Nomadic Nurse Diaries

Dear Diary,

So, it’s official—I guess I need to learn French now. Why, you ask? Well, let me take you on a little journey through my brain, where dreams are big, and my commitment to learning languages is even bigger.

Ever since I left my staff position at the hospital, I’ve felt like a free agent. And not just any free agent, but the kind that could sign with any major team—okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but you get the picture. This newfound independence has been a revelation. That pesky little voice in my head, the one constantly nagging me to suppress my travel urges and lofty dreams of working for a large humanitarian organization or at an embassy as a Nurse Practitioner, has finally shut up. Thank you, inner critic, you may now exit stage left.

Now, when I research these dreams, they don’t just seem like whimsical daydreams but tangible goals that can be achieved with a few intentional decisions and some big moves. This shift in headspace is monumental. It’s like going from, “Maybe one day I’ll win the lottery,” to “Let’s figure out the best investment strategy.” And guess what? Speaking French and Arabic seem to be the golden tickets that open all the doors in the world of humanitarian work.

I love learning languages. Ever since the pandemic hit, I’ve been on a linguistic roller coaster, dipping my toes into 14 languages with varying levels of intensity. Yes, you read that right—14! I’m as fluent in Spanish as a non-native speaker can be, with Dutch trailing closely behind. I read the news in Dutch every day, listen to podcasts, and binge-watch shows in it. The other languages I’ve flirted with include German, Farsi, French, Hindi, Japanese, Levantine Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Norwegian, Portuguese, Finnish, Turkish, and Russian. Yes, it’s a long list, and yes, it will probably keep growing.

But here’s the catch—I need to focus. I can’t become proficient in all these languages simultaneously, as much as I’d love to be a walking, talking Tower of Babel. So, drumroll please, I’ve decided to focus on French. Why? Because every time I browse a humanitarian organization’s website, French and Arabic are the languages that pop up as super valuable.

I have all the resources I need for Egyptian Arabic, so that’s my other focus for the coming year. This means French and Egyptian Arabic are my new linguistic BFFs. This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning the others forever; I’m just parking them in the garage for a while. My goal is to get to a point where I can watch TV, listen to podcasts, or read books in French and Egyptian Arabic. I know Egyptian Arabic is a dialect and not widely used in written sources, so I may need to pivot to Fus’ha (Modern Standard Arabic) at some point. But hey, one step at a time.

And who knows? Maybe down the road, I’ll add Pashto, Urdu, and Punjabi to my ever-growing list. Because why not?

So here I am, on the brink of diving headfirst into French, with Egyptian Arabic as my sidekick. My journey to becoming a multilingual superhero continues. Stay tuned for more adventures, mishaps, and probably a lot of funny miscommunications.

Until next time, au revoir, and ma’a as-salama!

Yours linguistically,

The Nomadic Nurse