My favorite activity we’ve done this semester was the family tree, it allowed me to both practice my Spanish-speaking skills and become more familiar with correct naming conventions. Going down my family tree and rearranging their names helped me to better understand how names are connected in Spanish culture, and what someone’s name reveals about their relationship with another person. Also, it was interesting to see the differences in how my family members would introduce themselves. For example, in Spanish my mother’s name is Molly Stone Guttenplan but it’s just Molly Stone in English. My grandmother’s maiden name has been lost in English, but since my parents are no longer married my mom would retain it in Spanish. Additionally, I appreciated that women kept part of their maiden name in Spanish. While often it’s ultimately only the paternal name that remains as many women marry and replace their mother’s maiden name with their husband’s last name, I appreciate that to some extent the Spanish language allows women to keep part of their pre-marriage identity outside of their partner. The structure of the activity was good for me, as I enjoy art and learn best by writing things down and actively doing them. Therefore, learning how to translate the names of my family members into the proper format for Spanish was helped by going through and writing each one down, putting my knowledge of the right way of doing it into action. I also was helped by completing VHL’s Cultura activities in improving my Spanish culture comprehension skills. It gave me insight into the nuances of Spanish culture and the proper and polite ways of addressing people through lessons which give me the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. This especially helped me to understand the differences between names in English and Spanish through repeated practice until I could correctly write it on my own. I struggled with the correct order and which names to use initially, I was unsure of the order paternal and maternal names should go when trying to remember off the top of my head. I reread the information in the textbook and practiced writing the names until the forms were second nature. Moving forwards, knowing information like this is going to be extremely beneficial for my goals. I want my work to be internationally focused, and chose to learn Spanish as it’s one of the UN’s working languages and one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It’s important to be respectful when working diplomatically, so knowing the proper ways to address and communicate with people from a Spanish background will be good for my relationships and career.