It's been awhile...

And just like it always seems to happen, everything else falls by the wayside when classes start up again. For a moment, I was diligent. I found a way to work on what little vocabulary words I could, and it seemed to be working out well. I can still remember numbers and phrases...just haven't been adding anything new lately.

My goal was to get a whole lot better by the time I head to Boston to visit my best friend. I wanted to legitimately be able to speak some Lithuanian so I could make worlds align, in some strange way.

I've wanted a tattoo that says "As tave labai myliu" for a long time. My grandma was from Boston, her parents from Lithuania. I felt and still feel that Boston holds some secrets she wants to share with me.

When she passed away, I couldn't make it through a day without bawling for months. The little things...everything...reminded me of her.

I was taking summer classes, and I believe it was finals week when the news came. I was walking downtown to get to my second class of the day when the phone rang (I can't remember if I called mom or she called me). Grandma had a stroke. I don't remember the details, I just remember the pain. I remember trying to hold back the tears, and I remember thinking how pointless all the classwork seemed from then on out. She got better - I visited her in the hospital and giggled when her nurse came in and asked her to name farm animals, and she listed off ants among other things. She was in a hospital bed, but she was still my granny, still damned perturbed as ever when she couldn't get a question just right, and stubborn as they'd come. She wouldn't let the nurse tell her the answers to math problems until she got them figured out.

I wasn't there when it happened.

I had seen her after she lost her speech, but I just wanted her to get better. I didn't want to leave her, but there was nothing I could do. I was small, insignificant, and helpless. When I looked in her eyes, all I could see was her begging to get out of the ICU, out of the hospital. And there wasn't one thing I could do.

I saw her in the room days later, at that point not my granny anymore. Just waiting. Everyone waiting.

I still think about her every day.

The truth is, I still need her. I need her terribly. I wasn't ready for her to leave then, and I'm still not ready for her to leave now. There are so few people that understand me, and even fewer that know how to listen - the one thing I really need. Those that know how to ask questions and to listen. Those that you can tell about your fifth grade crush or the reason your parents make you so mad. Those that won't judge you and won't tell you what you don't want to hear. Those that help you hear yourself.

I want to tell her that I'm finally going to Boston, and I want to hear her tell me where I should visit, what she remembers. I want to tell her that I have a new kitten, that I wrote for a paper, that I have an internship. I want to tell her all about the stupid things that frustrate me in life, so she can listen and tell me it will all be alright. I want to tell her what an idiot I make of myself and have her put it in perspective.

It will be three years this summer, and I haven't found anyone to fill her place. I haven't found anyone who can be what she was to me.

She won't see my graduation or my wedding, if even on videotape. And that kills me.

Every single day, I want to call her, to talk to her. Every single day, I miss her.

Kas as asu?

Kas as asu? Who am I?

Am I the same person I was when I was seven? Fifteen?

I read a quote in "Telling True Stories" that went something along the lines of "We're all just kids in junior high who happened to have aged." I don't know if that's entirely the case, but it seems like it could be.

I remember thinking in high school that I hadn't changed one bit. That I was still the person I was when I was seven. Now, I'm not so sure. I know the years have changed me in multiple ways, and I know my outlook on a lot of things is quite different. Am I the same person? Probably not.

There was an ad or show on TV that suggested twenty-somethings spend the majority of their time trying to find themselves. I haven't been on a kick worrying about who I am, but I can't say that I haven't been thinking about it. It may just be a by-product of where my mind wanders.

I've started to feel more comfortable in my skin and more aware of who I am. I've been consistently happy for the first time in a very long time, and that's something.

That's not to say that I'm not still terrified of the idea of never landing a job and having no solid income, but I'm hoping someday someone somewhere will hire me. Perhaps knowing Lithuanian will help :)

I still miss my grandma every single day, and I wonder what she would think about me trying to learn Lithuanian. I think she would think it's pretty cool. And I bet she would start to remember certain things if I told her what I was learning.

And I bet she would love my kitten. I'm sure she does.

What's in a name?

I think I've always liked my name, at least from what I can remember. And I liked it even more when I found out I was indeed named after the song "Amie" by Pure Prairie League.

Because my best friend is obsessed with things like weddings and baby names, I too have thought about each on more than one occasion. Baby names especially. But it's so incredibly hard to find the perfect name. For me, the perfect baby name would be one that isn't incredibly popular, but it would be popular enough to have personalized pencils and rulers. Because, let's face it...when you're in third grade, there's nothing cooler than personalized school supplies. And just when you find a name you think you might like, you realize you don't like a nickname that could come from that name. Oh, well. Shouldn't have to be thinking about that too seriously for at least a few more years.

