Cah, cah! My name is [redacted], and I'm a Duolingo addict. I didn't choose the owl life; the owl life chose me. And now I've begun to embody it—nocturnal, wide-eyed, and obsessively hooting phrases at unsuspecting victims. My friends used to invite me for brunch, but now they know better. I emerge at dusk, my pupils dilated from hours of staring at my phone screen, turning my head a full 270 degrees when someone mentions language learning. Evolution is real, and I'm evolving into Duo's image one streak day at a time. It started innocently enough, just a casual swipe, a few lessons. As a native Spanish speaker, I thought, “Portuguese? How hard can it be?” Famous last words, my friends. Famous. Last. Words. I wanted to see how many Portuguese lessons I could conquer. You can’t blame a girl for wanting to learn. It turns out that Portuguese is like Spanish’s rebellious cousin who went to art school and decided grammar is just a suggested guideline. It plays with your emotions, takes you hostage, gaslights you, and then leaves you crying in a grammatical corner. You can go from confidently thinking “I’m locked in” to having an existential crisis about a noun’s gender identity. That green owl just calls you in a way, you know? In fact, Duo is a psychological warfare expert disguised as a cute cartoon owl with eyes so large and manipulative they could guilt-trip a stone into learning subjunctive tenses. Reminding you to study is his last priority; he stalks you like an overzealous language-learning paparazzo. Miss a day? It’s your funeral. Thoughts and prayers for your email inbox. I fear this streak is a lifelong commitment. Contract negotiators are less tenacious than this bird. I’ve heard that if you miss a day, Duo will manifest in your bedroom, staring at you with those giant eyes, whispering “Was it worth it?” And yeah sure, those reminders actually went into effect, to the extent that I’ve maybe partaken in some… questionable language learning locations. I’ve been guilty about such eccentricity, and I can admit that. Yes, I’ve duolingoed at parties, at a restaurant, at Disney, in the rain, during power outages, in the midst of workout––my streak and I are locked in. It’s a “meet my parents” type of commitment here. We’ve been through some things, no other language app can compare. Even though Portuguese being close to my native language does give me a head start, this is not just about linguistic proximity. This is about perseverance. This is about proving something. We don’t gatekeep the trilingual title here — we earn it one streak at a time. Every night, I’m like a linguistic special ops agent. The world could be ending, zombies at the door, apocalypse incoming, but by God, I will be getting that XP. I’ve never known true fear until I missed one too many exercises and was left counting down the seconds until 11:59pm to finish that final lesson. My roommate probably thought I was undergoing an exorcism; little did she know that I was just trying to keep a cartoon owl from sending me passive-aggressive memes about commitment. Over 10,000 hours of my life dedicated to an owl who promised me linguistic greatness. And what do I have to show for it? The ability to tell you that “A menina come uma maçã” with the confidence of a UN interpreter. "Complete this sentence: O gato bebe ___." LEITE! I scream triumphantly, having answered this exact question approximately 437 times. Meanwhile, ask me to have an actual conversation and I suddenly develop the communicative abilities of a concussed goldfish. There is something about Duo’s algorithm that keeps me perpetually engaged while teaching me the same 12 phrases in increasingly random order. I can confidently tell you that "a woman eats an apple" in six different tenses, but God forbid I need to ask where the bathroom is in an actual emergency. Do I feel as well versed in Portuguese as someone who just returned from studying abroad? Absolutely. Never mind that my actual conversation skills might involve more enthusiastic pointing and Spanish fragments than fluent dialogue. I’ve got badges, people. Badges. I’ve got levels. I am a language learning machine here — a machine that occasionally sounds like she’s conjuring up ancient spells, but a machine nonetheless. Who needs real-world validation when you have digital achievements? My Duolingo profile should go on my LinkedIn. “Professional Streak Maintainer” rolls off the tongue nicely and is even more credible than the internships I have actually completed. Future employers take note: I can commit.They can call Duo up, he will confirm…he knows everything. P.S. Duo, if you are reading this, I love you. Please don’t send your notification hit squad after me. I’m committed. I swear. Isabella Pamias is a sophomore in the College majoring in Government and minoring in Philosophy. At the time of writing, she has a 441 day streak on Duolingo.