Devastation 1

When I heard there was an opportunity to cover the cyclone devastation in Myanmar, I seized it. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy task but [never did I think / I never thought] it would be nearly impossible. Getting into the country was difficult enough. After sneaking [into it / in], I quickly assembled a team to help me get to the affected areas, as I knew I could be caught anytime and I would face deportation or even jail time.

Very nice.  ( As usual, red is for mistakes; blue is for suggestions.)

CJ 

New2grammar

why woudl you prefer not to have nearly?

Tough question.  I was afraid you'd ask it!

I think it has to do with the complications of multiple negations.

New2grammar

Without it, it sounds like the assignment was really impossible.

No.  The negation turns it around.  "That the assignment was really impossible" is what you never thought.  That's a big difference.

I think you want to say:  There was no time at which I had the opinion that it was (really) not possible.

I don't think you want to say:  There was no time at which I had the opinion that it was almost not possible.   That leaves open the possibility that there was a time at which you had the opinion that it was really not possible.

Qualifying an absolute negative (impossible) with 'almost' or 'nearly' creates all kinds of interference with the previous negation (never). 

This is difficult, and I wouldn't blame you if you needed further explanation.   First think about this for a while, and then let me know if I, or others, can still help.

CJ 

Now that I've slept on it and reconsidered it -- did it come to me in a dream, I wonder -- I think the original is OK with "nearly", so I owe you an apology.   I was thinking in the "hypothetical world" -- before you knew how the trip would be, and how you were expressing confidence that somehow the task could be accomplished  -- and it finally dawned on me that you were trying to tell the reader how the trip you were about to describe really was. Perhaps the word would threw me off the track.

Though the would is possible in the original, I would have said:

... but I never thought it was going to be nearly impossible.

or

... but it never occurred to me that it was going to (turn out to) be nearly impossible.

This brings up another question I find difficult to answer, namely, why does "going to" give me such a different 'feel' than "would" in this sentence?  I don't know.   Maybe the old neurons aren't functioning this week!   And now that I've meandered far and wide in the wrong direction in a previous post, I'm not about to undertake another explanation and risk going awry again!

CJ