Busy, busy today. Busy like a maur, which is Norwegian for “ant.” Working on a project I won’t describe to you, of course, except to say that it’s more difficult than the usual fare. I’m dealing with some dialect here. I do surprisingly well with dialects (having figured out the “trick” of it some time back. You need to imagine the sounds of the words). But it still takes longer than the usual stuff. And involves harder thought.

It’s just as well I had inside work to do. It was cold outside. Clear, but cold, though it wouldn’t have seemed so bad a month ago. Yesterday was partly cloudy, and the temperature soared into the 40s, which feels pretty good in March. Exchanged a few words with one of the neighbors, who complained about his aches and pains due to moving snow. The warm day had been ushered in by a heavy snowfall. We have now, according to the neighbor, exceeded the average snowfall for the year. It’s been a yo-yo year, we agreed. The temps have gone up and down, and every time they passed the freezing point (either way, it seemed), we got another dump of snow.

My usual favorite radio talk show didn’t grab me today, so I slipped in my DVD of “Wisting” (a Norwegian production, you may recall, which I worked on a bit). I wanted to listen to some spoken Norwegian. When I go there this summer, I’d like to be able to understand people. I can speak TO them – haltingly, but understandably. But I can’t understand them when they talk. The words, so comprehensible on paper, blur together and mean nothing to me. It’s frustrating. Here I am a genuine Norwegian translator, with credits, and I can’t understand the spoken language.

One of my great fears is that someone will someday expose me for the imposter I am.

I guess I’m not the only person who feels that way.