Con mezcló emociónes.../With Mixed Emotions

The day finally arrived. Today I finished Rosetta Stone's Level Three of Latin American Spanish. I was so ready to be done! It's a fine program but I used it so much in the last nine weeks that I just couldn't take it anymore! (¡No puedo más!) I was very happy to finish. However, those moments of happiness were soon followed by a little bit of frustration, followed by a little bit of sadness.

A little review of Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish, Levels 1-3:
I think it was very helpful; introduced new vocabulary; got me comfortable speaking the language. It did start out really slow, only to introduce too much too fast at the end. There is a lot that I did in the lessons in the last sections of Level 3that I still don't feel comfortable with using in "real life". I think that it probably got me into maybe a college-level Spanish 3 class (but then, I never took Spanish 2 so what do I know?... and I did take Spanish 1 like, 15 years ago).
Let's face it there is not one program on the planet that will get you from basically knowing nothing to speaking conversationally all on its own. I think Rosetta Stone did what it was supposed to do: gave me a good introduction. I could go to Mexico now and get by alright. I could travel, ask for directions, shop, etc. But I couldn't hold a conversation.

That's where the sadness comes in. I've studied A LOT over the last nine weeks and I still feel pretty stupid. Don't get me wrong. I'm willing to feel that way because I want to improve (wink, wink). I had just hoped that the difference between then and now would have been greater.

And here's where the additional bit of sadness came in:
We went to a Mexican Restaurant to celebrate. Of course, the waiter was a native Spanish-speaker (or whatever the PC term is now). The Husband spoke up (in Spanish) first. I then added a little bit in Spanish. The waiter took a step back, sized me up said something like, "¿Tú hablas en español?" I replied, "Un poco" and smiled. He then said, "But you look more latin than him!" Ugh. He had no reason to believe that I didn't speak Spanish until I opened my mouth.

Clearly, I have much more work to do.