i actually hate subject lines.

So I realize that I definitely have an attention span for Spanish. It gets rough sometimes. One day, Julia brought me to a meeting for EAPN, the European Anti-Poverty Network, and I sat in on their discussion/debate about the different policies of Spain and the EU regarding different ways they could eradicate poverty by 2020. It sounded mildly interesting, and for the first hour, I was doing relatively fine. Everybody liked to have long-winded monologues about what they thought, and I got used to the speaker's voice, and even though they were talking quickly and using more intellectual words than are in my vocabulary, I was able to follow. For the first hour. But after that, my brain just felt fried. I tried to concentrate on the Spanish and follow the discussion, but for the life of me my mind would not stop wandering to other mundane things, like the posters advertising the city pools of Madrid. Oh yeah a pool, that'd be fun. I wonder where it is? Is it free? I'm sure my friends would want to go. Wait, what? Poverty in Europe?. My brain would not let me pay attention to the "difficult" spanish, it actually hurt my brain to try and listen and understand or even translate.

Just now I was trying to read an analysis of the different sexual and mental health workshops that are put on all around Spain by the government to help the new immigrants know their rights and adjust. The first part of the study is about the demographics of the group, men vs women, their ages, the ages of those conducting the courses, the ages of those taking the courses, so on and so forth. I was doing well, until all of a sudden I realized bam, I couldn't take the intellectual stuff anymore and I had ceased to pay attention. Kind of like when you read a book and you get 3 paragraphs down the page and you realize you have no clue what the character is doing anymore. But that character was the Spanish government and how they help immigrants.

So I thought to myself, does this always happen with Spanish? Do I seriously have a time-limit of listening/reading/understanding? But then I remembered that there have been times when I am with my ladies and we're crocheting or making bracelets and talking, and I'll be there with them for four hours straight, and I can get through no problem. I definitely enjoy it, and I know I learn. I think it comes down to that the pressure's off, and I don't have to concentrate too hard to make sure I understand intellectual concepts on top of understanding their language. I think there may be a threshold of cognitive stress that I cannot cross. Maybe I could try and stretch it more often to try and expand it. It would be nice if I could not get burned out sometimes.