Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noel
Feliz Navidad
and all that good stuff.

I ended up getting a C+ in Russian class. Too bad I don't take the tests well because I can't spell. Yeah, so other than that nothing has really been going on in the language front. Honestly. We had French club today, we went caroling in French last Sunday night. That was pretty fun. I've got a packet with all the words in it. I've been singing them all week long. Spanish is pretty much boring as usual. Had a test today. I did kind of bad on it. I'm worried I'll forget all of my Russian over the month long break so I've been trying to speak it so I'll remember.

AP and the "Personal" Narrative

So since I didn't have Russian today, I hung out at school. This activity is becoming quite interesting because I realized that the people at school don't actually care what I do just so long as I'm not causing trouble. Take today for example. Period 8/9 I stood in the door of Madame's room and I said.

Me: Madame, Can I sit in on your AP class today?

Madame: Why haven't you done it all year?

Me: Because I would sit in the Library all day and I just now realized that they don't care what I do just so long as I'm not causing trouble.

Madame: Alright.


So I sat in on the AP class. Let me tell you, it's a lot more fun than french three. At the beginning of the class, they did this translation activity and then we spent the rest of the time reading this story about this haunted painting. It was really fun. In all honesty, if I don't have a car on friday (No college then this week) I'm going to be going to the AP class again. It was rather amusing and much better than sitting in the library.

I'm going to have to get off in a minute and go finish my english homework. In english, we're writing a rough draft of a personal narrative. My problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to write about. Then an opening line hit me. "As in all things, it began with water" In my opinion, that's a really good opening line. My problem was that's all I had. Now I had a choice. I could think up something else or I could start with that line and see where it takes me. So I went up to Mrs. Haynam's Desk and asked her.

Me: Mrs. Haynam, I have a problem. I don't have an idea and I don't have a purpose in telling a story. All I have is an opening line and I could start with that but I don't know where the rest of the story will take me.

Haynam: What's your opening line?

Me: As in all things, it began with water (Pause, I realize she's giving me a funny look and so I try to fix what I've said) I know we're supposed to be modeling these other essays so that's why I asked because I really have no idea where the story will take me...

Haynam: I'm interested to see where this takes you. Some people have talent and some need more structure. Go with it. (Or something to that effect)


Mrs. Haynam likes to give me funny looks. Anyway, I started and I'm not sure I like where the story has taken me. Especially when I realized it's not really a narrative. It's about a girl who gets caught in the ocean in a freak storm and I leave it that she may or may not be drowned. I was having a spaz because it almost turned out as more of a fictious story rather than a personal narrative. Then as I was writing, it hit me. It is personal. When I write random short stories or poems I've noticed that sometimes they reflect how I've been feeling lately. Only I don't realize it until after I've finished writing. Well I did that with this essay, but I realized it in the middle of creating it. I realized that the story is a personal narrative. In fact it's really personal because it symbolizes how I feel sometimes. So I'm going to write up a page that explains this and staple it to the front of the essay.

There is one other odd thing I did with this essay. I didn't write it from the first person point of view. Part of it is because I wanted to be different because I knew that everyone would be writing in the first person (it is after all a personal narrative) There was another reason too. Back when I thought the story was going to be something about me, I decided that I was going to write it in third person because I would write better. In third person, I could pretend that I wasn't the one who was doing whatever I was writing about and it would be easier to write description.

Okay, so now that I've yakked on forever, I've got to go finish the essay. Hopefully, when I get it done, I'll type it up on here. Maybe not though I'm not sure yet.

урок 4

Compared to the last chapter, Chapter four in Russian class is a piece of cake. We're probably going to have a test over it next week sometime. Basically, it's a bunch of vocab and the Accusative case which is uber easy comparted to the locative cases of adjectives. We've already been warned however, that the next unit, урок 5, is going to be really difficult. The good news is that all of a sudden, I'm picking the language up better. It kind of happened randomly, I'm not exactly sure when, but it's like my brain is finally figuring out the rhythm and sound of the language. I'm reading and pronouncing much better! Hooray!

Today in class we learned about conjunctions


где-Where
что-that
как-what, how
какой-what kind
потому что-because
почему-why



Each one of these has a ","(comma) in front of it (Sorry, I don't remember the Russian word for it.) I had examples of when to use the conjunctions but in all honesty I'm too tired to think of them right now.

The Spanish Test went all right. I didn't do that great, but I did do extra credit so that should boost my grade a few points.

Today at the end of French, Madame asked me and two other people who had done the National French Test practice after school last year, if we wanted to do it again. This surprised me because all of the Third and Fourth year French students take the national French test. Of course, we all said yes because it was really fun last year, it was like having French club every week. So I think I'm going to refer to it at "The National French Test Club" or NFTC for short. Madame said that she was going to invite some sophomores too. So that'll be interesting. I'm hoping that Aleta will be one of them, but I guess I'll have to wait and see...

Game Day

The Game day in Russian was pretty entertaining. It was better than sitting in class doing the usual torture. We played tic-tac-toe and every time we put an X or O on the board we had to do an assignment and then the team who won the game got extra points at the end. It was fun even though the team I was on lost and we only get three extra credit points. I think this is due to the fact that all the people who are really good in the class were all on the same team.

