Empathizing with Bridget Jones

Bridget Jones is a character of Helen Fielding's, made most famous by Renee Zellweger's portrait of her in Bridget Jones' Diary, and the sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She's a classic heroine because she's so relatable. She "smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother" and is told by her would-be lover, Mark Darcy, in kind legalese, that she is an "appalingly bad public speaker". There's a scene in Bridget Jones' Diary when Bridget stands up before an audience at a book launching party--an audience which includes Lord Archer, Salman Rushdie, her boss, her boss' boss, etc., as well as the author himself. She doesn't realize the mike needs to be turned on, so she says, "OY! OY! Sorry, the uh, the mike's not working. Welcome, welcome, to the launch of Kafka's Motorbike, the 'greatest book of our time.'" "Well, one of the Top 30 books of our time. At least. And here to introduce it properly is the man we all call Mr. . . . . Fitzherbert, because that. is. his name." I have had so many moments in Germany, miniscule as they may be, where I am this person who is just babbling in Ger-english. Today I was sitting in a cafe, just writing in my journal and minding my own English-speaking business, and this (somewhat attractive, if slightly older) man asked me for the time, since today (almost to my utter ignorance) marked the transition to Summer Time, and it took me a good 30 seconds of babble to understand what he was going on about. And then I babbled about how I didn't realize it until later today, and then I didn't know if the conversation was over or what?, and I just felt awkward and very Bridget Jones-esque, so I just left. Poor guy. If there had been sand outside, I would have buried my head in it.

I realize that my biggest fear is speaking to German natives who are apart from the program, real-world German natives. It's awful. I feel like a mentally and developmentally challenged second-grader when I communicate in German, and I'm someone who prides myself on a degree of intelligence. I was wondering on the U-Bahn: is there a point in someone's life, when one is so used to multi-times-daily sheepish embarrassment, where one can't be embarrassed anymore? Perhaps. If so, I should be immune from embarrassment for several years after I'm done here in Munich. I'm a huge believer in working through fears instead of building nice safety zones around them, so, I need to make a point of going out of my way to talk to native German speakers.

Like the Zen saying: the only way out is through. "Appalingly bad public speaker" Bridget Jones later became a television star for Sit Up, Britain!, right? :-)