Daniel has taken Ben & Kiki to the mountains to go skiing and I am free to do my thing. It's almost magical. I have some big plans: sleeping in, doing the laundry, catching up on some reading and... I'll probably go out tonight to a pub. Yes, a pub. An Irish pub at that. In Gland, near the place where Kiki (the youngest) goes to school. It's actually in the bottom of the same building. I'm hoping to go and maybe, if I'm lucky meet some strangers and work on my french. :D
Tomorrow, after I sleep in I will have to work on laundry because I have 8 tons of it (in addition to the children's clothes, I also have their sheets to wash AND the laundry from the flat in the mountains which seems to have tripled over the last 24-hours). But after I get some of that done I'm hoping to venture into Lausanne, which is home to the Olympic Museum (really neat video here: http://www.olympic.org/en/content/The-Olympic-Museum/) and maybe practice some more French. We'll see.
Today, I had class - which went alright. It was the last day of the current quarter but it didn't seem like a finish - only that a few classmates will not continue come Thursday. But in terms of understanding I'm doing alright. I can write things relatively well, and read them alright but as I've said many many times before I truly believe my vocabulary is the probably. Part of it also seems to be that I have this grand desire to be able to communicate my exact feelings, thoughts and wishes in French, and much of the time those words come from the years of reading thesauruses and thinking about words that make me sound more... interesting. I mean, I started using the word plethora when I was 11... And that's a great example of a word I'd love to know/remember in French. Part of it, is that when I read a passage, I can pick out the words I struggle with and put them aside for later. I can't however do that when I'm in conversation. I'm sure there are some people who would be fine saying "oh, hold on a minute I need to look up what that means" but I'm one of those people who will either just say I don't know/don't understand or pretend I do and pray I remember it later. Then there's the spelling issue. Things are NOT spelled how they sound in French (something as an English speaker I am familiar with) but take the words fille and file - the first is pronounced "fee" the second "feel." the first means girl/daughter the second means line. One L and you've completely screwed up your sentence. And there are other weird instances such as that. I remarked to a classmate while walking out today that you think you know something, and then they throw in a new rule or change the meaning and you sit there going "quoi?" I know English isn't easy but I think that maybe it's the way I'm learning French that makes it, too, seem radically difficult. I wish I could go back in time and make my parents send me to a bilingual preschool. That's when we're supposed to learn a second language... when we learn the first!
But it's not all bad... at least I'm getting somewhere. I can write simple phrases in French, I just can't read, understand or speak it... C'est la vie. After class today I had a coffee with two of the girls in my class... we talked a little about our various struggles with adjusting to a new place and they gave me a few tips on getting adjusted. (Their main point was to actually go out... who'd of guessed! lol) But we all sympathized over the fact that its difficult to meet people, especially locals because as a foreigner you always feel on the outside of things. I often feel like a voyeur (as in observer not pervert) but hey guess what? That word derives from the FRENCH word voir meaning "to see" Ha! I can't escape it.
We'll see how venturing on my own tonight and tomorrow goes... maybe I'll wake up and magically be bilingual.
Photo blog coming next... Take care & know I'm thinking about all of you.
OH! And if you're in the Seattle area - you should go see Control Keys (Scot & Kyle's newest band) playing their first show tonight, Tuesday 23rd at the Funhouse in Seattle. It'll be a blast & I wish I could be there.
Love,
Swiss Miss Matticus
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