I've spent most of the day making sporadic phone calls on a story...and today only several sources chuckled sympathetically when my Spanish started going off the rails. I think that's a new record.

I can't describe what a challenge it is to write a "quality" feature while reporting in a second language. Take that normal anxiety you sometimes get when you're about to pick up the phone and call a source, and quadruple it - I'd say that's about accurate.

It's a slow, jumbled, disorganized train wreck of a process.

One of the people I tried to reach today is a member of the National Assembly - a congresswoman. It took several minutes to will up the courage and dial her office. She wasn't in; I'm calling back tomorrow morning, then fainting immediately afterwards.

It's not that my Spanish is particularly terrible. You wanna chat about food? music? sports? politics? No problem. You wanna discuss recent changes in the Venezuela penal code in regards to libel and defamation, combined with proposed ammendments to media law? ...my brain hurts.

I recorded an interview with one of Venezuela's counter-drug head honchos earlier this week. It's terrible - you can actually hear my effing thought process...as I try to form these complicated questions. The cringe-factor is probably four times as bad as when you hear yourself having a normal conversation - just like the anxiety at picking up the phone. Let's call it the Second-Language Rule of Four, sorta like American Pie II's Rule of Three.

I have my good Spanish days though. Or more accurately, confidence in my skills varies depending on the last conversation I had. Sometimes you hear yourself effortlessly taking off; other times you hear yourself tripping and stumbling and it only gets worse the more self-conscious you get...sort of like having a bad st-stut-st-stutt. stutter. stut-ter.

...

So where am I going with this, besides making fun of people with debilitating speech impediments?

This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do (and I don't know how well I'm doing, to be honest). A part of you can't wait to get out of the developing world and back to the comforts of home. But then as much as I bitch, the challenge can be really exciting... so there's that little voice.

That little fucking voice...the one that tells you you're gonna regret it if you go home, as awful and lonely as this place can be at times.

The one that says these are the challenges that separate the men from the boys, asshole. The resolute decisions that make careers - versus going home and stalling and "building your way back."

If you can stand it. If you can stand all of it.

Then again - and no offense to Mom and Dickie Sr. - but how can I go home? That's the alternative, right? I've got nothing lined up after this, folks. Nothing. No prospects. I go home, live with my parents at twenty-eight years old, cross my fingers, and pray that I land a decent reporting job.

That's the plan, ladies and gentlemen. Look out girls, this one's available!

Rock, meet hard place.

You might remember, but a couple of months ago I had a meeting with the Post. We've been in sparse contact ever since, but as far as I know I still have the green light to string for them. This would involve getting the proper work visa, as well as compiling plenty of other clients to be able to, you know, "survive."

At this point I just don't think I'm ready. I've leaned so hard on the AP's guidance and support - I can't imagine being an effective independent reporter down here...not yet. But in a couple of months? Who knows?

And then I snap out of it. "Christ, look where you are, dipshit!"

And then the voice counters, "Exactly, look where you are, dipshit!"

There are a couple of American guys who work out of this bureau, not much older than myself. Both of 'em have the perfect temperment for this place - the ugly aspects of life down here just slide off their backs.

One of 'em was traveling through South America after his college graduation; he didn't speak a lick of Spanish but somehow - and I have no idea how this happened - somehow he landed in Caracas, out of all the options this continent offers, and he never looked back. Eight years later he's fully immersed, content, with a coveted AP job.

How does that happen?

Both have girlfriends - that can't hurt. Although that first guy dated another girl previously for several years before they broke up, and he's only dated the latest girl for under a year. So my question is, what holds you here after that first break-up? Seriously? What other redeeming factors are there? How do you not start making plans to head home, despite the AP gig?

Is that the International Correspondent Gene, which apparently I lack?

If I go home, did I not give it my all?

Does that automatically signal retreat, if I just follow this program through its due course and leave?

Is it really like Boss-one says? "Stay a maverick...you won't be able to do it again?" Is this experience a resume-builder to help land a gig back home, or a one-time shot at a life-less-ordinary? Neither? Both?

Answer me, fucking eight-ball, answer me goddamit!

I'm gonna go crazy if I go back. I couldn't ask for two better parents, and I'm not just saying that. But I'm 28-years-old faced with the prospect of suddenly starting over in their guest room after one of the most momentous years ever and I'm gonna go fucking certifiable.

(Meanwhile, I bet TAFKAC is halfway on her way to getting engaged...)

Stay here.

Go home.

I don't know which is the bigger challenge. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a bottle of chilled white wine waiting in my fridge (remember, this is the equator), as well as a terrace and hundreds of frogs chirping on the adjoining slope. It's exciting Friday nights like these that make "staying" so worthwhile... 'Probably four times easier said than done.

And I would say "somebody shoot me" but experience has made me wise(r).