Last night was my first dream in French. That could be a sign of increasing aptitude, but it wasn't the good dream, where you're on a wooden raft with Brigitte Bardot chatting fluently, and suddenly Balzac is there and you're having an opium-fuelled ménage à trois. Instead, I was in freshman French and I was 26. I was trying to read aloud, but my mouth couldn't pronounce a single word. The young kids were all snickering and then someone spat on me.