Other than that nothing new. We're still learning subjunctive in French. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. In Spanish we're having a test on Friday. I"m excited because in that class we're going to the computer lab tomorrow. I love days when we go to the lab in Spanish because even though we have to go to Spanish websites, it's more entertaining then sitting in class. This means I get to sit and yak at my friend Patricia for forty minutes (In spanish and english of course) Yay!

Aujourd hui, c'est vendredi!

Currently Reading:
Natasha's Dance: A cultural History of Russia
By: Orlando Figes


Today's Friday! Hooray for the end of the week! *dances a jig of happiness*

French club was fun except for one girl I sat next to who was being obnoxious. (That's another story though) We all ate "éclairs" (creamstick doughnuts) until we were ill. We also drank cider and ate those pirouette cookie stick thingies. Mmmm...Madame read a story and we all were sound effects in it. I got to be feet on the stairs. After the story, we all got more food, and then we watched slides from when Madam was in France over the Summer. France is so pretty, but eh-Icy cold Russia is calling me first.

I felt pretty good about the Russian test today. I think I did pretty well. I guess I'll find out on Monday... I'm glad that she didn't give us anymore homework for this weekend, other than reviewing what we already know for wednesday.

I'm not sure what we did in spanish. I know we took a quiz. I tend to drift off in that class because 1. it's so big it's easy to get overlooked and 2. because we are always going over the same things and it doesn't feel like we ever learn or do anything new. It's like forty minutes of torment.

Well that's about all from here. I probably won't be updating again until Monday because I'm planning on enjoying my Halloween weekend!

*sigh*

I'm not feeling real well. J'ai le rhume. I think is how you say it in french, but I can't remember. Test in русский tomorrow. I was really nervous about it because of the locative cases of adjectives (see earlier post with that title) anywhoo, when we went over it again in class today, I realized that it makes perfect sense, in an odd kind of Russian way. So I'll do some studying today and then hopefully I'll do pretty well tomorrow.

While I'm on the subject of Russian, I'm looking forward to Wednesday's class. We're doing a mass review of everything we've learned so far and so weds. is a Review game day. I know it sounds kind of insane to be doing that in a college class but hopefully it'll be better than the usual torture of knowing Svetlana is going to call on you the one time you don't know the answer! (or maybe it'll be worse than usual)

I'm also excited because in French class tomorrow, we're having Le cercle Français which is French club. This means that we get to sit around for a whole period eating, drinking, and playing silly games. Wheee!

Nothing new with Spanish. Wait, I take that back. We always go over something but we go over it again...and again...and again...I think you get the picture.

Ah! one last thing about russian. The department of Modern and Classical Language Studies (MCLS) Put out a русски газета (russian newspaper) it's a little newspaper mostly in russian and everyone in russian class got a copy. I can't understand most of it but it's fun to pick out a few words that I do know. I'm hoping when the next issue comes out, I'll get a copy!

Bored

No Russian today. In French we played a couple of games where we acted out the housework words that we've been learning. It was kind of stupid but it was better than just sitting there all period.

In Spanish we did partner activities all period. I sat there and said random stuff in Spanish. That's one good thing about languages, if you happen to be bored, then you can just chatter in another language. Okay, so maybe I'm a little...odd... but ah well aren't we all.

How to and Russian history

So while I'm bloggin today...

I'm seriously thinking about creating a help page but the only thing I could think to put on it would be how to get your mac to write in Cyrillic. So maybe I'll save it.

Anyway. The other day I realized I have a problem. I want to spend a year in a country I know like nothing about. Okay. I do know a little about Russia but mostly it's from what I've read outside of the classroom (which isn't much) so I've decided that I need to find a good, easy to understand (no textbooks) book that goes through Russian History. I'm going to start compiling a list of winter reading. At the moment, though I've got zero books on the list. Hmmm...I think I'll make it movies too. Just because I'm worried the only books I'll find would be boring and dry.

In all honesty, One of the main reasons I've done so much with Russian lately is because absolutly nothing is happening in my other language classes. I have a love/hate relationship with the speed of college classes. Anyway, in English we're builiding our vocabulary so that we'll be able to describe tone and diction (gag me with a pencil) In French, we're learning things like "run the sweeper", "mow the lawn", and "prune the shrubs" all of which are of course incredibly long because that's how the French do things (though the Russians aren't much better sometimes) In Spanish, we've just started a new unit I think part of it is on food but I'm not sure because I was half asleep in class today.

Locative Cases of Adjectives

In a way it's almost pointless to sit here and title my posts. I mean I title them but a lot of the time I end up talking about other stuff. Anyway. Russian is really hard right now. We have a test on Friday and I'm like not ready for it at all...

We are learning the Locative cases of adjectives. Now this may not sound like a big deal, but let me give you an example...


В чемодане


This means in the suitcase Easy enough right? Not really. Because Let's say that you want to talk about the big suitcase or the dark blue suitcase or the American suitcase. If you want to do any of these things, you have to figure out which ending you need to use. Here's another example.

новыи

This word is the masculine singular form of the word new. Okay, now that we've got our noun and our adjective, it's time to put them together. First you have to make sure that your noun and adj. are in agreement. In this case they are, they are both masculine and singular. Now, you add your preposition which is в then you figure out if the word новыи has any spelling rules. In this case, it doesn't. After that you have to drop two letters. This leaves you with.

