10 Days of Discovery

My husband and I just returned from a week long vacation in Europe.  I have studied Spanish since I was in elementary school but I am still very self conscious when I try to speak Spanish to other people.  During this vacation I spoke Spanish daily.  I tried to initiate all conversations with native speakers in Spanish.  A lot of people recognized that I was an American before I opened my mouth or a few words into my attempts at communication and started speaking to me in English (which I was grateful for).  But a lot of people didn't.  I was nervous at first but by the end of the week my confidence was up and my Spanish wasn't half bad.  

I would love it if I could speak Spanish on a regular basis.  I don't want to travel abroad frequently (I could really take it or leave it).  There are plenty of Spanish speakers in the US.  I just need to figure out what I can do to interact with other Spanish speakers on a regular basis. 

Before we left for vacation I worked harder than I have in months.  I went into the office and finished tasks that I had let pile up.  I took work home and completed projects that would be due shortly after I returned from vacation.  I took the initiative to organize tasks so that it would be harder for me to fall behind in the future.  I was able to complete all of this in 2-6 hours per work day.  I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and still had plenty of time left over.  I still need to work on how I manage this left over time but it felt great to be productive again without really having to try that hard. 

I have given myself 2 weeks off of teaching fitness.  I found substitute instructors to cover all of my classes so I could take the time to reset my class preparation routine.  When I first started teaching fitness I would work on routines for hours before presenting them to a class.  Even though no routine is ever perfect my preparation made me more relaxed and translated into me being a better teacher.   I want to walk into every class feeling confident that I'm going to be awesome.  I am lucky to have built a strong following among my class participants.  I want to make sure that I am always living up to my own reputation.