Tired Excuses

Everytime I try to explain why I don't speak a lot of spanish here...I just feel stupid. I pride myself on not making excuses. If I don't do something, then I'm not going to try to find a way to justify or explain why I didn't do it. So it's really hard to think that I've been making excuses this whole time. When someone asks me why I haven't been speaking spanish I say:

• "The classes in my program are all in english (except my spanish class)."
• "My host father and brother work alot and my host mom tries but we don't talk alot."
• "I can't speak spanish with the people in the program because they all speak better spanish than me...so they'll just switch to english."

The list really can go on and on. But I'm just realizing that by having a response for every question, I'm making excuses. There is absolutely no reason why I'm not speaking more spanish. I have definitely learned more spanish since coming here. I can follow most conversations. I can read news articles and know about 80% of the words. I just need to make myself speak more.

Since coming here, I have become more outgoing in everyway, except speaking spanish. Example: I went to the grocery store with a friend. There was a sign with a word I didn't know so I asked her. She didn't know either. Rather than dismissing it, she simply turned around to the lady behind her and asked, in spanish. I realized standing there, that I wouldn't have done that. I've been making all kinds of stupid, lame excuses. There are so many opportunities to speak spanish and I need to take advantage of them. Hopefully this was my "aha moment."