Language Barriers Are A Curse
I've been thinking a lot about this thing called a language barrier. This week, my two other non-German-speaking labmates have been out of town. It has just been me, which puts English-only in a significant minority. On Wednesday, lunch was entirely in German. So was coffee break. It was not fun. I swung into the bathroom and cried. It was the second time I'd ended up crying in a bathroom after lunch. The first time, I blamed a sudden wave of inexplicable homesickness. This time, I was not so sure. I wasn't missing home at all. I wasn't missing Texas, or even English. Nor was I mad at or hurt by my labmates. They're the nicest people ever! So what was wrong? I'm going to take a quick detour and talk about road kill. You heard me. Every time I see road kill, I'm reminded of death. My spirit cringes, not in fear, but out of distaste. And every time, I feel like God says to me, "This is not how it was supposed to be, Melody. That's why it mak...