I work at a living history museum. I’m a day camp counselor, but I’m also familiar with several of the buildings. I could give fairly decent tours in 7 of them if you asked me to.
Today I was taking my camp kids to view one of the buildings from the 1840s. There was a group of French exchange students who also wanted to view that particular building. My mom, who was giving the tour, mentioned that I’m majoring in French and I could probably translate for them.
<Sigh> Moms.
I could probably give a not-totally-crummy tour of the building in French. But my oral skills are so terrible that I get nervous and embarrassed about speaking–especially in front of native speakers. There were also words (clay, brick, fluting iron…) that I didn’t know how to say, which made me more nervous (even though those words weren’t essential to the tour). So I totally wussed out. I was like, “Uh, I don’t know that much French,” and I was able to get out of it.
You’d think I wouldn’t be such a huge baby about this, but I was. I am. I would probably wuss out again, given the opportunity.
And how awesome do you think it would be to be able to tell all my friends that I gave a tour in French? How much more confident do you think I would be? This was an awesome opportunity, and I totally blew it.
Next time (if there is a next time), hopefully I’ll be able to suck it up and give the dang tour.