нов

Then you have to figure out if the last letter is hard or soft. The в is hard and so you add the ending

-ом

Then you put it in the sentence (it goes before the noun)

В новом чемодане.

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. The way you put Russian adjectives in the locative case. Okay so maybe it doesn't look that hard but that's because I gave an easy example. You're brain would hurt as much as mine if you were sitting in class and had words that had spelling rules, were femanine, neuter, or plural, or if you were given like four adjectives with a noun and you had to put all of them in the locative case.

Russian can be a screwy language sometimes. Yet I'm enjoying it. I don't know why-I must be crazy. Mrs. Barber told us about a class I believe it was called Pronunciation and diction or something like that. It's a third year class but with permission it can be taken earlier. Anyway it basically teaches you to pronounce russian words. Mrs. Barber said that it's an easy class but by the end of it you can read anything in Russian even if you don't know what you're reading. I'd like to take it but don't know if I'm able because I already had to turn in the information for PSEO classes I'm taking next semester. Maybe I should go beg and plead with the PSEO people...Hmm...there's an idea...

I'm so Excited!

Okay so as my last post showed, I'm very proud of myself because I figured out how to make the computer keyboard type in Cyrillic. I had one of my friends on a PC come to the site and tell me if he could see the characters. He said he could and so I'm very excited. Not only because I figured out how to do it all by myself, but because now I can actually show you the words in Russian instead of just telling you about them! Never mind the fact that it takes me like twenty minutes to type a sentance because I have to figure out where all the letters are, I will learn where they are and then be able to type both in Russian and English. *glances around and then Whispers* Since I know how to do it now, I may fix the laptop I use in physics so that whenever I do blog entries from there, I can type in russian!!!

*dances around* Excited! Excited! Excited!

Русски!

actually, this post is a test to see if the way I set up the computer to write Russian characters works. I'm hoping that it does. If anyone who sees this would be so kind to let me know if they can see what's centered below in the cyrillic alphabet. Just leave a comment. Thanks.

Я говорю по-русски!

That says I speak russian. I just hope that other computers can see it.

Nifty Language Links

Okay, so this is really the last one for the day, I promise. I was looking for some cool clip art for this blog when I realized that I have no post for cool links. So... This post is now known as Nifty Language Links. There will be a link to just this post on the left side bar of the blog. I'll update it whenever I find another cool link...

Foreign Language News and Newspapers- This site has newspapers for like 8 different languages. Including Russian, French, Chinese and Italian.

Enchanted Learning- Okay so this is actually a resouce for teachers. However it offers printable coloring books in several languages including French, Swedish, and Dutch. *The link takes you to the french page. The links to other languages are at the bottom.

Language Guide- This probably has to be one of the coolest sites I've ever seen. You can click on one of several languages and the site will take you to a place where you can choose a category and then it uses quicktime to pronounce the words you click on. Languages include Russian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic.

Oh yeah...The little Kids...

I forgot... So Last Thursday, five girls (including me) Went to teach some basic french to the gifted students at the middle school. They were so cute and little. It was really precious listening to them try and pronounce the words. There were three boys and one girl. All of the people I went with came back talking about how well the little girl did in pronunciation. Yet I have to disagree with them. She did eventually pronounce them correctly, but there was one little boy who like had everything right off. It made me wonder if he has the same type of gift I do? hmm... Anyway, we're going again tomorrow. I'm excited because not only do I get to skip half of french, but I get to play with cute little kids. :-)

Dad said that he'd look into putting a Russian font on the computer so I can share some of what I'm learning. However there is nothing yet. Maybe if I keep bothering him...

*Dad if you're reading this, please work on installing a Russian font. or a way that people can see the Cyrillic alphabet...*

Russian?

Everytime I think I know what I'm doing, something changes my mind. On Monday, my russian prof. Told me that I had a talent and I should major or minor in russian. So maybe I'll do something with Russian Translation and possibly work for the FBI.

I'm sorry I don't update this blog as often as I used to. See, Neat stuff happens in at least one language class a day but I've gotten in trouble and my parents changed the computer password. Again. So I can only get on every couple of days. By the time I do, all the cool stuff I had to say has been forgotten.

Okay, back to Russian. If I got a B.S. In russian translation, I could have more job opportunities than if I did french. Though I could actually get a double B.S. In two languages...Hmm... If you would like to see what Kent State has in the way of translation, here's the page:

Overview of the Bachelor of Science in Translation Major.

That's only if you care...

I'm thinking I should go to Russia though the thought of going there scares me to death. Going to France doesn't. I think it's because Russia is farther away, and in a way I think it's more foreign because of the Cyrillic alphabet. I'd be worried I wouldn't be able to figure out what was going on.

I do have to admit that I do like Russian. It's a pretty language, both written and spoken. I don't know what I'm going to do...

What I Love...

I think that my absolute favorite thing to do right now is wait for Russian to start. I know that sounds really odd but give me a moment to explain. Even with the long drive, the bus ride and the walk to Satterfield hall, I still arrive at my classroom about half an hour before class starts. There's a Spanish class that uses the room before we do and so the only thing to do is sit myself outside the door in a chair and work on homework. Homework isn't the only thing I acconplish however.

