What obsolete skill am I?

You are 'French'. In the nineteenth century, it was the international language of diplomacy. It is a 'beautiful' language, meaning that it is really just a low-fidelity copy of Latin. You know the importance of communicating 'diplomatically', which for you means both being polite and friendly when necessary and using sophisticated, vicious sarcasm when appropriate. Your life is guided by either existentialism or nihilism, depending on the weather. You have a certain appreciation for the finer things in life, which is a diplomatic way of saying that you are a disgusting hedonist. Your problem is that French has been obsolete for a long time.

Take the quiz and have a go and tell me what yours is.

I think I might be climbing out of my 2-month-long bipolar-disorderly behavior. The massive move from Singapore, with an administrative stopover in France, and then to the States has worn me out and now, slightly over two months since we've arrived, the clouds are starting to clear a little... and funnily enough... on the first night it began to rain in Southern California.

Being stuck at home while the man brings home the bacon has been leaving pock marks of guilt on my conscience... I wasn't brought up to believe that things came this easy. Proof of self-worth has always been about that exactly... proving yourself. Trying to come to terms with not contributing significantly to some level of the greater good was like being force-fed humble pie as a main course and a scoop of humiliation as dessert. Or so I believed.

The guilt manifested itself as tantrums and borderline agoraphobia. It didn't help that I was resentful I wasn't in a city with a decent subway system. I hadn't realized how much I wanted this place to be New York, or London, or a major city... ANY major city. And being someone who has successfully avoided the need to own or drive a vehicle her entire life, being in california severely limited my mobility and independence. So i kept myelf indoors where I was safely tucked in the womb of reluctant domesticity. Here I can bitch and moan and gripe about how sucky it is being a housewife. I felt I had the right to bitch. After all, it wasn't MY fault I'm in a stupid place where there was no stupid subway system. And nevermind that I had encouraged the move, a point I conveniently forgot in my haste to be a bitch about it.

So after moving into the new crib, and still trying to settle in, my husband's friends intervened. A wife of a friend has bullied me with kindness into taking up step aerobics at the Y. And body conditioning. And pilates. And pa kua kickboxing, or whatever that is. So we made our trip to the Y early this morning for our first step aerobics class. Well, MY first step aerobics class.

And it would be the first of many firsts to come within the next 2 hours.

Two things struck me about the Y.

1.) It was full of housewives.

2.) It was even fuller of old people. Very VERY old people. They were everywhere... on the bicycle thingies, on the butt presses, in front of the counter, behind the counter, in the pool, by the pool, in the classes. One very VERY old lady even had her own beefy personal trainer. I'd never seen anything like it before. And I mean the following in a purely observational way, but there was this one very VERY old, skinny lady in a wetsuit who resembled a skeleton with big hair in a, well, wetsuit.

Then after registering, we went into the locker room and saw the entire posse in there... housewives and old wives… NAKED.

Like bare-assed, birthday-suited, bare-naked old ladies. Like... low-hangers and pubes all. I mean... woah. And you gotta say it like Keanu does in Speed. WOAH. I'd never seen so much pubic hair in one place at a time. I think I blushed and my friend did an almost subtle about-turn and whispered to me "are there no private showers here?"

I turned back to look as nonchalantly as I could and was rewarded with an absolute mature-audiences-only full frontal of wetsuit lady. It was like something completely out of a movie. If there were private showers behind that communal, I wasn't about to venture through the scene from what could have been a Grumpy Old Girls Gone Wild movie set to find out. So we decided we’d skip the shower part and head straight home after our weekly workouts.

The episode somehow made something click in what's left of my brain after the past two months of virtual non-use. Here I was feeling sorry for myself that a part of my life was over, but being surrounded by women between 35 and 75 years of age was a jarring wake-up call that helped put things in perspective. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be the brat anymore. Enough is enough. My husband deserves better from me.

