Two years ago I took a summer course in Burmese language at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute in Wisconsin. It was great, but in the intervening two years my fledgling Burmese skills have deteriorated sharply, due to me not keeping up with my studies and having no one else to talk to in Burmese. So I decided to give myself a quick refresher by listening to Burmese By Ear, an audio course covering all the conversational basics. Everything was fine until we got to Unit Ten.
Now, given how many of my waking hours are spent thinking about Shakespeare, it's not unheard of for me to hear Shakespearean references where there are none. However, this time it wasn't me. This entire section featured Demetrius, Hermia, Helena and Lysander very politely asking each other what their names were. It was surreal.
And then, of course, I got so distracted by this that I had to listen to the lesson over again, because I wasn't paying attention: I was imagining A Midsummer Night's Dream set in Burma and trying to decide if Bottom would remain an ass or if a water buffalo head would be more appropriate. (Final verdict: he would remain an ass, so as not to infringe on the Bago Nat's territory.)