My classroom is on the third floor of SFH. Also on that floor are two labs for graduate students who are majoring in Modern and Classical Languages and Translation. I love to listen. I've heard Spanish, French, Russian. Maybe it sounds a little odd, but it's fun to sit there and listen. If no one walks past speaking something, I always have the spanish class. I think it's a Spanish I or II class because sometimes I can kind of understand what the teacher is saying. So I listen to that, I listen to the people who walk past, or sometimes who stop and have a conversation right in front of me and I think. Someday that'll be me. I can only hope that it'll be soon.

I found out something kind of depressing. I was going to work extra hard on my Spanish this year because our youth group was going to go work with orphans in Mexico next summer. However, I found out that we probably won't be going now. Which is really depressing because now I have to wait until I go to France before using my language skills.

Speaking of Spanish, we're going to start learning a past tense. In french, Tomorrow is our first day teaching the gifted students. Bell's going to ring, gotta go.

Cool Opportunity

Okay so in French class I've got this cool opportunity. Madame had five of the people in my class who would be interested in maybe teaching or doing something with French in the future talk to her. She told us that the gifted education program in our school distrect is doing a unit on french and we get to go to the middle school and teach French once a week. Tomorrow is our first day. I'm very excited!

Books

So since today is tuesday, I don't have Russian. I had to hang out at High School all day because I don't have a car on Tuesdays. (usually) Tenth Period I went to Madame's room and helped put change in those little paper sleeves for a fundraiser we're doing for the hurricane victims. Then I asked her if she had anything for me to read. She told me yes. She'd gotten some new stuff over the summer when she went to France.
11th period I paid a visit to Señora. She had a ton of stuff for me to look through. She even had Peanuts and Garfield cartoons in Spanish. I'm going to be reading the Garfield book when I learn more spanish.

In French we've been learning the tense 'Le Futur.' It involves the letter "R" as Madame keeps telling us. Anyway basically you take the infinitive and add an ending. Here's an example:

Rester
Je resterai
Tu resteras
Il restera
Nous resterons
Vous resterez
Ils resteront


Le futur translates as "will" The first sentence above, Je resterai means I will stay. So yeah. That's basically French in a nutshell today.

In Spanish, we're still talking about the same old same old. Reviewing what we've learned before. The only difference is that now we're going over telling time again. whoopee *rolls eyes* It'd be nice in a way if all my language classes went as fast as Russian.

Speaking of Russian, I'm behind in that class because I'm supposed to be learning five new words a day. I haven't been. BAD BAD BAD! I'm supposed to have mom help me set up these note cards so that I'll be able to learn the words more quickly. Part of my problem though is that I'm in a play and I've got practice like every evening so I haven't had time to make the cards.

By the way, I'm working on downloading a Russian font as I type...

Ah. Mom just asked me when we are going to do cards. I guess now would be the time.

The Final Step

The title needs a little explanation...

A few days after creating my "11-step plan" for writing a Literary Novel, I was sitting in english class. I can't remember how it came about, but I mentioned to Mrs. Haynam that I was going to write a literary novel since "anyone can do it." she gave me a really odd look and then said "can I see a copy of it when you're done?" I took this as a challenge and so I've begun the writing (actually I'd already started. -prologue complete)

I've decided that as I write this novel, I'm going to use my list on how to write a literary novel, and various techniques I pick up as we dig through Beloved more.

Okay. Now that you've got the background, here's the reason for the title...

I was on my way home from Kent and Russian class (more on that later) and I was trying to think of a good idea for my story. I've got a prologue and that's about it. So I'm driving along, sipping a milkshake when an idea comes to me. Suddenly I'm thinking... "step number 12, the book must contain some sort of magic (see number 6)" So that's it. It really should be somewhere higher on the list, but that's okay.So now I'm calling it my "12 step plan to writing a literary novel..." I'm thinking about putting it in a booklet and selling it for a ton of money on infomercials. *evil laugh*

Okay. Enough about that, now onto Russian class
Right after Prof. Barber started teaching today, I got really sleepy. I kept telling myself I had to keep awake. It was hard though because my eyes kept crossing and I was just having the worst time. So I'm sitting in my chair, not letting my eyes close for a second 'cause I didn't want to fall asleep in class. I'm reapeating the words that prof. Barber is saying and then the next thing I know, She's saying "your home assignment is..." I don't think I was actually asleep, it was just like my brain turned itself off... it was weird because there's like this blank so I have absolutely no idea what the lesson was about though it might've been about locative words because I seem to remember her saying something about them. In fact...Now that I think about it it was almost like an out of body experience though it was in body.

I remember her saying something and I remember myself repeating it, but I was watching myself reapeat it from the inside of my body...weird.

Since this post has turned out to be uber long...for those of you who wish to skip all the little important details, here's the language summary of the day:

French- Not as boring as usual, we talked about being an exchange student
English- got in groups to work on a project
Russian- I have to learn five words a day, and do some listening activities this weekend
Spanish-BOOOOORRRRIIINNNGGGG we spent the last week reviewing the same thing everyday! I know it can't be helped with 28 people in the class, maybe I'll say something to Señora anyway though.