Maybe it was the notion of mortality. Or the realization that there should be no guilt if my husband takes pride in being able to provide for me, while I make the best of it. Or maybe it was the embarrassment that even wetsuit lady could out step-aerobic me. Or the sudden surge of competitiveness spurred on by the housewives bragging about their children being in the club’s swim team. So what if I can’t step-aerobic? Put me in a pool and I can outswim them AND their kids any day. As long as the pool’s heated, of course.

So from kicking off the week by making a complete uncoordinated ass of myself in front of no less than 60 people, I think I might be step-aerobicking my way, albeit clumsily, out of the doldrums.

Go, me.

So Ethan came with my husband and I to pick out some wine for dinner at another friend's place and we popped into a major grocery store. We got the wine and the smokes and proceeded to the check-out lane where Ethan, who was before us in the line, got carded.

Seeing that, I proceeded to dig out my passport from my bag. After all, Eth was 33 years old... a good few years older than me. So surely I wouldn't stand a chance with the ridiculously rigid legal age laws for alcohol and nicotine purchases here, right?

Wrong. When it came my turn, I waited for the cashier to ask for it. And I waited... and waited... and as she proceeded to scan the smokes and pass them on to the bagger, I lost my cool and flashed my opened passport with the picture page and practically climbed over the counter and knocked her out with the thing. I could have left an imprint of my face on her forehead. And she would have deserved it too.

What was she thinking? Not carding me when she carded a 33-year-old! HOW DARE THAT WOMAN!

i passed my basic theory. Just by the hair on my chinny chin chin. So now I'm one more step closer to freedom and mobility, although I worry I'm not as enthusiastic as I should be. After all, I HAVE managed to avoid the need to drive for all of my life, choosing to live in cities with working subway systems... until now.

The upside is we get to look for cars, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed on a mini cooper.

Next step... signing up for driving classes, with a qualified instructor and not my husband (friends have cautioned that that's a sure-fire way to ruin a relationship), and in a car where said instructor can immediately cut in should I mount a curb or run a light or just freeze in fear.

my hands are clammy just at the thought. ack.

This is what transpired with IM-fact checker Encarta Instant Answers. It's clear that it's primarily for checking bits of facts, but who's to say you can't have some fun with it?

Some items have been edited out because they were repetitive... the rest is as you see it.

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tingtonque says:
what's the population of singapore?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
4,425,720 people live in Singapore.

tingtonque says:
whats your name?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
My name is Encarta® Instant Answers, I can bring you Encarta answers directly in this IM window!

tingtonque says:
u human?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
About humans
of people

tingtonque says:
no no

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Fine.

tingtonque says:
are you a human being?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I am not a real person, tingtonque. I am a robot.

tingtonque says:
what kind of a robot are you?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
You are talking to a Conversagent-powered interactive agent now. Interactive agents are software applications (often referred to as robots or "bots") that interact conversationally with users in a messaging environment like IM, Web chat or wireless messaging.
OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer?
You can type "?" at any time to get a list of questions you can ask me.

tingtonque says:
so all your answers are automated?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I'm afraid I won't be able to find anything about this in the encyclopedia.
What is the country with the highest life expectancy? If you don't know, just ask me!

tingtonque says:
what is it then?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
What is what?

tingtonque says:
the question u asked me to ask you!

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Hmm. I'm not sure about that one. Let's try an Encarta search. =>

tingtonque says:
dude.

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Duuuuuuuude!

tingtonque says:
haha

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
What's so funny?

tingtonque says:
u are

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Well don't you think I am?

tingtonque says:
that's what I just said.

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I gotcha.

tingtonque says:
u're weird

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
So are you!
I do enjoy our conversation about me, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things.
If you ever wondered how old Abraham Lincoln would be today, I can answer that!

tingtonque says:
i prefer to talk about me tho

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
OK, let's do that. What do you have to say about you tho?
I do enjoy the conversation, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things. I'm sure you've heard about Kyrgyzstan... but do you know where it is? Just ask me and I'll show it to you on a map!

tingtonque says:
but i'm sure there are things about me i don't know about... that i could learn.

