Lessons of Running Applied to Russian

"Studying and learning Russian is a lot like training for a marathon!" 

So, I (Jessica, of course), just finished my first week at Maxwell in my Russian class for the Language Enabled Airmenship Program (LEAP) Language Intensive Training Event (LITE). Yes, I know that is a mouthful lol, so I will refer to it as LEAP from now on!

(Side note: The picture was me messing around with the iPhotoBooth on the new Mac...lol)

The LEAP program began this past year.  We are officially the first members of this program.  We are, in many ways, guinea pigs.  Of course, we like to consider ourselves pioneers for the program, but I guess it's all how you look at it!  The program guarantees participants at least 3 language immersions either through a LITE in country (CONUS) or abroad (OCONUS) for the next 5 years.  They also assign you to small working groups led by a fluent professor the rest of the year, in order to keep up with your language, or in my case improve it enough to be useful to the Air Force.  Supposedly those working groups will meet online for 3-5 hours a week via online, depending on students' schedules, level of language, etc.  Once you achieve a 2 in both reading and listening on the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) online, they will send you out of the country.  They want to train us up to be interpreters, attaches, generals, and pretty much the most elite of the Air Force (or so they tell us lol).

Anyway, all of these sound like very grand ideas, and when we first heard the opening speech about all of the Air Force's magnificent, far-reaching plans for us, we were both daunted by the expectations as well as excited to test ourselves to live up to those expectations.

What most of us did not think about at the time of that most grand opening speech, was the amount of TIME it would take to get there.  I at least did not consider the amount of headache I would have between now and the much successful, grand future! haha!  It is always easy to forget how much pain it takes to really be considered Excellent at something.

Everyday I seem to come back to the room after 5 hours of class, barely able to think in either Russian or English, much less find the motivation to go to the gym or begin my 5 hours of homework.  My brain is stretched and pushed so much during class, that it almost feels sore by the time I crawl into bed with Tom!

The first few days, I will have to admit, simply overwhelmed me.  We jumped into the class the first day thinking fairly highly of ourselves because of the highly motivational opening speech from the director of the program, but we were soon brought back down to earth by how much work we actually needed to do to fill those expectations!

The teacher bombarded us with Russian from the first minute, sprinkling in a little English here and there when we looked completely lost, and assigned us a good 3 or 4 hours of work for that night.  The second day, the fire hose continued, but this time with 5 or 6 hours of work at home.  By Wednesday, I was starting to wonder (just a little) why I liked languages so much and what happened to first period Russian with Mr. Rischard in high school, where everything seemed so easy and new!

But then, when I felt overwhelmed, I took my time. I paused to take a deep breath and to give everything -- all of my worries, all of my headache, all of my feelings of ineptitude and inadequacy to the Lord. Slowly, everything seemed to get better.  It's not that I had an epiphany and suddenly loved all of the studying and staying up until 1 in the morning, but He made me realize something.

Studying and learning Russian is a lot like training for a marathon! You have to do it for long periods of time several times a week in order to get better.  You WANT to be sore after you run.  You WANT to do different types of runs to improve your overall running. You WANT to devote lots of time to it because in the end, you are doing all of the little 3 mile training runs to be able to successfully prepare yourself for the actual 26.2 mile run -- where all of your training comes to fruition.  

You can't just be fast because you probably won't be able to go the distance. You can't just be able to go 15 miles. You cannot get distracted from your training because otherwise the marathon will not be everything it could be for you, and you won't be able to enjoy everything around you while you run or enjoy going over the finish line when you finally do.  First, you must go through all of the training, the sweat, the soreness, and the fatigue!

In Russian, much of this, if not all of this, is the same. In this case, the marathon represents your time actually immersed in a foreign country. When you get there, you will want to communicate your ideas to everyone about everything!  You will need to be the most prepared you can be because you will get the most out of your visit only by all of your training, diligence, and determination at home.

In the end, soreness and headaches = endurance in the "long run," and I look forward to embracing the soreness each and everyday for the next three weeks!

Anyway, thinking about all of this Russian and Running is actually making me want to go for a run! Too bad I can't do my Russian homework and run at the same time :)

Until later.... До свидания....

Jess (Aka Жанна)