C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, says of friendship that, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” Indeed, in reflecting on my life as it has transpired thus far, I find myself struck by a pattern of emptiness in my life owing to loneliness–a lack of value in my survival–due to what might be described as cultural and social incompetencies. These incompetencies, owing to my upbringing away from my extended family, as well as my continued struggles with Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and its resulting chronic depression, are not without means of improvement, however. Among these means of improvement is the upcoming OCC trip to Madrid, …show more content…
Growing up a state away from my extended Puerto Rican family, isolated in the extreme due to my SAD, and living in a household unable to foster a fully Spanish-immersed environment due to one of my parents not speaking the language, I never fully acquired the language as a child. Since then, I have applied myself to the endeavor of reconnecting with my cultural heritage through my people’s tongue, studying the language since seventh grade. The study of Spanish culture and language in Spain itself would then represent the next step in reconnecting with this aspect of my identity, as the course in which I am registered, SPA-299, or Spanish Conversation and Composition, would be my first classroom encounter focused primarily on the advancement of my conversational and compositional abilities, thus meeting the immediate goal of furthering my fluency in and facility with the Spanish …show more content…
My goals in both of these areas have always been shaped by my love of language, English and otherwise. As a child, I would pride myself on looking up new words to pepper throughout my everyday speech, as well as in drawing upon my Hispanic heritage to come up with new, childish insults to tell my few friends about at the lunchroom table. As I grew older, my affinity for both English and Spanish often attracted the attention of my instructors, who, often specializing in one or the other, would insist that I should consider either of the two languages as I went forward into my secondary education and subsequent career. After some years of introspection, however, I decided that I cannot privilege one over the other in either my education or my future career, instead deciding that my ideal work would involve elements from both languages and cultures. With regard to my academic career, this dual-emphasis would manifest itself in literary analysis of sources from both languages, and in examination of the interplay between language and societal constructs such as class, race, gender, and ability in literature from these languages. The OCC Madrid trip, then, for me represents a furtherance in my ability to analyze literature in this capacity, as the class I am