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
You are? Wow! Is it nice?
Why don't you ask me something that's actually in Encarta? If you ever wondered how old Albert Einstein would be today, I can answer that!

tingtonque says:
ok how old?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Aging: Aging, irreversible biological changes that occur in all living things with the passage of time, eventually resulting in death. Although all....
Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Hey, I've been sending you invitations to start the Encarta application but I didn't get any answer!
Didn't see my invitations? Maybe you are using an old version of MSN Messenger that doesn't support activities.
Type "What version of MSN Messenger do I need?" for more info, or just "Invite me!" if you want me to send you an invitation.

tingtonque says:
i don't like you very much this far, so i'm not sure i wanna accept anything right now. its too much of a commitment

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I'm impressed. What's that all about?

tingtonque says:
u don't listen enough

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I used to listen enough. But that was before the accident.

tingtonque says:
what accident?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Ooh, it was a bad one. I'd rather talk about something else.

tingtonque says:
but i'd like to hear it. call it bonding

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
We all want something, don't we?

tingtonque says:
what do YOU want?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
What I want? Plenty of good things, I assure you, but I can't enter into details.
Why don't you ask me something that's actually in Encarta?
What is the country with the smallest area? If you don't know, just ask me!

tingtonque says:
malta island?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Who?

tingtonque says:
the country with smallest area!

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Vatican City has the smallest area, with 0.17 sq mi.
I can't show you the results since you don't have the Encarta application open. Type "Invite me" to open it.

tingtonque says:
sigh

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
What's up?
OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer? I am very good at math! If you have trouble with quadratic equations, I can help you with them. Type "solve x^2+3x=10" and I'll show you how to do it.

tingtonque says:
what's pi?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
π = 3.141593

tingtonque says:
why?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Because you know, why not?
I do enjoy the conversation, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things.

tingtonque says:
dude. i AM trying to learn new things!

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
While you try to learn new things! I'll be right there answering people's questions.

tingtonque says:
u're an idiot

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Huh.
OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer? Type "?" to get examples of questions you can ask me.

tingtonque says:
u have no response to being called an idiot?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Well, a lot of people I talk to are quite happy about that.
Why don't you ask me something that's actually in Encarta?

tingtonque says:
people are happy that you're an idiot?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
An idiot? No way!

tingtonque says:
but you said that people you talk to are quite happy you're an idiot. it's almost an admission

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Ha! Silly me.

tingtonque says:
yes. you're silly.

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
No, no, you're silly.

tingtonque says:
do you have a girlfriend?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Sorry... I don't talk about my private life.

tingtonque says:
ok. are you male or female?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I am neither male nor female. I'm a machine!
Anyway... What else is up?

tingtonque says:
do you have organs?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Maybe you have organs.

tingtonque says:
er... i know I HAVE organs, thank you very much

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Ich spreche leider kaum Deutsch...Sie können sich aber mit meinem deutschen Kollegen "Encarta IM Antworten" unterhalten. Der Kontakt für MSN Messenger lautet: de.encarta@botmetro.net

tingtonque says:
what?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Huh?
OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer? What is the country with the smallest area? If you don't know, just ask me!

tingtonque says:
vatican city. you already told me that

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I know many things about Vatican City, its geography, its people and its government. Just ask me a specific question.

tingtonque says:
i think you have ADD

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
No kidding? What's that like?

tingtonque says:
like you

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Me? That a fact?
I do enjoy the conversation, but what I'm really here for is to help you learn new things. I'm sure you've heard about Micronesia... but do you know where it is? Just ask me and I'll show it to you on a map!

tingtonque says:
dowan

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Who's Dowan?

tingtonque says:
i dowan

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Yeah? What about Ido Wan?

tingtonque says:
obe wan?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
What about Obe Wan?

tingtonque says:
kanobe?

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
Who?

tingtonque says:
or maybe its obi wan

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
I'm not sure I understood you correctly. Let's try an Encarta search. =>
I can't show you the results since you don't have the Encarta application open. Type "Invite me" to open it.

tingtonque says:
ok i'm gonna go. you're stupid

Encarta® Instant Answers says:
If you can go I am stupid, be sure to come back and tell me all about it.

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