â Then the go on the their first foreign language, which for Lena was Norwegian. Danish is almost always a second foreign language, because âOnly Denmark and maybe ten other people speak Danish,â Lena joked. When I told her how regretful I was that I didnât take more language classes, she guessed that I had more time for other electives. They take their language classes in a whole separate school. They arrived at 8am and didnât leave til 6pmâstudying the same language the entire time. I took high school French twice a week for an-hour-and-a-half. Lena laughed. Of course I wasnât going to master a language that way.
âBut you were able to pursue your acting, writing and art,â she pointed out. I hadnât really thought about the amount of time itâs taken these people to learn these languages and compared it to how I might have spent that same time. Donât get me wrong, I still wish I would have committed myself to language study earlier in life, but Lena brought a perspective that I hadnât considered. First, American language classes come up far too short for any level of mastery, and students have more time to spend pursuing extracurriculars. God knows I had my fair share!
Iâm going to cut this short, because I still have some homework to get through tonight. I canât believe weâre almost halfway done. Itâs going by too fast. Until tomorrow, Vi ses.