I had a lot of fun creating my first Youtube video about my experience at the 2017 Polyglot Conference. I have included the transcript of the video below. However, there is one awesome thing that happened at the conference that I forgot to mention.
I had the privilege of meeting Vigdís Finnbogadóttir. She is not only Iceland’s first female President, she is the world’s first democratically elected female President. She was the opening keynote for the event because she has been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1998 with the mission of promoting linguistic diversity, women’s rights and education. Also, the Vigdís International Center of Multilingualism and Intercultural Understanding, as well as the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages, were named in her honor. Her speech was entertaining and it was lovely to meet her during the event.
Vigdís and I at the 2017 Polyglot Conference
If you attended the conference, I would love to hear about your experience in the comments.
Þakka þér fyrir að horfa (eða lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega! – Thank you for watching (or reading) and see you soon!
Video Transcript:
Hello Language Lovers! This is Jewells at From Foreign to Familiar – The Journey of a Budding Polyglot, which is the name of my blog.
If you are curious about my journey on the way to become a person that speaks many languages, which is what a polyglot means, you can check the link below in the description. There are plenty of posts on there about how the journey is going, specifically around learning Icelandic. But this particular video is about my first impression or my experience at the 2017 Polyglot Conference. And I felt like this was a great first video for me to put on Youtube. My inaugural video, of course, because it just really speaks to where I have come to in this journey in terms of feeling more confident and more willing to put myself out there to connect with people that are in a place that I want to be.
Just to give you some background regarding this – in 2015, the polyglot conference happened in New York. And I found out about it maybe six months before it was supposed to happen. I was living in New York at the time. I was born and raised there. And I was so excited knowing that this conference was happening. I think it was on Facebook or something where I found it, found the group. I contacted Ellen Jovin, she was super sweet. And, I think she was one of the main conference organizers for the New York event. She is also a New Yorker. She has been living in New York quite a while, even though she is originally from California. And, I was just bursting with love and light, happiness and all of those things you feel when you are thinking that this just makes sense. I am so excited that they have this type of conference and these people that I want to be around to learn from. I want to just hear them speak in many languages. I also want to be able to speak in many languages! But just knowing they exist and want to be together to connect and share really resonated with me.
As the event was coming closer, I had this little voice, my protector if you will. Even though, sometimes the voice that can be your protector can deter you from doing things that are good for you. But, this little voice that was saying “I don’t know. You are not fluent in that many languages. You know English, maybe you know some Spanish, and Icelandic is like meer. Not really much of anything. This isn’t for you. Don’t waste your time. Wait until you’re ready.” Ugh!!! That totally got me. I fell into my own trap. The self-doubt, the insecurity – just thinking that I wasn’t meant to be there. I wasn’t ready to be around these people, as if they are exotic aliens or beings that were just up here and I was down there. I didn’t go. And I don’t want to say that I regretted it because I felt really secure in the decision that I made at the time. But then later, as I started to think about it, I thought to myself – I am probably being a little hard on my progress. It would be great to give myself a chance in the future to go and do this. Low and behold, I move to Iceland, of all the places, and Iceland is not the hottest thing on the map. At least one of them that everyone is talking about. I end moving here because my husband is Icelandic . The conference announced that the Polyglot Conference will be here in 2017! I was like, “Ok, this is not a coincidence. I am supposed to be going to this damn conference. And, I am going!”
I was quite confident about it for a long time. Until, again, the 2017 Polyglot conference was drawing closer and all of a sudden I am just like, “Oof, shit! You know, my Icelandic is still not there yet. I haven’t been really working on my Spanish like I planned to. Maybe I shouldn’t go.” It is such an easy thing for your mind to want to protect you, this little voice. Because it doesn’t want you to be disappointed or embarrassed, but it was a defense mechanism that was holding me back from just existing. It was holding me back from being a living organism interacting with other living organisms that I have something in common with. That was intense. Thankfully, I encountered this voice before.