Russian Revelation

I'm in physics at the moment, got done with my lab early and so I'm killing time. I had a revalation in Russian Class yesterday. We learned how to conjugate our first verb. Zhets which means to live. Anywhoo. I realized that it's exactly like french or spanish it just uses a different alphabet. So I'm thinking that that takes away the reason that Russian would be so hard. That's about all I've got at the moment. Oh I absolutely hate french but I can't figure out why. It's like I'm finally taking all the languages I want, but I'm not enjoying it.

Teen Angst and odd languages

Things aren’t always black or white,
They’re sometimes shades of gray
It’s times like these I have to wish,
Those things would go away

It never seemed to matter
‘Cause you were always there
But now that it is finished,
I’m trying not to care

The words you spoke so dearly
Will never leave my head
The burning images I see
Are all in shades of red.

It never seemed to matter,
‘Cause you were always there
But now that it is finished,
I’m trying not to care

Simple things remind me
Of relationships now lost,
I think about all that we shared,
Was it really worth the cost?

It never seemed to matter,
‘Cause you were always there
But now that it is finished,
I’m trying not to care.


Personally, I'm proud of this. It's the first poem I've written that has decent rhyme. Usually, I can't rhyme to save my life. Please let me know what you think as I'm trying to get a variety of opinions on it. I wrote this...I think it was thursday actually. I've only just now posted it. I've decided I write teen angst really well for someone who's never had any. I suppose that poems I post really have nothing to do with the theme of the rest of the blog, but in a way they do. They're in english aren't they? so there you go! HA HA HA! I WIN! Okay. I'm done now. I'm just tired and behind on my homework already...

Tomorrow is my first quiz in Russian. It's not a big deal, we just get a printed word and have to write it in Russian. Hopefully I'll have no trouble with it. Though sometimes I connect the letters funny.

Russian is a funny language. No offense to all of you Russian speakers out there...but in my opinion the whole voiced/unvoiced consonant thing is kind of weird. I mean...Think about it. If the consonant at the end of the word is voiced then you have to make it unvoiced and therefore it's not pronounced the way it looks...

I suppose that I shouldn't complain. Especially since it's not like english makes sense...or even french for that matter I mean come on! The french for everything is so long! Like instead of saying please they say "If it pleases you" While I'm on it, Let me talk about Spanish. Half the time they don't even use pronouns!

Okay, So I didn't mean for that entire paragraph to come out...so I'm gonna sign off for now, get my shower, work on Beloved *urgh* And then get to bed. I've got another long day tomorrow...

Addendum

So After I was done with my last post, I was at Study Spanish.com. They have a Spanish Word a Day and there was a way you could put it on your site...So I did. It's down on the left side of the page a little ways. Enjoy.

How to Write a Good 'Literary' Novel...

Before I actually start this post I've got to give an update.
Right now, I'm enjoying Spanish more than french. I absolutely love Señora Bey who is muy loca and extremely funny. I'm also understanding Russian better now that I've been going to class everyday though the drive is loooonnnngggg! French is alright. I also love Mrs. Haynam, my english teacher.
Okay now on to the reason For this post.
*warning, this post may turn into a rant and be rather sarcastic. Proceed at your own risk*

I never mentioned it, but over the summer for my english class, I had to read and take notes on a book called Beloved by Toni Morrison. It's one of those literary novels that college classes are in love with and because I'm taking English Ap. I had to read it. Right from the start, I knew I was in trouble...

So anyway, since this is not the first book that I've read like this (This book reminded me a lot of The Poisonwood Bible And Wicked Though not as much with the latter) I've compiled a list of how to write a literary novel...

How to Write a Literary Novel, (and Earn Money Doing it)
1. Decide you are going to write a literary novel
2.Sit down at the computer, or with a notebook, and begin writing
3. Have the book's main characters be girls or women.
4. The book Must make absolutely no sense!
5. If the book does make sense then got to #6 the following (do it if the book doesn't make sense too)
6. Have a chapter that's really odd, from the point of view of a random animal, or has no punctuation. (or All of the above)
7. Make the book at least a hundred pages longer than necessary
8. Make up a bunch of junk that could be considered "symbolisim"
9. Have so much of this "symbolism" that people could pretty much make everything in the book symbolic.
10. At least one sex scene is required (This may be an implied sex scene see #6)
11. After it's published and people begin to approach you about it's mature themes and symbolism agree that both are in the book even though you never really put them there to begin with.

Alright. So that's about it. Sorry if it doesn't make any sense it's just really frustrating. I really do think that Barbera Kingsolver and Toni Morrison both woke up one day and were like "I think I'll write a novel today." They began typing and presto. You get Beloved and The Poisonwood Bible. I could actually go on about the stupidity of Beloved for several more pages but I won't. Besides I do have to admit that I like symbolism. I've written a couple of symbolic poems and whether it was put there intentionally or not, I had a thought about a place that might be symbolic in Dances With Wolves (The movie) I was watching it one day when I realized or at least I felt that Kevin Costener's horse and the wolve he befriends are both symbolic. The wolf of his future, the horse of his past. And when the horse is killed it symbolizes the fact that he can't go back to his past. When the wolf is killed it's symbolic of the future of the Indians and Costener's future. He can't live with the Indians.

That's an example of how you can take just about anything and make it symbolic. Okay so...I think that's about the end of it. Or at least, the end of the rant. You'll probably be hearing a lot more about Beloved because in english we're going to be analizing it to death. Yipee! *rolls eyes*

First Day of Russian

wow, Kent is a rather big scary place. It wasn't that I had trouble finding where I was going, it was just the sheer number of people that was scary. I thought I was going to be late, but I arrived at one. (class starts at 1:10) The class was interesting and I think I'm going to enjoy it. We started learning the alphabet today.