What I do have to think about now is growing up, and the idea absolutely terrifies me. In a little more than a year, I will have graduated college and will need to be looking for a REAL job. With benefits. And it's constantly...first of all, I have no idea what I really want to do, and second, if I do figure out what I want to do, what if I can't get a job doing what I want to do? It's all a big mess of not-knowingness, and I'm pretty sure that's the way it always has been. But it will come and go just like everything else, and hopefully I'll make it out alive.

Today's lesson focused on names, and I tried to use it to get used to pronunciations of words. I'm still a little off at times, so that needs work.

And then there's this whole concept that in Lithuanian, when you greet someone or want to get their attention, the ending of their name changes. Yeesh.

For now, it's bedtime with Lola Bell kitty cat...and it looks like she's already beat me to it!

Labanakt!

Numbers

Life is all about little victories, right?

After using self-made flash cards and enlisting the help of my wonderful fiance, I may actually legitimately know the numbers zero through ten.

Back in the day, when I first began learning Spanish vocabulary, flash cards were my staple. For some reason, they just worked for me. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm a visual learner...I see the word, then I think of a picture in my head. For example, learning the word for "window," I would look at the word "ventana" and picture a window in my head. It's always worked. But it also has to go along with seeing the word. Something about seeing how it is spelled and how it looks always cements it in my head.

So, starting out with Lithuanian numbers, it was slow going trying to recite my home and cell numbers. Ask Sean :) But little by little, it started getting easier. I don't have them down perfectly by any means, but it's getting there.

I've also nailed down some fun phrases like...
-Labas (Hello)
-Labas rytas (Good morning)
-Laba diena (Good day)
-Labas vakaras (Good evening)
-Labanakt (Good night)
-Mano telefono numeris yra... (My telephone number is)
-Prasome pakartoti (Please repeat)
-Taip/Ne (Yes/No)
-Aciu (Thank you)
-Iki (See you!)

"Mano telefono numeris yra" has been a hard one to remember correctly because when my brain is thinking in a foreign language, that language is Spanish. And in Spanish, you say "number of telephone" (numero de telefono). So, I am continually switching the words around in my head. The psychology behind it is interesting because I've heard that your brain creates pathways that are used over and over again when you learn a language.

Looks to me a lot like "language transfer," at least according to this Wikipedia article.

Another fun little bit is this website on the most spoken languages in the world.

Labanakt!

And so it begins...

In short, this is the story of a girl attempting to learn her third language.

But you should know that with me, things are never short...my height excluded.

I can't remember how long I've wanted to learn Lithuanian, but I know it's been in the back of my head for a good, long while. Ever since my grandma told me that "As tave labai myliu" meant "I love you very much" in Lithuanian.

I've been running circles around putting the idea into action for at least six months, but the past few days have cemented my plan. I'm headed to Boston for spring break to visit my best friend, who goes to Boston University, and I was planning a side trip to NYC during a day she has filled with classes. I came across a website titled "Must-See New York City," and upon scrolling through it, found a link to Ellis Island's website. They have a free search engine that searches ship manifests and potentially finds your ancestors. I spent a good three hours typing and re-typing the names of my great-grandparents, but nothing I found was absolutely concrete. That's another project for another day, I suppose.

Whether or not I find the ship manifests, I know my great-grandparents came to the United States from Lithuania in the late 1800s or early 1900s and eventually settled in Massachusetts. My grandmother was born into a home where only Lithuanian was spoken, and it wasn't until she started attending elementary school that she learned English.

She eventually lived in Hartford, Connecticut, and Washington D.C. before moving to Middle America and living on a farm with my grandpa. By the time I came around, the only phrase she could still remember in Lithuanian was "I love you very much."

I know most people think I'm crazy, but for me, it's both a challenge and a journey. It's a way for me to connect to my roots and my ancestors. It's a way for me to remember my grandma and learn more about who I am as a person.

I know it's not going to be easy (especially because there's no Lithuanian version of Rosetta Stone), but I'm going to give it my best. The internet is a powerful tool, and I've found some pretty good resources thus far.

I've definitely taken advantage of the fact that I'm almost fluent in Spanish (after six years of study), and thought that learning a new language would be easy. Not so.

It will take baby steps, but I will get there eventually.

For now, I can say "I know Lithuanian," "I know English," "I don't know Lithuanian," "I don't know English," "Are you Lithuanian/English?" "Do you know Lithuanian/English?"

(All thanks to this great website and its link to a free audio lesson near the top!)

Hey, it's a start!