Hearing voices

My computer talked back to me today, in my voice. It was strange. The voice she used is mine, no doubt, as I had just fed her the first series of notes I have recorded the last couple of days. My English voice was OK, cringe-inducing but familiar to me, having listened to its litany on my various phones (office, home and cell). But upon hearing my Spanish notes, it was obvious that something was definitely off. The rythym was all wrong. What was thrown back at me was not the cadence of a Puerto Rican's voice. Instead of the familiar quickfire singsong, a slow-paced, strange staccato hybrid of Colombian, Peruvian, Costa Rican and Chilean accents greeted me. At first I thought some kind of perverse Univision prankster hacked into my computer and rerecorded my notes in a network-generic accent, but after listening to them a couple more times I realized the disembodied voice was mine, albeit different. Ack!

Until recently I have worked in the Latin America division of my employer. Of my 10 years in the company, 7 of them have been spent in Houston in the company of a regional team that is composed of multiple Latin American nationalities, speaking frequently with contacts throughout the whole region. Obviously that has had an effect on me. Or maybe I have been away from the island for too long. The last time I visited was Christmas 2005.