Signing up for Spanish Class

When I was living up in Arcata, Shacher came home one day with a small wooden box filled with small slips of paper upon which were written these kindly positive affirmations, "You are kind", "People care and love you", "A new day means new opportunities" and such. Of course the rest of us in the household, being cynics, came up with a competing box filled with depressing reminders of reality. "Your life is pretty much over", "Your future is a life in a cubicle", etc. But one that has always captured my heart was, "Other people your age are successful"*.

I'm fully comfortable with that, just as I'm comfortable that I'll never be an astronaut. There is great variation in humanity and I am happily resigned to being placed somewhere neatly in the middle of bell curve of human possibility, neither a wreck nor a shining star.

But then I read that Natalie Portman, other than looking like this:



Also was accepted to Harvard (at the time she was playing the Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace) where she received her Bachelors in Psychology.

So alright, I can accept that there are people that are more attractive than me AND smarter AND more successful. But she also is fluent in Hebrew and speaks French, Japanese, German and Arabic. Note that none of those languages are remotely related! Most don't even share a writing style much less and alphabet.

And really that is just too much. Natalie Portman you have gone too far. I am willing to be outdone by you, but you won't even leave me my mono-linguistic dignity?

I re-enrolled with City College today and tomorrow I register for Conversational Spanish. You haven't heard the last of me Natalie! And when you next do hear from me Señora, it won't be in one of the plethora of languages you understand!

*Corrected as per Steel's comment