Are You Readyyy

There are certain things that are hard to imagine about living abroad until you're living abroad.  You know you will eat new foods and meet new people and maybe your shower will be strange like in Lost in Translation.  One thing I had not thought about was Total Peripheral Lingual White Noise Tune-Out (or, TPLWNTU - still working on a shorter name!)

It's natural to overhear other people's conversations when everyone around you is speaking your native tongue.  This gal is arranging a workout time...this guy is having a meltdown with his co-worker...this youngin is throwing a fit over the toy he's being denied... but when you have no clue what anyone is saying, the sounds all fall into the non-lingual grouping of motorbike engines, dog barking or car honking.

At first, this phenomenon made me nervous.  What if they're talking about me?  What if I'm about to be scammed?  But then I learned to love it.  If someone's talking about me in Vietnamese, they can speak as loudly as they like because I wouldn't understand or acknowledge it.  If I want to work and plan lessons in a cafe, I'm not distracted by any conversations that I can't understand anyway.

One area of particular tune-out has been neighbor interactions outside our windows.  We have permanent openings to the outside in most rooms and so neighbor noise is pretty common - especially in the morning.  No one around us speaks English, so the squabbles and singing and yelling and conversing is all Vietnamese... until yesterday morning.  I was getting ready to start the day when, out of no where, I heard a very clear and undeniable English question trumpeted outside my window.

ARE YOU READYYYYY!!!

And that was it.