Terrible, terrible news: I'm losing my American accent. Just today, a large group of people was unable to tell my region of origin after I unleashed a stream of flawless French; when I unleash a stream, I want people to know where it came from.

Consider it this way: you meet, let's say a Russian, with a thick, thick accent, who sometimes can't think of a word, or who periodically misconjugates something. Bottom line, he's Russian, which automatically makes him cool in the states; good for him.

Now consider you meet a guy in the street who says, "When my father built our house, he look often for, eh, in the, eh...what do you call the thing that is where the, eh, [mimes for hammer] is put in?" Without an accent, this man is mentally retarded.

And not only is an thick, thick accent the only thing that makes an inability to form a sentence cool, it also means you get bonus points for everything you say correctly: when I, as mentioned earlier, let loose with a 3 sentence long, clause-laden, tense-jumping masterpiece of bilingualism, I should have had like a 5x multiplier, Such was not the case - they nodded and responded.

If anyone has suggestions for how to keep or even thicken an American accent, I will be more than happy to hear them; for now, I plan on listening to more Johnny Cash and hoping.