Soy Feliz

I don't see myself as hardworking. I've always regretted that I was unable to put in that extra mile or bring forth more application in my academics, the sport I played or even in a couple of jobs I've had in the past. Things have always seemed to come easy for me in some aspects and in others, I truly believe I got plain lucky. So although hardwork was part of the scheme of things, If I was to draw a pie chart with the factors that contributed to say, me playing cricket or me clearing exams without too much studying, I would put down the "hardwork" factor at a very low percentage. I had it easy or I got lucky.

An entire day spent at JNU in Delhi this May, being tested in 5 sections of Spanish left me tired and bittersweet. I was one among 30 others writing the exam. Most of them were students from JNU in their 2nd year of their bachelors in Spanish! They were actually studying 3 years of just Spanish and this was the exam they were taking in the 2nd year of their course. I could only smile when I learnt this and snigger a little in a "sour grapes" kind of way hearing these 19 - 20 year olds chatter away in perfect but accented Spanish and then suddenly switch between the kind of English & Hindi mix only privileged, young Delhi-ites talk and then switch to Spanish again. I will admit, it grated on me. It grated a lot. And it magnified the futility of me being there.

Which is what makes this a lot sweeter. A whole lot sweeter. In fact, out of all the little prizes and recognitions I've managed to wrangle over the years, this one will sit on top of them all. The honey-laced cherry on top of the cake. I first enrolled in a Spanish course in April 2005. It took me 2 years to get to a level where I could write the D.E.L.E exam. Missing writing it in November last year left me really bitter and having to write it in May without any classes for over 8 months left me deflated at the enormity of the task. I admit that I had some aptitude in picking up the language which helped in the self learning I did before the exam. But attributing this success to talent, aptitude or luck would be doing myself a disservice. For the first time in a long time, I worked hard, long and for days, weeks, months on end. And it feels great. All those preachy types who say there isn't a substitute for hard work may have a point after all it would seem eh? But for now I think I'll just enjoy this moment for a while. I've already decided to take the next level. And for those who're wondering what this is all about, I had written about my international standards Spanish examination some months ago here and here.

I received the results a few days back and to my utter and complete delight, I cleared it with an 80 / 100 and I now have a level 1 diploma in Spanish as a foreign language. The exam is conducted by the Cervantes Institute and the results are taken in the same vein as the popular TOEFL exam for English.

I'm over the moon. And then some.