People who have had the opportunity to interact with me on many different occasions would know that I am usually not the person that would go “urgh” to something. I would be like let’s just do it, let’s go for it! So, it surprised me, and probably some others that I talked to this about, that I was so insecure regarding this conference. Thankfully, I went through with my decision to go this year (2017). I am so happy I did. I will tell you why it made such of a difference to me that I went. Number one, just pushing through and doing something that put me outside of my comfort zone was worth it on its own. Also, when I got to the 2017 Polyglot conference, I was super tense. My shoulders were up to here (my ears) and I was looking around like “I don’t really want to talk to anybody because what if they test me on my language skills.” Right?! This is not an exam! But that was how my brain kept trying to come up with reasons for scenarios of how it could be awful, so just don’t do it! I got there and didn’t talk to that many people. I was on my phone doing Instagram stuff but I wasn’t my normal, social self. I think that was so difficult because I could feel it, I could sense it about myself and I was aware of it but I wasn’t doing much to change it.
When we sat down for the introduction to the 2017 Polyglot conference, the organizers, Richard Simcott and Alex Rawlings, introduced themselves and the conference. A few minutes into speaking, Richard made an important announcement, at least it was very important to me. He said that the Polyglot conference is for all language lovers (language lovers, language appreciators, whatever you want to call it). It didn’t matter if you spoke one language, three, seven or fifty or whatever. If you love languages and wanted to connect with people about that, you’re in the right place. Seriously, my shoulders had been up to here, because I take a lot of stress in my shoulders, and they started slowly coming down. A lot of my stress was melting away. That is the biggest thing I remember from the 2017 Polyglot conference. It left a positive, beautiful mark in my mind because I felt included and I know that many other people felt included in this conference.
Of course, there are hyper polyglots that are there who love to (and they want to, should) connect with each other about languages they can speak, as well as conversing in them. But there were also many people that I met who were initially not sure if they should come because they thought this for people who speak languages fluently and they are not that person. I encountered many other people like that. Hearing him (Richard Simcott) say this in the beginning set the tone for the conference. It’s inclusive and a positive environment. It is about your passion, enthusiasm. You just want to connect and share. Sometimes you talk about things that have nothing to do with languages. Still, your culture and upbringing, all these things that help to mold an individual, come out whenever you are in situations like this. It is such a welcoming place that you can be yourself. I just really loved that! I am thankful to the organizers, to Richard and all of the other people involved, for setting that type of environment up for people to come into and feel welcomed. It doesn’t matter their level of polyglottery, if you will. During the 2017 Polyglot conference I enjoyed a lot of the presentations and I did meet a lot more people, and I was not as tense. I was definitely not my normal self, but I was just more of a relaxed “tense” Jewells.
Over the two days, I thought it was really cool and I recommend it to anyone that is curious or doubting whether or not they should go to a conference like this. I think, in general, if you have this desire to learn something, to do something in a place where there are people that might be advanced than you – just do it. Don’t wait for the motivation to do it. Don’t wait for approval. Meaning that you feel like you have reached some level, which means now you can do it. I am saying this in a relative space, where appropriate. There are some conferences where it is only just for certain types of people. Hopefully, the conference will communicate that. But in this situation, that was not the case. You can learn from being in the environment that it is more about your journey, being positive, and sharing what it is that you enjoy doing. Maybe you just enjoy being around people that love languages or maybe you have a passion for language spoken by a small amount of people.
Whatever it is, there are so many different things that you can enjoy at this place (2017 Polyglot Conference). Regardless of what it is, I am just encouraging you to not let that voice, that is trying to protect you in some way, deter you from existing and enjoying your life. Just go out there and be inspired by the actions that you take. That is my motto now for learning Icelandic, which some people might consider as your first “second” language as masochism if you are learning it. I don’t disagree, just to be honest! But I enjoy learning it and I think it is really fun – most of the time. Anyway, the next polyglot conference will be in Slovenia, so maybe I will see you there, if you are one of those people that would love to go. I live in Europe now, so I am hoping that getting there won’t be that difficult. Regardless, I am proud of myself for taking this step and I am proud of you if you are taking that step because it is something that is worth celebrating. You might get to your end goal, whatever that is but please just appreciate the journey. Thank you for listening. Sjáumst fljótlega (See you later). Bless, bless (bye, bye).
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