I Wish I Had a Camera

Photo here

We got quite a bit of snow the other night. In fact, it all came down in the space of just a few hours -- when I went in to volunteer at the English Learning Center, it was raining lightly. Two hours later when I left, the snow was above my ankles and it was covering my car faster than I could brush it off. I couldn't find my fuel door, even. I wish I had a camera, a nice one, so that I could do the beautiful scenery justice. It's been years since I've seen mountains covered with snow. Photography is one of those things that I wish I was good at, because I love pictures; but I'm just not. I especially love light in both photographs and films, and good lighting can make the difference between average and amazing. Maybe one day I'll take a class and improve my skills, even if I can't be great.

Recently I've started volunteering at the English Learning Center here in the city (which was, coincidentally, founded and is run by one of my neighbors from my old neighborhood when I lived here before) and also as an English conversation partner for a USU international student. As you'd expect, most of the students at the ELC are from Spanish-speaking countries, but there are also quite a few from other places; Wednesday night there was a boy from Somalia, a girl from Myanmar, and another girl from Georgia. My student is Korean (yay!) and through her I've gotten to meet other Korean students. There are quite a few more than I thought there would be, though not as many as are at BYU. It's nice to have people to talk to about things like dramas and music and TV shows that no one here watches or listens to, and they think I'm cool instead of weird for doing it. But anyway. The point of all that was to share how much I'm enjoying helping people learn English. I think I'm pretty good at explaining things understandably, mostly because my parents always taught me about my own language when I was growing up, and so I have a greater awareness of it than most people. Plus, I know what it's like to be on the other end and be the one learning rather than the one teaching. I think it makes me more patient and understanding. Or at least I hope so. Learning another language is hard, and there's so much you have to learn from experience and hundreds or even thousands of hours of listening and speaking. But I love seeing the light of understanding in people's eyes when they finally understand something they've been struggling with for a long time. I love teaching for that reason. Because as admirable as it is to help people attain stuff, if you help someone attain understanding, you've changed their life forever and given them the tools to help themselves.