Man´s (second) best friend

Yesterday evening, after dinner, one of my five year-old sisters walked into my room unannounced, and she stumbled upon me doing something she didn´t quite understand.

Yup. I´m afraid so.

I had retired to my room to whip it out, and she just walked right in.

I would have liked to put it to rest as quickly as possible, but, as I´m sure you´re all aware, when little children encounter something they don´t quite understand, they´re never too shy to inquire within.

She looked up at me with a puzzled face. Then she hit me with it.

"How come every time I see you in your room," she asked, "you´re always reading that book?"

I really didn´t know how to respond, but, since I had already been caught red-handed, I decided it was best to just tell her the truth.

"Because most of the time," I replied, "I have no idea what´s going on. And this book helps me get through."

The book she caught me with was a Spanish-English dictionary. And she´s right--I´m reading it all the time.

The dictionary was the first purchase I made when I arrived here a week and a half ago, and I carry it with me wherever I go. What makes it so valuable--to me, at least--is that I already possess a working knowledge of the basic grammatical structure of the language, but my vocabulary is often just too damn small to say what I need to say.

I`ve had an absolute blast since I got here, and, for the most part, I´ve done a good job of shedding the inhibition to open my mouth. Every afternoon, I walk around town talking to anyone who´ll listen, and I can honestly say that both my speaking and comprehension skills have increased 10 (20? 30?) fold since I arrived.

Still, it´s been a bit of a rollercoaster.

What I find most frustrating is that sometimes I understand everything that´s being said, and sometimes I haven´t the faintest idea. When I´m being directly spoken to, I tend to comprehend a large majority. Maybe it´s because when people talk to me they intuitively realize that they need to talk slower. Who knows? But when some schmuck yells across the street to his compadres, I don´t understand a word.

After class today, I went to a small eatery and sat down at the diner-style bar to order some food. I placed my order, then I sat there quietly, trying as best I could to decifer the conversation between the cook and the waitress. After what seemed like five minutes of complete babel, I heard the waitress say "este muchacho" (this guy), and then watched as the cook looked my way. I took a quick peek over my shoulder, but, to my dismay, there were no other muchachos behind me. The muchacho in the conversation was me.

Q: What has two thumbs, knows you were just talking about him, but has no idea what you said?

A: Este Muchacho.