I'd like to report a missing sense of humor.

Several things trigger a bad mood for me: PMS, hunger, and a lack of chocolate (heaven help the world if all three happen at once). I can usually tell when the cranky takes over because I have angry thoughts that the world is conspiring to ruin my day, e.g. "The people in front of me are walking so slowly just to piss me off." And if the vending machine gets snagged on the last Snickers bar, I think, "Why is this happening to me???"

Yes, I can be a drama queen.

What inspired this post? I'm in month 7 of a 10 month one-on-one language training. Some days my sense of humor is strained past its limit.

Flash Forward

The other night while on a tour of the West Wing, we stopped in the press room. The lights were on, just as if an actual press conference were taking place. Standing by the press secretary's podium I looked out at where the cameras usually are and glanced down at the seats with nameplates saying "Helen Thomas" and "Reuters."

I indulged my imagination just enough to picture myself in a less glamorous version of this press room answering questions from Nepali journalists about American policy. In Nepali. "Ameriki aankama aatankawad samuhaa nuhuna, maowadile hinsa chodnu gaarcha."

I don't know how realistic my flash forward is, but it did ignite excitement (and, to be honest, a little anxiety) about my future work in Kathmandu. I hope all the pain of language training will prepare me to speak to Nepali audiences somewhat intelligently.

I have no fantasies about standing behind a podium like this in DC sometime in the future. State Department Spokesman is not a title I crave. But that's another blog post.

Verbal Acrobatics

The Nepali language is very un-English. It requires mental gymnastics to construct a sentence. In fact, my instructor used the phrase "verbal acrobatics" to describe the unique ways Nepali verbs can be tweaked to convey additional information. Just adding one syllable to a conjugated verb communicates the idea that the person just discovered this thought ("I just discovered that I like eating raw meat.")

Nepalis will inevitably complicate a sentence, if possible. Why say something using only three syllables (ma baschhu - I sit) when you can use seven (ma basirahekochhu - I continue to be in a state of sitting)?

Yesterday in class I gave a presentation on economics. Ignoring for a moment the fact that I know very little about this subject, I am pleased to say I was able to give the following example of supply & demand in flawless Nepali - "If the number of available cars is larger than the number of people who want cars, then the price of cars will be inexpensive." To give you an idea of how this sentence is constructed in Nepali (and why it took me 10 minutes to write it) here's the literal translation back into English - "If available car's number than car-wanting people's number big became, then car's price inexpensive would be."

My brain needs an ice pack.

What Does Body Armor Have to do with Language Training?

I'm at the mid point of language training - 5 months down, 5 months to go. I was telling someone recently how I had to give a 10 minute presentation in Nepali on the American educational system, and I realized that sounds pretty impressive. So how come it doesn't feel impressive? Progress is hard to recognize when you're focused on what you still can't do.

A couple weeks ago, I met with a language training consultant. I took a bunch of personality tests with questions like: I think wearing medieval armor would be fun, true or false? Two years ago I might have answered true, but after a year of wearing 20 pounds of bullet-proof armor in Baghdad, I have a different perspective. The results of the tests were predictable - ISTJ, likes organized learning, etc.

Frankly, the meeting with the language consultant wasn't terribly helpful. The language test process came up and I shared how a lucky guess got me an extra half point in reading comprehension. She defended the practice, and I interpreted her response to mean that the test doesn't measure reading comprehension, but rather intelligence (aptitude). Interesting.