мальчик читает!

This is my old Greek workbook:

All that messy little kid Greek scribble? I used to know what that means. Not that it was anything brilliant, I'm sure it was something that I thought was hilarious like "I'm going to the bar to drink five beers" or "Kostos ate six goats"...something like that. The point is, I've forgotten all of it. Granted, as you read further on you get to pages with "I don't know what's going on" written in French in the margins, maybe that's where my Greek lessons started to falter. I quit Greek class. I hated it. It was on Thursday nights after my piano lesson and I was tired and cold and I sat next to this Albanian woman who thought I was adorable and looooved talking to me about Albania. Finally, after faking sick several Thursdays in a row, I think I convinced my parents that I was NOT interested in returning to Greek school. Now...I wish I hadn't.

I'm good at languages. It's my thing, I get them. I speak French and German, and I took a little Italian in undergrad. Language learning has played a big part in my career path. I want to work in international relations, and eventually the United States Foreign Service so I can use what I've learned to help people. Had someone told me that enduring that cold, cheese-smelling classroom for a few more months would significantly impact my career later in life, I'm sure I would have stayed. I had no idea at the time. Nobody knew what I wanted to be. In a college interview when asked if I was interested in taking any particular foreign language, I said "Yes, Swedish, Norwegian, and Russian..maybe Swahili if possible". My dad, trying to ease the shock-factor, explained to the interviewer in words that I think still fit me quite well. "My daughter sees foreign languages as a buffet, she can take as much as she wants from each platter." It's true.

I'm worried though. I feel like as I get older that serving spoon is getting heavier and heavier and now there's a giant sneeze-guard in the way, making it harder for me to grasp the dishes.What if this talent is only useful for a couple of years more? What if once I turn 25 my gift for foreign languages disappears? So, I'm learning Russian. And it's hard! I figure I might as well do something productive while I'm waiting for my graduate school life to start, so I'm picking up another one. So far I can only say things like "He is eating an apple" (он ест яблоко!), but it's a start. The grammar is very confusing to me, it's unlike anything I've previously learned. I'm sure my studies in Russian will provide a few more blog posts.