Something I forgot...

I forgot to tell you. This year, I'm taking English AP, which is advanced placement which means it's like a college class that you take at High School but get college credit for. Anyway, we had a ton of homework over the summer for it and you'll be pleased (maybe) to hear that I'm not done with it! And High School starts the day after Labor day! One of the things we had to do, was read the book Beloved By Toni Morrison, take notes in the margins, and highlight things. It's a 320 page book and I'm on page 100. Now, I'm an extremely fast reader but it takes me forever to take notes and highlight. Plus, I'm still trying to figure out why this book is a college bound book when it is the most stupid thing I've read since Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible AAARRRGGGHHH! Everytime I start to get into the story, something stupid happens. We have to write an essay on it the first day back at school, and I'm hoping Mrs. Haynam will ask us to write our opinion as part of the essay because I'm thoroughly going to tell her how much I hate that book! I mean if we're going to read a college bound book let's at least read a classic! And if you want more of a modern classic then what's wrong with Clan of the Cave Bear? I mean, at least there's some point to it, and it's interesting. Gah! Okay, this has definitely turned into a rant...sorry...I think I'd better go to bed before I hurt myself.

Monday Afternoon, and A little updating

okay, so this blog has been idle almost all summer due to the fact that I don't really do anything much with languages over the summer. However I thought It was time to post considering my RUSSIAN CLASS starts Monday! hooray! yeah, I'm also fixing the little thingy on the side that tells who everyone is. I don't have Mr. Shields this year, I have Mrs. Bugansky aka Señora Bey. For Russian my prof. is professor Barber, I assume that she is a native Russian speaker though because her first name is Svetlana which I think is an awesome name.

I'm a little nervous about the first week of Russian for one reason...I'm missing two classes due to the Fair. (I show goats on two days) So yeah, that's the only reason I'm a little apprehensive. I'm also rather redundant. Anywho...That's about it and I'll Let you people know about what happened the first class or two asap. (It'll be a little hard 'cause I'm living at the fair for the week but I might be able to post after class, but before I leave for the fair Monday.)

Nifty Little Quiz

You Should Learn Swedish

Fantastisk! You're laid back about learning a language - and about life in general. Peaceful, beautiful Sweden is ideal for you... And you won't even have to speak perfect Swedish to get around!

What Language Should You Learn?

Dad sent me this nifty link. So I took it and as you can see, it told me to learn Swedish. *Giggle* Anyway, just thought I'd share it. If you take it, leave a comment and tell me what language it tells you to take. (the link is up above)

Awarded

Last night was the awards night at school. I got two certificates and a medallion for taking the National French Test and getting 6th in the state and 8th in the nation.

Music?

I asked Madame if I could borrow her french cds because I can't find anything good at Borders she said to call her over the summer and I could come over and she'd make me copies. Sounds good to moi.

The poem in the last post is the one from the french text book. I'm not going to translate it though actually I think it would be okay translated (not like the other one I posted which definitely isn't as good translated) but I'm too lazy to do it. It would be good practice if I'm going to be a french translator but like I said, I'm too lazy.

...I just found this site that has some different French poets who are living. It has examples of their poetry in french with the english translation next to it.

France-Poetry International Web

René Philombe "L'homme qui te ressemble"

Click Here for my English Translation


L'homme qui te ressemble
J'ai frappé à ta porte
J'ai frappé à ton coeur
pour avoir bon lit
pour avoir bon feu
pourquoi me repousser?
Ouvre-moi mon frère!...

Pourquoi me demander
si je suis d'Afrique
si je suis d'Amerique
si je suis d'Asie
si je suis d'Europe?
Ouvre-moi mon frère!...

Pourquoi me demander
la longueur de mon nez
l'épaisseur de ma bouche
la couleur de ma peau
et le nom de mes dieux?
Ouvre-moi mon frère!...

Je ne suis pas un noir
je ne suis pas un reouge
je ne suis pas un blanc
mais je ne suis qu'un homme
Ouvre-moi mon frère!...

Ouvre-moi ta porte
OUvre-moi ton coeur
car je suis un homme
l'homme de tous les temps
l'homme de tous les cieux
l'homme qui te ressemble!...

Hooray!

Okay so I got a letter from Kent State today. I kept it folded and looked at like the first three words it said "we are pleased..." so I know I'd been accepted. This means that I get to take Russian next year!! I have to sign up for my class, but first I have to go back up to Kent and get my ID card. School's almost done. It's a good thing because I'm ready to be done. It's a bad thing though because that means no more French or Spanish for a few months. Oh that reminds me, We had to do projects in French class. Everyone had to study four things. My four things were: Le Sénégal, La Fête des Rois, Grasse et l'industrie de parfum, and Jean Lafitte. I was kind of nervous though I don't know why. Then I misspronounced the famous perfume, Channel No. 5. It's definitely not pronounced like T.V. "Channel" number 5. I felt really retarded but there was nothing I could do but laugh. My mom always says that no one ever died of embarrassment. Anyway. I've got some cool links that go along with what I had to talk about some are in English, some are in French. I also found this nifty poem in the back of my French book but I didn't bring it home so I can't post it yet. Okay, Enough distraction. On to THE LINKS!

