"Do you speak Spanish? Habla espanol?" "...Uh...no."

Someone asked me that when she heard that I was from Hawaii. She was from Greece and laughed when she realized that I didn't understand a word she was saying (she was fluent in Spanish) and told her dryly, "No habla Espanol."

Anyway, it feels like I'm sometimes an ESL student. Lord knows I talk like one anyway, but it feels like I'm a "foreign" student in an entirely new world.

"Do you have your Hunters on?" my hallmate yelled down the hall at me this morning. When she saw I was in my usual, beat-up sneakers, she frowned. "Do you have Hunters? Why aren't you wearing them?"


(As I mentioned before, I just recently found out that "Hunters" are a brand of rain boots. Who knew?)

It feels like I know the language here, but I don't understand. Somehow, some way, people talk differently in different situations. When it's raining, their voices are subdued, as if allowing them to be washed away by the rain. In thunderstorms they're loud indoors but outdoors they're quiet, as if afraid the lightning will "see" them and shock them.

When I was walking back up to Upper Cents, I found a guy in a yellow rain jacket trying to get into the laundry room. I had seen him head down from Leavitt and get stuck at the door. He turned and looked sheepishly at me as I approached. "I can't get in," he mumbled.

I blinked at him. "It won't let you in?"

"No. I heard there was a problem with the door lock a few days ago, but it was supposed to be fixed. I live in Leavitt." he assured me, misinterpreting my quiet frown.

It had taken me a while to get the gist of what he was saying. Not only did he have an accent (New Jersey, maybe?), but his voice was muffled and he spoke softly. I swiped him in and he flashed me a quick grin, shaking his head. He gave me a quick thanks! and slipped into the laundry room, pulling his laundry bag after him. It was gonna suck to carry it inside after he had dried it. I hope he had an umbrella.

In that time it took me to figure out what he was saying, I felt like a foreign student with only a bare grasp of English.

Usually accents don't bother me, unless they're very strong, enough that they entirely change the sound of the word or letters of it. Even then I only have trouble with a few words but can pick up the rest from context clues. But...it seems like people talk differently for different situations. It's weird.

Also, I've been told that I switch accents. I totally don't notice it, but they mentioned that when I say certain things, depending how often I've heard them, I'll say them in a certain accent. They say it's slight, but enough that they find it very amusing. I want to go home with a strong New York accent, but I doubt it'll happen.  :/

~E