who really needs a dictinary, anyway?

You would think that after over a month in this country some of my habits would have gone away. But two minutes ago I found myself doing something that was second-nature to me in Japan but has no place in an English speaking country.

I was reading down my list of things to do and I noted my mother’s requests of things to ask the oil change people about our car. I then proceeded to process in my mind how I was going to explain these things in Japanese to a Japanese man wearing a blue jumpsuit who is in too much of a hurry to listen to a foreigner garble through automotive terms.

It took at least two minutes to stop myself. The mental pinch was when I realized I would have to take the time to look up the word for “antifreeze” when it was probably just going to end up being in Japanized English anyway.