By rmattiola
This last week was writing week. A week full of headaches and confusion and maybe even some tears if I’m being completely honest. My roommate told me the other day, “This is like finals but a month long instead of a week long”. Thank god for roommates.
This week I was finally able to listen to music while working since I’m no longer transcribing interviews. Often when I listen to music I get a little caught up in the beats or the lyrics and go on song investigation sprees. On one of these youtube browsing-npr podcast searching-consequence of sound-reading expeditions on Bon Iver’s new album, I found a press conference where he answered questions about song titles and lyric inspiration.
He described a soul-searching traveling experience that landed him on Greek islands, stranded and helpless. He started to sing a line to himself, “this might be over soon”. He recorded the verse one night and apparently didn’t make any more music until the next year. So he had this one verse to keep listening to over and over again. Eventually he said, a part of his voice sounded like he was saying 2, 2. This number 22 represented duality for him, and he eventually applied this concept of duality to the line “it might be over soon”. One could be saying, “Thank god, it might be over soon” or “Geez, I can’t believe it, how sad, it might be over soon”.
This feeling perfectly describes my sentiments this week. On one hand, I’m keeping my head above water by reminding myself, “this project and all of the work will be over soon” and on the other hand, I’m saddened by the thought that I’ll soon be leaving South America and my new friends.
This week, heck, this month, has been long and hard. And it will all be over in just 4 days. Then I will leave Chile, my project on the shelf of Casa SIT, pondering over everything I learned, how it will affect the rest of my life, and if it will affect anyone else.
I told my project advisor, Andrés at our last meeting, I don’t have enough words to say thank you. Because at the time, I was exhausted, my brain fried, my Spanish vocabulary just barely triggering, and also because he had been so incredibly helpful, involved, inspirational, understanding and patient, that there are not enough words to show my appreciation. I was ashamed that I couldn’t thank him properly, but I think those last words made sense to him. I’d like to extend that unexplainable gratefulness to all of Chile. These people, their words and their environment will be on my mind forever.
High of the week: the spur of the moment day hike in Pucon
Low of the week: writing struggles
Castellano word of the week: Adios: Goodbye