Fits of laughter

Usually, for me, adjusting to a new culture and language involves some level of exhaustion...lots of naps, yawning during class, wanting to sleep all the time. In fact, I think that could be quite normal for most people. Just yesterday I took a nap that was somewhat close to three hours.

Today, though, my malady took the form of fits of hysterical laughter. I mean, I completely LOST it, and laughed so hard that I began to cry. The more the tears came, the harder I laughed. I could not control myself. And what's worse--I was in language class when it came on me.

My professor had the class of 10 students standing in a circle. (At this point, I'd already burst into laughter about an hour earlier for no reason whatsoever, and had to bite my lip to control it.) We're practicing saying our numbers round and round in this circle. Not only do I have to remember the word for a number, but I have to do math with it as well. Because the French can't just have a word for 70 or 80 or 90. Oh no. It's sixty plus 10. It's fourty times two. It's fourty times two plus ten. I'm so not kidding. How in the world...? Anyway, I digress.

So we're going round and round the circle saying numbers. Each person had to say the numbers of the people before them and then the next number. My class is full of Brasilians, which makes it fun (and I get to practice my Portuguese too!), but these numbers come easy for them. So they're breezing through the numbers with no difficulty at all. It gets to my turn. I go slowly. Sixty plus ten. Sixty plus eleven. Sixty plus twelve. With each person, I'd look at their face to help me remember a little better who had said what number. Each Brasilian face gave me this encouraging look of "You can do it." I felt sillier and sillier. The giggles rose up in my throat around Sixty plus fourteen. My voice hit a higher pitch by sixty plus fifteen. I squeaked out sixty plus sixteen. By the time sixty plus seventeen arrived, I was laughing hysterically. I tried to compose myself, but to no avail. I tried to speak and nothing came out. I barely managed to say "sixty plus ten plus" when the tears flowed down my cheeks from the laughter. I bent over took a deep breath and realized that there was no way I would be able to say "eight," so I just held up my fingers with the number eight.

It was as though someone was tickling me and I just couldn't stop laughing at all. For the rest of the day, I've had the giggles and have burst into laughter several times. Even now, there are tears in my eyes from laughing while I type this out. One of my classmates came up after class and said, "Sojalie, what was so funny in class?" I said, "I don't know! That's part of what is so funny!"

I really didn't know if my teacher was going to kick me out of class, I was so out of control. She didn't, but I'm sure she thought I was the craziest American she's ever encountered. But I have to say, I enjoy laughing instead of sleeping away the culture tiredness.