World Enough and Time

I don't usually ost cat pictures or vids, but I just discovered Henri, the existentialist cat.

Henri
Henri II, Paw de Deux

Mais de reste.

My French class has been cancelled. Seems I was the only one who signed up. The administrator said, "That's the problem with the students who are almost bilingual. It's harder to fill the classes at the upper levels."

She thinks I'm "almost bilingual". Hot damn!

Hope she's right.

There's a ray of hope: if two more students sign up by Saturday, there may be Saturday morning classes at my level. I live in hope.

At Alliance Française today, I took the exam forthe end of level B-11. To pass, one needs at least 70% in all questions - oral and written. I got 70% in two levels, 90% in another, and "Excellent! Félicitations!" for the written work. This is a pass, though I had some stupid spelling mistakes, like writing "ferrai" when it should have been "ferai". Ah, well...

The teacher advised those of us who are continuing to take the class held twice a week, rather than the Saturday morning classes, because we learn faster and learn more when it's twice a week - once a week is plenty of time to forget what you learned the week before. Even with homework. But B-12 isn't held this term except on Saturday mornings, so she advised us to go into B-13. Makes me feel as if I'm skipping a grade.

Now, I'm jobless and close to penniless, but I squandered $400 of my hard-earned credit card on on the B-13 classes coming up in a week. It isn't just that I love the classes and don't want to stop them. It's that I really think my French is improving, and the better my French, the better I'll do in the job market. In the long run. And self-study only takes a person so far, especially when I feel that what I need now is practice in speaking and pronunciation. I still struggle with those French Rs.

The couse cost more than B-11, because we need a whole set of textbooks.

Thius is really exciting. And I swear I'll study or practise French every day. I really will.

I just gave a talk on Emma Goldman in French. I am mighty!

Interestingly, the teacher started the class with a film and an essay about Simone de Beauvoir. I noticed how many ideas and values those two women had in common - a generation apart - very cool.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

It was a bit of a struggle to be at the French class by 8:30 s.m. on a Saturday, but I did it - and it was an utterly beautiful morning. Sunny. Not too hot.

The teacher was one I knew, Magali, who though the Actualités seminar I took in July. We did a lot of work today on the subjunctive, which is starting to seem easy. We watched a film clip about what young people think about the future.

I loved it. Why do I love language classes so much? I don't know, but I do. Bring it on.

At each French class, two people have to give a talk in French on any subject that intersts them. Five people have spoken so far:

1. One woman talked about her work and travel in the Bruce Peninsula, counting snakes
   
2. One woman talked about the trip she's planning to Costa Rica
   
3. One man talked about working and travelling in Mexico
   
4. One man talked about the trip he's planning to Belgium
   
5. One man talked about working for CIDA in Tashkent, Uzbekistan
   

...And then there was me. Did I talk about my recent trips to the Caribbean, to France, and to the UK? Did I talk about travel to exotic places like Orkney or Malta? No, I walked about Wolverine, and about collecting comics.

Next week, I have to give another talk. I was thinking of talking about somewhere I've been to, but I don't think I want to do the same thing as everyone else. I like being different.

I think I will talk about Tarot cards.

Yesterday I had the last of the French classes I'd signed up for at Alliance Française, and they gave me a piece of paper that says I have:

...terminé la classe 11A23D - SPRING 2011 - et est admise dans la classes supérieure de notre programme d'enseignement de la langue française.

...finished the class 11A23D - SPRING 2011 - and is admitted into the higher classes of our French language programme.

So today, encouraged, I went back and signed up for two courses in July. I can't take the intensif because I'm going to work (albeit with reduced hours), so I signed up for the course that goes three times a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, and then I signed up for a special Monday night class called Actualités sur internet where we look at web pages and discuss French news items, TV shows, and politics.

Not quite French immersion, but plenty of hours in a month. Don't expect me to do much else until August. I will be très occuppée.

I might not have been so eager to sign up again if I hadn't enjoyed the last class so much. We didn't use the text book, but a sheet the teacher handed out that had various French expressions on it, and we discussed their meanings. For example:

• Ça ne mange pas de pain = "that doesn't eat bread", meaning it doesn't cost anything
  
• Mettre la main à la pâte = "to put your hand into the batter", meaning to help someone finish something
  
• Ce n'est pas du gâteau = "that isn't cake", meaning it's difficult
  
• Mettre de l'eau dans son vin = "to put some water in his wine", meaning to mellow with time
  
• La moutarde lui monte au nez = "the mustard got into his nose", meaning he got angry
  
• Metter son grain de sel = "to add his grain of salt", meaning to stick his oar in
  
• Ça tourne au vinaigre = "that turned into vinager", meaning it went sour ( like a relationship, something that was formerly good)
  
• Mi-figue, mi-raisin = "half fig, half raisin", or something where opinions are evenly split
  

And then teacher put ten sentences on the board. Each had at least one error, sometimes of spelling, sometimes of verb agreement - various things. And we were challenged to find the errors. As a group we were terrible but it was fun, like a game.

Then we were given expressions which mention animals:

• un vrai tête de cochon = "a real pig's head", meaning stubborn
  
• nous n'avons pas gardé les cochons ensemble, tout de même = "we haven't kept our pigs together, all the same", meaning "you're showing unaceptable familiarity"
  
• c'est du travail du cochon! = "that's pig's work", meaning "it's a botched job"
  
• c'est vraiment donner de la confiture aux cochons! = "it's giving candy to the pigs", meaning the gift won't be appreciated
  
• un vrai temps de cochon = "real pigs' weather", meaning terrible weather
  
• ils sont copains comme cochons = "they're friends like pigs", meaning very good friends
  
• arrêtez de manger comme des cochons = "stop eating like the pigs do", meaning, stop eating like a pig
  
• il est moche comme un pou = "he's ugly as a flea"
  
• il est têtu comme un âne = "he's stubborn as a donkey", meaning he's stubborn as a mule
  
• il a une vie de chien = "he has a dog's life", meaning a terrible life
  
• il fait un temps de chien = same as "temps de cochon"
  
• il fait un froid de canard = "the weather's a duck's cold", meaning it's freezing
  
• elle m'a posé un lapin = "she handed me a rabbit", meaning she stood me up
  
• il a une araignée au plafond = "he has a spider on his ceiling", he's very depressed
  

I love this kind of thing.

I don't know if French Canadians use any or all of these expresions - I'll have to ask my local friends.

I wanted to watch something in French this evening while I printed my apazine, and I lucked into the second episode of Sherlock playing on CBOFT. Just the thing.

Why does my French homework always take me so long to finish?

Maybe it's better not to answer that.