Crime Library-Jean Lafitte This site has a complete biography on the lovable pirate.

FAQ du protestantismeA little about La Fête des Rois (also called Epiphanie) The coolest thing about this site is the excerpt about the three kings from the gospel of Matthew In french!

Virtual Visit to Gorée Island Gorée is an island in Sénégal where slaves were kept before being shipped off. This site has a nifty virtual tour of a slave house. They have a photo tour and a ten minute video tour(cool). (you need realplayer for the movie)

Enchanted Learning-French This site has nothing to do with my French Project but it's neat. It has different pages that you can print out and color and practice your french with (and I mean a bunch of pages) Even if your older (like sixteen *cough cough*) It's worthwile to color if it's for a good cause like learning french! :-P

That's all I've got for now and when I bring my French book home for the weekend, I'll post that cool poem from it here.

Post Secondary

I'm hoping to be accepted at Kent State for Postsecondary which is where I take a couple of college classes and get both college and high school credit for it. If I do get accepted, I want to take a language class but I don't know which one to take, Kent has like ten or fifteen languages!!

On the national French test, I got sixth in the state.Shana, another girl who took it got first. She only missed two!

Russian stopped. It was rather discouraging. we only had three showing up regularly and it felt like we weren't learning anything.

On the other hand, I've been having fun with french. I've been going to Yahoo France and Amazon France and looking at all the interesting things. Tomorrow we have a test in french and then we're doing a unit all about culture. I can't wait!!!

Chatting

I'm having lots of french fun lately. My friend Joye and I have been speaking french like all the time the past week. It's really amusing. Today we had a conversation about boys. Cheap entertainment.

I live in...

Aleta and I had an entire conversation in French yesterday. It was about coats. We talked about how I was cold outside because I didn't have a raincoat or a regular coat. Aleta was like "I don't have a raincoat, I have a coat." It was really entertaining. Yesterday in class, We started a unit on the house. I need to go thorugh and write all the french words on duct tape and stick them on things like the 'fridge. Yeah, I know I have no life. Wanna know how much of a life I don't have? Here you go.

J'habite dans une boite

J'habite dans une boite dans le jardin.


The first one means I live in a box The second one means I live in a box in the garden. Both of these phrases will be put in the "GTUP" Which by the way there is a link at the bottom of the page on the left that says places. Under it, is a link to the Guide to Useful Phrases. I just thought I'd let you know incase you want to get there fairly easily.

In Russian yesterday, We got lists of new vocab. Lots of clothing! It's a hard language because they don't use the same alphabet we do. Grr... Aleta is thinking about dropping Russian. I don't want her to!!!

Spanish phrases that I learned the other day that are pretty interesting:

En su sueños

Puedo ir al baño?


The first means In your dreams. The second one means Can I go to the bathroom? I'm thinking I should really start a guide to useful Spanish phrases but I learn so few of them that it doesn't seem worth it. French is a different story. I learn an interesting phrase in that class almost every day! (touts les jours)

Oh and while I'm thinking of it. Last night, I had been thinking about French a lot and I started singing this song from Annie get your gun A play I was in a few years ago. What was scary about it was I was singing in English but for some reason my head was still in French Mode so every time I came to a phrase I knew in French, I would sing it in French. Rather scary, non?

Essay En Français and Two Poems

OOh I had so much fun in French on Friday. I dislike how we always have to write out sentences that are basically what the language books tell us to write. On Friday, we got to write Essays!! It was exciting. Except that I didn't get done which made me sad. It takes me a long time to write essays in French. I'm not sure why. I think maybe it's because I have to think about otherways to say what I want to say becuse I don't always know how to say it En Français. When I get it back, I'll post it.

I had a revelation on Thursday night. Why spend three or four dollars on a deck of playing cards when you can buy one for 98 cents and customize it yourself? That's what I did. I had a deck of playing cards and I took a permanent marker and wrote "Les Cartes Français" on the back of each one. On the front of each card, I'm putting a french phrase. They're rather amusing. I've also named each Jack after one of the Three Musketeers. Which by the way I'm supposed to be reading in french but I haven't actually started yet. I got distracted what with OGT and everything. (I'm very glad that's over by the way!)

The other day I wanted to post something new in my AIM profile. I wrote a random poem and I thought I'd post it here. Except be forewarned. This poem is ©2005 Abigail.

I close my eyes,
I'm far away
Another time,
Another place
Away from troubles
You have brought me
You don't exsist here
Never will

Okay so that's it. Not one of my better ones. I still think My best poem I've yet written is Rain. I haven't posted it here though. *digs through pile of old papers* Ah! here it is! I suppose that I'll post it. I mean I know this is a language blog, but English is a language and besides, poems pertain to language. If you have a problem with it, too bad. It's my blog! *evil laughter* Okay, seriously. Here you go. Rain

document.write('');Rain,
Falls.
Gently,
From the trees.
Upon,
My upturned face.
Cooling,
My anger.
Cleansing,
My hate.
Part,
Has gone with you.
Never,
Will it return.
Hearts,
Will scar over.
Wounds,
Close forever.
Though,
One piece will always be missing.
One,
Simple piece.
Tears,
Run down my cheeks.
Rain,
Falls.


