I feel like I’m making progress on my degree.

I mean, I felt like I was making progress before but now, I really feel like graduation is so close I can almost taste it. Next spring…less than a year…finally, I will have my bachelor’s…and on my 20th high school reunion. Gack!

And for those of you who have known me for years, cre8in and cathelin, in particular, you know that it’s been a long time coming.

I started my second semester of Spanish yesterday. I’m getting 16 weeks of Spanish mashed into 4 weeks: 3 hours a day for 4 weeks. I still have 2 more semesters to take to graduate and that is the only think holding me back.

The one saving grace is that my niece will be entering the dual-language school in the fall and will be studying Spanish (and English and math and science and everything else) at the same time as I am. She will be taking something like 4 hours of Spanish a day for the next 7 years. So, I think that she will be a great resource for me and, maybe, one day I will speak fluently with her.

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I’m proud of my small community for having a dual language school. What is even more impressive is that it’s not one dual-language program but two. It offers an English-Spanish track and an English-Navajo track.

There are parents who have protested this school. I’m not sure I understand why. Why would it not be beneficial to learn 2 languages? Why would you not want your kid to learn 2 languages? Whatever in this world would possess you to protest this?

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And in line with silly protestations, I’m tired of reading the letters to the editor in my local newspaper.

If I have to read about one more person complaining about the trains (that have been here for over 100 years and were here LONG before those Californians moved to this town) or the influx of suburban stores (which THEY brought with them because they complain that there is no shopping here so they petition corporations to come here and then don’t like what they want to do), I’m going to scream.

I’ve lived here, off an on, for nearly 20 years. I remember when it was a small town…when you could drop your wallet and it would be returned to you completely intact. I remember those halcyon days.

I’ve lived within 20 feet of the train tracks. I know the rumble and the horn intimately. It just isn’t something I allow to bother me.

I was telling a friend that if I allowed those kinds of things to bother me, where would I live? There is always something.

Where I live now, I’m surrounded by all kinds of animals: horses that neigh in the night, calling out to one another, dogs barking incessantly at the shadows in the dark, skunks, goats, llamas, elk, deer, and the odd coyote here and there. They make a lot of noise.

Is it worth complaining about? No.

Instead, I take pleasure in these things. I’m glad I live in a place that has horses and goats and llamas and dogs and elk and deer and coyotes…and even skunk. I’m glad I live in a town that reminds me about America’s roots and I’m able to see a train lumbering down the tracks (even if it can be up to 80 trains in a 24 hour period). I’m glad that I’m free enough to move if I didn’t like it or to be free enough to avoid those areas when I drive.

I don’t get the complaining that goes on. It’s so infectious. One person complains and others jump on the bandwagon. Are you really complaining about that issue or do you think if that issue was gone, you’d complain about another and another and another? Is it really these external issues or is it an issue within you that drives you to complain?

And now, I’m complaining about complainers.

Oy!