It's Saturday night, and I unclogged the shower drain.

There are many useful reasons to study a foreign language, but perhaps this excellent website is the determining factor.

One beauty of this website is that it conjugates verbs for you. If you've been dying to use the future perfect in Spanish of a certain verb, then its handy-dandy verb conjugator will provide you with the correct form. All this of course also makes writing essays a cinch.

Another beautiful part of this website that I discovered last year is that it has a discussion forum where people can post some technical grammar questions so people can answer them. So if you're not sure exactly how you should use that future perfect verb, someone more knowledgeable can tell you, or if you don't really know how to use "whichever," you just go to the definition of "whichever" and post your question in the forum.

Last year I did not really pay much attention to these forums. I guess you can say my idea of fun last year was something like wild parties and late nights, but since my idea of fun has transformed into sitting on the 3rd floor of the library instead of the 4th and maybe using the Mexican Seasoning in my scrambled eggs instead of the usual Lemon-Pepper Seasoning, intently examining these discussion forums have provided an on-the-edge-of-my-seat sort of exciting time.

It started with just looking at the words I had to use. All those words that would insure I sound magnificently pretentious in every sentence, like "ambiguity," "inarguably," "duplicity," "multiplicity," or "underlying." Then I realized that by slightly altering the words, I could come up with some interesting forum discussions.

Let's have a look.

For "girlfriend," we have someone inquiring:

Would someone translate this sentence to Mexican, spanish?

I want to be your girlfriend and I love you with all my heart, but we are two different people, you just let me know when you are ready.

If she needs help translating something that has a maximum of two verb tenses, then that relationship has to be deep and there are absolutely no language barriers.

Then there is also the amusing question of translating:

"Tell your ex-girlfriend you broke up with me so she doesn't call me looking for you"

---

it's necessary to tell my boyfriend. i get more late night calls from her than my boyfriend!

For "boyfriend," we've got some naiive girl saying...

Hello, I'm having alot of trouble trying to translate this letter into spanish for my spanish boyfriend and i know a few words like "te quiero" is i love you, "ninguna" is nobody, "feliz" is happy, "corazon" is heart and things like that, but it's so hard for me to put it all together, can somone please help me?? this is the letter:

"I can never stop thinking about you. I miss you all the time, even right after i see you. You are so amazing and no one else is like you. I don't think I've ever felt this way about anybody and there is no one that can compare to you. You are the one man that i love and always will love with all my heart and soul, you mean the world to me and nothing else makes me happier than when I'm with you. I love being in your arms and giving you kisses and I love when you kiss me because you have the sweetest kisses and the most caring hugs. You make me very happy and you are the sweetest guy that says the cutest things and you always know what to say to make me smile and laugh. You are so special to me and I can't wait to see you again."

Gag. Vomit. I hope she wrote it on scented paper and I hate to say it, and I bet he's cheating on her.

For "stupid" (ok, this one is too easy) someone says:

How would you say "stupid white buffoon"?

Would it be:

"bufon blanco estupido"?

Thank you for your input.

But for something more innocuous like "dragon," you get

Como se dice "the dragon shot fire out of his nostrils"

That's some pretty contagious snot he has.

As I continue writing essays, I might post some more interesting forum discussions. For now, though, since it is Saturday night, I'd better be getting to sleep...er...I mean...I'd better be on my way OUT to some crazy party....before someone thinks that I am some loser who has nothing better to do than to look at wordreference on a weekend evening.

Edit: I highly recommend these photographs. I have no idea who he is, but he's got great pictures from Italy and all over Europe, if you're feeling a little nostalgic.