Como como?

Ahh language and laziness. If only the two did not go hand-in-hand. Sure, I go through days, even weeks or months, completely devoted to learning bombastic words in English and/or basic Spanish vocabulary. But it fizzles. Instead of slow and steady learning I attempt to make up for my lack thereof by burning myself out with short spurts. Well, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

The other associated and, in my opinion, more difficult problem is pronunciation. I have on a many occasion confidently asked questions to the gente of Texcoco and La Puri and received blank stares. In one particularly embarrassing situation, a cashier asked me write down my question rather than continue what had been a five minute struggle. I do not have a southern accent to mask my mediocre Spanish, and I have fooled myself more than once into thinking that I have halfway decent pronunciation skills. This quickly passes as my morning bus driver can hardly understand my stop request, not even a Spanish word but an acronym.