And In This Corner, Reality

FFM 2024, Day 6, the one with a language challenge, so - Challenge, I think.

Interculturalidad - this is Spanish you can probably guess, meaning "interculturality." That's what I meant to write about today. Generational culture differences, and, naturally, their many similarities, writing across both Time and Place. I even had the first two sentences ready.

'She was a late bloomer. Too bad she'd already died of old age when the blossoming began.'

I was going to add the tallest building in the world to the setting somehow, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. I have notes of other languages too, words that are somehow familiar to those who only know English, so I could use them easily.

Then I was blind-sided by life. It happens. I just couldn't think much the rest of the day. And most of the evening. Emotion took up too much room. 

So I called a young friend. I used my Bluetooth headset, and I listened to him while he "focused on a job of work" he had to do.

And I recorded what he said, which was a different language to me, or close enough. 

He said, "Okay, light's on. Iron is heating now, where is the resistor on the board? And the other side? Yes, okay, marked in pencil next to the row of pads for the transistors in a row. Okay, Iron and heat it; pulled out one side and then the other. Suck the pads clean, braid the pads if needed. Okay, elevate the install about three-quarters of an inch, bend the leads and let it dangle before soldering. Okay, examine the joint: shiny not cold, but dirty. I'll have to clean the flux off. Where's my pick -- do I have any solvent? What's that funny noise, Lisa?" 

So I had to tell him what it was. 

He laughed. 

He doesn't know I'm typing this here for you. 

I tried to guess what the job he did was for, or what he worked on -- a computer? No. A speaker? No. 

I asked him, "Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" 

He said, "It's always mineral." 

Esto es lo que sucede cuando haces un trabejy pero no el que esperabas hacer. 

And that means...

'This is what happens when you do a job of work but not the one you expected to do.' 

O:

Author's Note

FFM 2024, Day 6, languages is the Challenge - not sure it's met.
Word count: 372.5