Jan 11, 2007

D-White and Barb, the Ultimate Language Machines

Dwight—or D-White as I call him—and Barbara—or Barb as I call her—is the couple leading PILAT here at MTI. They really are great people, who have a wealth of knowledge in so many areas of life. Barb is the greatest story teller of all time! I could listen to her tell stories about her life experiences for hours. D-White, though, is a very unique man, and I have found that he and I are so completely different!


He is oldish, and I am youngish.

He has grayish-white hair, and I have reddish-brown hair..

He is tall and skinny, and I am short and…well, not.

He wears a button-up shirt and slacks pulled up to, and possibly beyond, his natural waistline; I prefer the casual t-shirt and jeans and can’t remember the last time I wore my britches at my natural waistline.

He doesn’t say britches; I do.

He is married with children and grandchildren; I’m single with no children nor grandchildren that I know of.

He can easily make sounds that I feel no human should have to make; I struggle to merely say “to” without a southern accent.

He says “tongue in cheek” a lot; I’m pretty sure I have never said that in my life.

He…speaks….really….slow and quietly; I typical speak pretty fast and loudly.

He doesn’t really laugh, just a slight smirk; I laugh hysterically at pretty much anything.
He has a story for every fifth word that he says; I don’t, though I could probably make something up if I needed to.
He thoroughly enjoys fluently speaking a Vietnamese tribal language; I can not and, honestly, do not enjoy listening to it.

He doesn’t get my humor; I do.

He doesn’t find saying “A E I O U, El burro sabe mas que tu!” is cute and silly; I do...it’s a cute way to learn the vowels in Spanish!

He’s been to every country on the planet (pretty sure); I’ve only been to 8, 10 if I count airport layovers.

He knows every language known to man—I even think those that are unknown languages, D-White knows them; I don’t.

There is one big thing, though, that I know for sure D-White and I have in common: PASSION.

Man, D-White, it’s like we’re the same person.


Here's a little snap-shot of my D-White experience. Oh the joy of language learning!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I literally almost had a seizure when watching that video. Ok, maybe not an actual seizure, but I definitely tensed up with hatred for the Jeh language. Well, maybe not hatred for the Jeh language so much as annoyance for Dwight's little Jeh exercises. But anyhow, loved the post. However, I'm still super jealous you got to go to Colorado and I was stuck in Nowheresville, NC. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

Was that Laura??? I can't wait for this experience myself! :)

Mike

BritBoat said...

Yep, pretty sure that was Laura. Good times. Thanks for the share. :-) Hilarious!

Anonymous said...

We all laughed a good one here last night. Loved the pic of you with the Chimels too. The video brought back so many good memories....