je ne sais pas

my latest endeavor involves the library, andrey, ignorance and patience.

this begins with a incident where holly and i were having one of our epic chats about "the way shit is" in the world last week. see, since moving out here, i've become a bit more adapted to phone calls. having a long phone conversation, for me, is about the equivalent of getting your teeth drilled by a dentist. however, i'm stuck here and they're there, so... fuck it, right? my ear sweats a lot now.

in any case, i had mentioned my desire to become somewhat of a polyglot before i die. it's one of those things on my big list for life. i'd also like to drive a race car, but that's another story. for now i'll settle for learning to communicate with more people. my new goal for the year is to become conversational in at least two other languages. when i say conversational, of course i mean in a touristy kinda way. i'll hope that i could at least go the the store to buy things and figure out how to find the bathroom. smaller points of success like that help me keep my goals in perspective when i get frustrated by learning new things.

in an attempt to be supportive of andrey's fantastic command of the english language (and no i am not being snarky here), holly and i decided that we should pick up a bit of russian. just the thought of being able to hang out together "sounding cool" at brunch the next time we're all together was enough to get her motivated. well, it got her motivated enough to have the desire to be motivated, which is a lot sometimes. holly and i can be lazy chicks, but if i give her an initial bump she'll be off and rolling. we've both had some introduction to the alphabet and language at a prior time, so it shouldn't be so hard as we're making it out to be. at least i'll have someone else who's just as goofy as i am trying hard at it. i can already remember a few cognates and how to ask about finding a toilet, so we're off to a good start.

derek and i had previously discussed giving it a go at learning something new, so we went to the library yesterday and picked up some learning materials. we checked out some in french as well. derek is having an easier time processing it right now, but he's willing to try it all. as long as we're not speaking spanish in this house i'll be happy. don't ask - another long story.

maybe i can even get mary to practice speaking in french with me again. it could be like a group project. "bonjour mary. nous sommes americaines stupides, n'est pas?" derek will chime in with, "regardez! le poissons nage, oui?" and we can all feel terribly hip. that would be worth the sweaty ear for sure.