I'd like to buy a vowel!

"prst"
"krk"
"brzy"
"vlk"
"vlna"
"plný"

Those, my friends, are words. Yeah, believe it or not, I did not just press a bunch of keys on my keyboard. That mess of consonants is actually a collection of words. They even have a meaning! If you would have showed me those a month ago, I would have thought the person typing them had accidentally put their fingers on the wrong keys.

I am taking Elementary Czech. A class that I need to take if I want the language credit for the Global Scholars program. So, like it or not, there is no getting out of taking this class.

"prst" - finger
"krk" - neck
"brzy" - soon
"vlk" - wolf
"vlna" - wool
"plný" - full

Those are the estimated definitions. Just in case you were dying to know. I don't even give a shit. Trying to pronounce those is like putting a sock in your mouth and trying to whistle. Not so easy. I'm telling you, I couldn't BUY a vowel for anything. They're not for sale.

5 minutes after class started on the first day, I knew I hated this class. There is just that "it" factor a class can have that makes you realize that it's not meant to be. Once my teacher stood up in front of the class with her cardigan half buttoned down and then vomitted a sentence that only gremlins could understand, I knew...

Instant panick sets in when my teacher decides to look at the roster and call on people at random! I think to myself "There is no freakin' way I could pronounce 'vllkddmndashlu' even if I wanted to!" Epitome of confidence, I know. If there is one thing that I hate, it's most things. But if I had to pick a top 5, being called on at random would be one of them. If I knew the answer and was confident about it, I would raise my scrawny arm and tell you the answer. That's almost never the case.

As soon as she started picking us off like flies, my palms began to sweat more than usual, which is a ton. My hands were literally dripping sweat. I looked straight down, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I tried to not soil myself but then I realized that soiling myself would be a definite reason to leave the classroom... So I tried with no results.

I was able to avoid being called on the entire class period until a few minutes before class ended. She asked, "Is there anyone I have not called on yet?" I look left, I look right, and I slowly raise my hand and with a squeeky voice I say, "Me." I had to pronounce these words: "stul, dum, ukol, utery, domu". Add a few accents in there and you've got some Czech words. They weren't so bad.

Did I mention that this class was 1.5 hours long? Well it is. I don't know if you've tried to play a game called "pretend you're not real" for 1.5 hours but after 5 minutes it gets pretty difficult. I'm only good for short periods.

The other class I had today was.... Wait for it....... Drum roll? 3.5 hours long! There is no way that sitting in a classroom that is well above 75 degrees for 3.5 hours in the late afternoon is condusive to learning. It's not. I have the attention span of a gold fish and a memory to match. Sit me in a class with 4 other equally loopy friends and you've got yourself a show.

The class I'm taking is basically review. I took the class at Bradley but I got a C so I know an average amount of the material. Maybe a good thing I'm taking it again but that doesn't stop me from being bored out of my mind.

The teacher did the typical "what's your name? where are you from? why are you here?" deal but he didn't really call on us during class, which I liked. I thought about lying and saying, "My name's Kitty Kat but you can call me Tiger..." just to spice things up a bit but I didn't have enough time to think of the rest of my lie.

The rest of class crawled by until the final hour when the excitement set in. I had been in class for most of the day and had spent a great deal of time watching the sky turn black right before my eyes.

I raised my hand to answer a few questions and invented a new word on accident. "Foupon". Similar to "Coupon" which I meant to say but I was so tired and still frazzled from pronouncing Czech babble earlier in the day that my mouth said, "Foupon". I thought about ignoring it but you can't really ignore that word. Say it out loud... It's silly. It didn't help that I could hear the pee trickling down my friends' legs and their bodies shaking with laughter. So I had to make fun of myself. It's always the best option. It's always bad when you are trying not to laugh because it's not the time or the place but you honestly can't not laugh. This was how I felt. I was in the middle of answer the professor's damn question so I had to finish it! My face was red from the lack of oxygen and I almost started to wet myself all because of "foupon." What a simple word to pack such a punch.

And I thought Czech was complicated... Try English.