(no subject)

I am so proud of myself. So today the cool bio-chemist/mycologist was not on the bus. A few stops after mine, though, an older Asian woman whon I'd seen before got on. She smiled at me, and I said good morning, and she said that she'd seen me before on the bus, and then pulled out a little electronic dictionary. Her accent sounded right, so I told her that I could speak a little Chinese. And we chatted for the rest of the ride. It turns out she takes the bus on the same days I do, so I will see her a lot. And she's very sweet.

Now, mind you, I did not acquit myself particularly well. Her accent was a little challenging for me (only because I'm lame) but mostly I didn't have much trouble understanding her, I'm just not in practice enough speaking. Sometimes the right things will come together and I'll manage some kind of marginal fluency... but all too often I'll fall into one of the gaping holes in my vocabulary (which aren't necessarily fixed in location, OMG, yesterday I found myself completely unable to say "A tree fell down, broke the wires, and now there isn't any electricity on the road. I had thought I would come home and find we didn't have heat or light, but that isn't so." I mean, I got there eventually....) or I'll get flustered and then it's over.

But... Even back in the days when I was more or less newspaper literate, and could speak fairly well in class, I was always far to shy to speak much outside of class. Getting past that has always been my big problem. If I had, I probably wouldn't have lost so much. I managed to speak with her and not die of embarassment, that's my acchievement for the day.

And once again I wonder where I'm going with this. Lili, who sits next to me in the Mycology lab has invited me to a conversation group that meets Friday evenings. I need more things in my schedule like I need another hole in my head, but I want to go...