“Once in a lifetime.” I tell myself that phrase a lot. Like when things are tough, I know I can work through it and it will all be worth it in the end. When I don’t really want to do that really hard history geography homework, I tell myself it will make my French better. And when I want to buy two pastries at the bakery instead of just one, hey, “it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” to spend a whole year living in a place with a different bakery on every corner. And today, I had the best elephant ear I have ever head, and since that is usually my pastry of choice at most bakeries, that it quite an honor to bestow on this particular elephant ear. Except here, they are called palmiers, and they don’t have any cinnamon. Arggh, I am already starting to have typing issues because I type words in French without realizing it, like “particulier”, rather than “particular”, because that is how you spell it in French.
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| What's in the bag? The suspense in killing me! |
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| Yep, you guessed it. An elephant ear and a chocolate croissant, or to use their french names, un palmier et un pain au chocolat. As you can see, the elephant ear is missing a bite. I told myself I was going to wait until I got home to eat it, but while I was waiting at a stop light, the elephant ear just jumped out of the bag and into my mouth. There was really nothing I could do about it. |
One thing that really surprised me is how good at ping pong my whole P.E. class is. Our teacher grouped us into pools by level last time and then we played everyone in our pool. Once my pool had finished, i was watching the lowest pool. The two people were having a really good rally. And my friends who claim they don’t like sports and don’t like ping pong can give me a really good game. I feel like if we did a ping pong unit at Rio, there would probably be some people who don’t even know how to hold a paddle, let alone really have a rally.
I did some tongue twisters with my friends during break. It was particularly hard because at first, I didn’t know what the words meant. But if you want to have some fun, try saying “Un chasseur sachant chasser sans son chien de chasse et un bon chasseur” ten times fast. After you’ve done that, try it in english. “A hunter knowing how to hunt without his hunting dog is a good hunter.” It’s a bit easier, huh? They told me another one about the socks of the duchess being dry(something involving chaussettes, sèche, and duchesse) but I didn’t really understand it. And I taught my friends “She sells seashells by the sea shore” and “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” We were all laughing and repeating them under our breath during our next class.
I have finally reached a point where I can sometimes guess that a word needs an accent on a certain letter, even if I have never seen the word. There are a few patterns I have noticed, but a lot of it comes from the sound and just getting used to it. When I first started studying french and learned that there were 5 types of accents(è, é, î, ç, ï -and these can all be on other vowels too, except the ç, obviously) I thought it was hopeless. But, I sometimes get them right now. Small consolation, but everything counts. And I have gotten to the point where seeing words that should have a “ç” with a normal “c” is weird for me. Like at school, the boys bathroom says GARCONS, instead of GARÇONS, and it just looks funny.
It is so nice to really have stuff to write about it my blog and not enough time to write it, rather than the reverse. Before I left, I was like, “Oh, I should practice writing my blog” but you can only say “I’m so excited” so many times before it gets a bit repetitive. I hope my stories about random little things that make life different aren’t too boring for you. But, if they are, oh well. I have fun writing them, so I’m going to keep doing it.
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