Day eight

Day eight of the challenges, the eighth of the eighth month. It’s the Swedish queen's name day, which doesn't mean much more than that the flag will fly today. The yellow cross on a blue background against the yellow sun in the blue sky. Right now when I start writing this it’s eight am, just so we have all the numbers straight. It’s supposed to be a warm, sunny Saturday. (When I edit this at eight pm I can tell for a fact that it’s been raining all day.) We haven’t exactly had the best of summers this year. It’s been raining a lot. For me it’s been okay though. Not too many terribly hot days. It’s so difficult to sleep in the day when it’s warm and you have the sun shining straight into your bedroom. It takes skills to succeed. Skills I don’t have. Sleep and I are not exactly working out, unfortunately.

Yesterday I mentioned my sleep, and my lack thereof. Being tired makes it more difficult to keep up with my challenges. One reason being the fact that a little bit of brain activity is preferable when you try to write. Anyway, after a large degree of procrastination I managed to get something to publish. Today is not going to be any better. I have not slept at all and tired is not really a feeling anymore, it’s become the natural state of life. To be honest I don’t really think I can be held responsible for anything I write today.I’m in that state where I get those great ideas that are possible only when sanity has left the building. When imagination is left to run the show. Unfortunately none of those ideas are particularly great when I look at them with fresh eyes, especially eyes that have had a bit of sleep. I'm afraid that's where today's writing will end up too.

After keeping up with the challenges for a full week this is going to be the day when I am really tested. If I can make it through today then I can do anything. I kind of doubt it though. I have a feeling this is a day of failure. The question is who’s going to give up on who. Will I give up or will I be given up on. If you can say that. I don’t know. (As I try to edit this much later and after some sleep I can say that I am very close to deleting all of it, but we’ll see. Never underestimate the power of editing.)

I try to find the positive angle and the possibilities in every situation. Kind of like making lemonade. I’ve never done that actually. I think it might be an American thing. Either way today is possibly the worst day of my life and it is a perfect time to test how committed I am to writing. Can I get a working blog post together even when it feels like my entire world is falling apart? Can I even write English anymore after having had a real run in with my demons. The demons, my negative thoughts, who love to tell me I’m not good enough. Last night they were discussing my inability to make any kind of sense in English. I should definitely stop trying. That was their general opinion. Quitting English would dramatically change my challenges. I wouldn’t exactly have to stop writing, English is not the only language I know. So far the demons haven’t had any opinions about my abilities regarding the Swedish language. It’s always good to have a reserve to fall back on if the first choice fails for some reason.

It doesn't take much to awaken the negative demons when you already have a firm belief in your own inabilities. A thoughtless joke can hit the perfect spot. What one person finds funny can be the iceberg which gives someone else an ice bath that will make everything they worked for short circuit, maybe even result in the fatal blue screen of death. I don’t want to haunt anyone for their unfortunate mistakes, but I think it important to realize how powerful words can be. And how something that seems harmless to you can hurt someone else in the worst possible way.

Be careful with what you say and even more careful with what you write. It’s even easier to hurt someone in writing. The danger of misunderstanding is many times greater when we aren’t communicating face to face. So much of our communication are in other means than words. Tone of voice, facial expressions, body language. And obviously the possibility to immediately correct anything that is taken the wrong way.

The danger of misunderstandings increases when you try to communicate in a foreign language. Even after years of studies there will always be gray areas. When you're not a part of  the community where the language lives, grows, changes… When you’re not living and breathing a language all day, every day… there’s only so far you can go without getting on a plane.

It’s a big difference between your first language and any other languages you may learn later in life. When you grow up you're given a language by family, relatives, friends, teachers, TV, basically everything around you is filled with that language. People around you help guide you as you grow, to make communication possible. Everywhere you turn everybody is communicating with you in more or less the same way using the same words and expressions. You learn by existing, playing, whatever you do your first language is a natural part of your environment. For me that’s Swedish.

English is a foreign language. It never came naturally. I was eight years old (another eight) when it became a part of my schedule at school. How much English did you know when you were eight? I knew “this is a cat”. Everything I know about the English language I had to learn the same way you learn reading and writing, or math. Studies, work, homework. For nine years it was part of my obligatory school schedule. And I worked hard to learn, still do. Not only to get good grades, but because I wanted to, because it interested me. The same way some people learn to communicate with computers I wanted, and still do, to know the language of movies, TV-shows, music.

And… One thing that might be easy to forget is that all of us derpy foreigners butchering the English language with weird pronunciations and accents… we got nothing for free. Whatever we know we have had to work hard for. Maybe we sound funny to those of you who grew up with English as your first language, but remember that if we don’t make the effort to learn your language, we can’t communicate at all…

The end of my work today and the end of the day. Tomorrow is luckily a new day. I know it will be better. It can’t be any worse.

Thank you for your time. I hope your day will be beautiful and fun!!!