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Why, oh why, did I decide it was necessary for me to broaden my horizons in college? Why did I decide that I needed to learn Spanish instead of continuing my French studies? For all of you that laughed at me when I took French in high school, laughing that I would never use it, I am proud to say that I have proven you wrong.

Yesterday, part of my day was spent pouring over the details in a rather lengthy contract written completely in French. One of my clients has several divisions and, while I normally work with the US division, we have done some work for the France branch. Over the last few months, I have bonded with the representative for our France client. She was thrilled to learn that I knew a few words of French. She decided it was her mission to make me fluent in French (she has a rough road ahead of her!). The extent of my new found study of French has been limited to occasional French emails and a few short phone calls (that usually end with both of us speaking English—thankfully, her English is perfect).

We recently took on a huge project with the France/international divisions of this corporation. Yesterday, I had my introduction to our work with this new project. Since we have never done any work for the international division, I had a lot of questions. To answer my questions, the producer for this venture sent me the Master Agreement (think “very large contract”). Thanks to my years of studying French in high school (and Alta Vista translation) I got was able to drudge my way through the contract and get all of my questions answered. Maybe, since Husband is going to be so busy, I should start taking French classes again. Apparently, French coursework is not the worthless waste of time so many people told me it was during high school!