The Home Stretch

There's a scene in the film The Mummy where sleazy Benny encounters the wretched mummy for the first time. As the mummy moves closer, Benny shakily pulls out a cross pendant from around his neck and starts reciting a prayer from the bible. Seeing that the mummy isn't impressed, he pulls out a huge collection of diverse religious pendants and holds them up one by one, hoping one of them will stop the mummy in its tracks.

That's how I feel now. I'll pray to any god to get me through the last 3 weeks of language training. I'm open to anything to keep the frustration at bay. I've tried yoga and kickboxing. I may start putting a shot of vodka in my orange juice in the morning. Or Xanax.

Language training is all about sucking. It's just a matter of degrees. You will never be a native speaker/reader of the language you're studying, so you will always suck to some degree. So each day in training is an analysis of how much you suck that day. I'm tired of sucking. I wonder how much vodka I'll need to get through 3 weeks.