some days i just want to scream...

and what i'd scream is 'i'm really a native english-speaker!  really!' 

i have this thing - a mental quirk that i don't think will ever go away - where it's like i'm constantly translating what other people are saying into the language i really speak, and what i'm trying to say into the language they speak.  it's weird, it's usually low-level, and apocryphal stories and jokes about it abound.  when it's a social situation, it can be funny.  or just perplexing.  or awkward.  at work, it gets to be downright annoying, even to me.  today, i wasted about an hour and a half on a hot project that my lead asked me to do because i interpreted his instructions wrong.  i can tell you *what* he said, word for word... but my inner translator obviously wasn't with it.  said project was due by COB - i got it done by 5pm, which is COB in most of the US, but we typically leave around 3.30pm.... soooo....

what's really irritating about it is that i know it makes me come off as either a bit vapid, or just not paying attention.  and it's not like that.  it's just that it takes energy and focus to interpret correctly, and more so when i'm being pulled from something else i was focusing on (in this case, i was practicing pipe flow analysis).  and it didn't help that i was fighting a fever all day - still am a bit, i think.  at one point this afternoon, i was bundled up in 2 blankets, my hoodie with the hood up, and my fingerless gloves.  and i still felt cold. (which is how i know i have a fever - my head may feel hot, but my everything below my neck feels cold, kind of a bone-deep chill that won't go away.  if it's really bad, i feel kind muscle-weakness, but that hasn't happened in a long time.)

-bs, grumbling at her own brain