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Shanna & Languages

Of translation, books, languages and me

December 11, 2024

I’m excited, and terrified

Honestly, I wanted to just write I’M TERRIFIED in caps, but at the thought of positive manifestation or whatever you call that, I added the bit of *excitement*. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited, but at the same time, I’m beyond terrified.

When an idea takes root in my mind, I get obsessed over it, and this time round, I found myself acting on it. Within the span of a couple of days, I got the ball rolling – and unfortunately, things that I get obsessed over often cost a lot.

I’m going to keep talking in circles and vagueness, because this was how I was brought up. *don’t talk about things or you’ll jinx it* *talk about it after it has happened* I guess this is all part of the growing-up trauma that I’ve never got to process. So perhaps you will only see this post after . . . *waves vaguely*.

So what is making me so terrified?

I’m taking a leap of faith and will be studying Thai language for a while *again, vagueness* in Bangkok! Right now, at this undisclosed date (god, I hate myself at times), I’ve paid for my course(s), bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and I’m trying to navigate all the other 10001 admin stuff that I need to do.

How do people move overseas and make it look so … easy?! I’m doing nowhere near that and I’m freaking out. For real.

In some sense, what I’m doing now is fulfilling a longtime dream, a dream I never quite get to realise when I was younger. I so badly wanted to study Korean in Korea, but back then, it was impossible. Of course, I would never let that pull me down. I am fiercely proud that I managed to self-study Korean to the level that I am now and I’ll never let anyone make me feel I’m any lesser 🙂 I suppose I can do the same for Thai, but I really wanted the experience of studying a language in that country.

But this decision comes with a lot of trepidation. Like … I love going to Thailand as a tourist. But will I really like it when I live there? Do I like Bangkok so much because it’s so far removed from my daily life. What happens when it becomes my daily grind? I had a lot of mixed feelings when I tried, more than a decade ago, to move to Korea. It left me with so much mental scars that for a while, I struggled with my relationship with the language too.

But then again, I’ve decided to take a leap of faith, and I can only hope that things will be much better this time 🙂

I’ve got this.

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Just a girl from Singapore who is in love with all things languages. I tweet at @heyimshanna

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