So, I’m at a former Waldenbooks the other day, doing some shopping. Last year for Christmas, I was given a Border’s/Waldenbooks gift card, and I hadn’t used it. Since it was the holidays, I decided to splurge a little on myself. I wandered through the store for quite some time, looking in the bargain section, fiction, biography, cookbooks, New Age, humor, magazines, etc. etc. I think I looked at practically every book in the store.

After about two hours, one of the girls working there came up to me, saying “Sir? we’re closing in 5 minutes.”

Embarrassed, I grabbed the two things that caught my eye: “The Disappearance of the Universe: Straight Talk About Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness ^[1]” by Gary Renard, and Instant Immersion Spanish ^[2]. The first, I got for strictly entertainment value. Paging through it, I was reminded of Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah ^[3] by Richard Bach, one of my favorite books of all time. The second, I got because I have wanted to learn how to speak Spanish for a long time. At one time, I had purchased Instant Immersion Spanish Deluxe ^[4] to put on my computer to learn Spanish. The problem was, as well versed as I am in using computer programs, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to use this program. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, really, and after all was said and done, it wound up just taking space up on my hard drive, and the disks themselves collecting dust.

Last week, I was talking with one of the Hispanic guys at work, expressing my frustration at not being able to speak Spanish. I would guess that at least once a day, I speak to someone who doesn’t know a lick of English, and it’s a pain to either transfer to someone who is bilingual, or to get a translator on the line to translate for me. Things would be a lot easier if I were able to speak Spanish (not to mention that it would be a great mental exercise). I told Alex about the program and how I really didn’t get any use out of it. That was that, except that the idea was stuck in the back of my mind, although a little more in the forefront than it has been recently.

So I bought the CD version of the same program, even though I really didn’t like th program. The reason was that it was inexpensive. Complete Spanish: The Basics (CD) by Living Language ^[5] was a bit too expensive, and there wasn’t much more there on CD. I wanted something that I could listen to while I rode the bus to work, and while walking to and from buses. So I bit my tongue and got the Instant Immersion. I’ve been listening to it, and actually, I like the Cd better than the program.

Anyway, the point of this is: every person who knows Spanish that I’ve told that I’m learning Spanish always says something that is incomprehensible to me. There was a guy at the gym, a niece and a brother-in-law. Not for nothing, but I’m starting to learn. I’m JUST starting to learn. I have got the alphabet down and a few scant words, that’s it. I know that I’m pretty intelligent, but I’m not going to learn a complete language that you studied for a couple of years in a few scant hours. At least give me a few months first. Let me get the chance to learn it, then I can use it.