Differing ways of being

Once upon a time, when we still cooked our meat over open fires and probably only bathed twice in our lifetimes, English had three verbs that meant "to be". There was "to be", which described permanent situations; "art", which was for emotions and more temporary situations; and one very old, very temporary verb called (and I don't have the proper characters here:) "phtet", which was for passing phases, like being hungry or tired. Spanish gets around this by having three different ways of expressing this: ser, for more or less permanent situations; estar, for situations that can change; and tener, to have, for things that don't last.

Tener is for situations like the trainer. Tener sueño, to be sleepy, when you've spent the entire morning running around like an idiot, and have to get on the trainer an hour after lunch because it's the only space in the day that you can find. Estar cansada, to be temporarily tired, because you're not used to training at such high levels and with such intensity, and you think that you're going to blow out. But never ser cansada, to have had it up to here, to be so fed up that you're at the point of no return.

How's the training going? Des McC. asked this morning. And I said it was going all right, because I am generally enjoying it, though I think I'd enjoy it more if I could focus on it more and not feel like it's something that has to get squeezed between everything else. I am happy, but I am not too tired, yet.