I also thought things would be completely different. I put my journalism work on hold to focus on what I had to do here and I put my daily Spanish lessons aside in the belief that I'd learn enough just by immersion.
As I mentioned in the last post, I pitched the idea for winter leagues coverage while I'm here to my collaborators at Bay City Ball, and they loved it. Starting next week, I'm writing a weekly feature on Giants prospects in the assorted fall/winter leagues.
The Arizona Fall League starts today and the Dominican League starts October 14. The Mexican League starts October 11. The Australian League starts November 3. The Venezuelan and Puerto Rican leagues don't have start dates published on MLB's website, but traditionally the Venezuelan league starts in mid-October and the Puerto Rican league starts in November. I'm keeping tabs on the Nicaraguan and Colombian winter leagues in case any Giants players show up there.
The AFL is a showcase for the top minor league talent in baseball. Each MLB team sends about six or seven of their best (in theory) prospects to Arizona for six weeks in October and November. I covered the AFL for ten days a few years ago and it was a really great experience.
The other leagues are just regular old winter leagues, with locals from the countries and some MLB players. Although I caught myself, in my American brain, thinking that the DWL was the "winter league." Absolutely not. It's THE league here.
This is writing I would be doing if I was in the States. The more things change, as they say, the more they stay the same.
I'm joining a beginning Spanish class at UNIBE, starting tomorrow. It's Spanish as a foreign language class and I'm not taking it for credit or for a grade. It's for practice. It was my internship coordinators' idea to get me more practice and help me be comfortable with speaking and listening.
Tomorrow is my first day in the class so I have no idea how it will be. If it's anything like my other classes, I'll be with other international students. The class meets three days a week and there's no pressure on me to do assignments or take tests. I'm looking forward to working on my Spanish in a low-pressure setting.
If I were doing a regular semester at San Jose State, I'd be in Spanish 25A right now, the first class of the intermediate level. While I'd have a lot on the line there--a grade and a requirement for my minor, plus the added pressure of learning Spanish well--I'd still be learning.
So I'm still writing about baseball and I'm still studying Spanish. I'm just doing it in the tropics. I was out of practice for a month and it found its way back to me.
I take that as a sign that I was meant to do this all along.
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