Today was pretty miserable. I had to make up a training course without the rest of my team. First we were inside having "death by powerpoint." That was no worse than usual. Then we went out to this trail outside. You're supposed to march it and identify different items. We were placed in this group with some Canadians. It was pretty cool, except they often communicate in French. So, I didn't understand half of what they were saying. While we were out there, it began to rain/drizzle. I had not brought my gloves and the rain was cold. Less than half way through the trail, my hands were red and numb. Luckily, it warmed up a little in the afternoon and I wasn't so miserable.
Now I'm back, just waiting on dinner time to roll around. One of our guys is trying to convince me to head over to our Rec Center tonight and watch some American Idol. That's around my bedtime, so I'm not sure if I'm going or not.
Just another day in paradise,
Eric
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6 comments:
You poor guy, working with French Canadians.
Still, they are from the land of giant roadside statues, so they can't be all bad. I have to say, however, that speaking a language not everyone understands whilst in a group is rude.
Evalle says CE is having a "warrior week" the 1st full week of March. He'd like to work in a 3-4 hour vocab/pronunciation session with perhaps a little "culture" info, if you can do it. It'll look great on your EPR. He wanted to know if you were "in," and if you were, did you have any materials he needed to photocopy?
I erased the original comment and added more to it.
First comment: the French Canadians usually speak in French because they all understand French. Some of them, however, speak only French. So it is better for them. Plus speaking French is more secure, since many many people understand English.
Second comment: I'm in on the vocab/pronunciation session. If you can find my Iraqi vocab book, that I was keeping in my cargo pockets (it's probably in a cargo pocket or maybe a jacket pocket somewhere), and look on it, it tells where the book can be viewed/printed. It's either Lingnet or Langnet. You must view the site on a government computer. The booklet will be in a zip file format that must be downloaded, so it can't be on a computer that's in a classified area. They usually don't allow downloads. I believe the zip file contains a PDF document that's already formatted to print out the booklet format.
Good luck with that. It's an involved explanation for an involved situation. He does want Iraqi-Arabic, correct? Because, if he wants Dari or Pashto or anything Afghani, I don't have anything prepared.
Nope. He wants the Iraqi-Arabic, just like you gave to Noel (Evalle works w/him, btw). Excellent. I'll get searching tomorrow, and just your luck I got a new ink cartridge. If I can find what you ask, I'll print one version and he can photocopy as many as he likes.
His notion was like mine: without better pronunciation training, our guys sound like Apu at the 7/11 over there, and anything that helps our guys is a bonus.
I don't think you'll be able to print it. I think it will have to be accessed from a government/military computer. He may have to look it up and print it at work.
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