(Both poems contained in this entry are © 2005, Abigail)

Post Test Report

It was hard but wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Listening was hard. There was a part where we had to figure out which picture went with the conversation, Then there was a part where I had to choose which phrase best completed the conversation. The hardest part was the listening passages. There were two passages and afterwards there were questions. HARD HARD HARD!!! The reading was fairly easy. There was a story that We had to fill in the blanks for. Grammer type stuff. Then there was a ticket, a birth announcement, and an advertisement. All with questions following. It wasn't that bad.

In Russian yesterday, we worked on counting. We also went over the greeting people vocabulary. Shields told us that maybe next time we meet, we'll start a new lesson. We aren't meeting next week because Shields has a meeting.

Ohio Graduation Test next week.

In French we've been learning how to say things like "I wash myself" Since, I can't brush my teeth without thinking: "Je me brosse les dents avec une brosse au dents et du dentifrice"

I've added more to the "Guide to Useful French Phrases." Which from here on out to save typing time will be called GUF.

TOMORROW DUN DUN DUN *scary music*

I'm taking the National French Test tomorrow. Last time I posted, I updated the Guide to Useful French Phrases and I have more to add but I can't right now because I have to get off.

Poem by Jacques Prévert

Okay so not last week at the french thing because I wasn't there, but the week before we worked on listening and reading. There was a poem in the packet that we didn't work on. I wanted to read it though and last night I dug it out and read it. It's really sad. It's by Jacques Prévert and it called Déjeuner du matin Here it is.

Déjeuner du matin
By: Jacques Prévert

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mist le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et it a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et it est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi, J'ai pris ma tête
Dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

Isn't that sad? Okay, sorry if you can't read it. Get a dictionary. Translating to English doesn't do it justice. It has to stay in FRECH!! STAY! Seriously. I'm okay. I think I should memorize this. I kind of feel for the girl.

In Russian yesterday, We learned how to say I'm in (insert place here) and I live in (insert place here) Russian is so much fun! Jon-Michael and I have been speaking it this morning.

OOh I almost forgot. On Friday (last) Madame set this whole bag of french books infront of me! I 'bout fell over!! YAYAYAYAYAyA!!!!! It made me so happy! and THEN, she let me borrow ALL of them!! WHEEEEE! I'm on my second one. I read an abridged version of Journey to the center of the earth and now I'm reading another short one called "The ghost of white lake" YAYAYAYAYA! Sorry, I'm just really excited. I'm not excited about the National French Test though. It's next week. On the 9th. I'm going to do bad on the grammer part. Grammer is not my strong suit.

Abigail's Guide to 'Useful' French Phrases

C'est ma faut-It's my fault

N'est-ce pas?- Isn't it?

Montrez-moi où sont les toilettes s'il vous plaît!-Show me where the bathrooms are please!

Ne ma touche pas!-Don't touch me!

Les fesses- In a word, butt. We've been learning body parts

Une fessée- a spanking

Excusez-moi Madame, mais ton chien a mangé mon mari!- Excuse me madam, but you dog has eaten my husband!

La foire- The fair

Je donee à manger aux chèvres-I feed the goats

Pourquoi pas?- Why not?

Ce gratte!- It itches!

J'habite dans une boite- I live in a box

J'habite dans une boite dans le jardin.-I live in a box in the garden.

Pauvre bébé!- Poor baby


*Note* This will be updated as I learn more 'useful' french pharases.

Uh...*is lost*

We didn't have Russian this week. It's been a while since I've written so I have no idea what the last thing I wrote about was.

*checks*
Ah yes. The Spanish presentation. Patricia and I did fine. We had to go first which was't fun but it was alright. We got our fifteen points. hooray! *rolls eyes*

I've got Afterschool French this week. Jon-Michael is sitting here next to me Writing on his blog in spanish. (I'm at school.) It makes me feel like maybe I should be writing in french. This is after all a language blog. Or it's supposed to be.

In spanish today I learned about conjugating the verb juegar. Juego con tu hermano I play with your brother. Tu hermano es guapo! Your brother is good looking... *wink wink* No. I'm not really like that. *sigh* I'm really just sitting here killing time. My English project won't print out.

We had to create a brochure about a career that we'd like to go into. Mine was on Anthropology. I wrote a bit of information and used a bunch of pictures. Okay since I'm not doing anything else I could make that 'useful' french phrase guide I've been meaning to do... *ponders*

Spanish Performance

So on Friday in Spanish class, we have to give a performance thingy. We have to recite a telephone conversation. (we had to write it too.) My partener is named Patricia. Here's our performance:

Abigail: Hola?
Patricia: Hola, Quien es?
Abigail: Soy Elena
Patricia: Como estas?
Abigail: Estory enferma
Patricia: Que Lastima!
Abigail: Como estas?
Patricia: Estoy emocionada
Abigail: Pour qué?
Patricia: porque voy al concierto
Abigail: Que chevere!
Patricia: Te gustaria ir al concierto?
Abigail: Claro que si! Cuando?
Patricia: Manana a las cuatro
Abigail: Bien!
Patricia: Adios!
Abigail: Hasta manana!

I should really work on memorizing it. But at the moment I really don't feel like it! My grandma's in the hospital.

Jon-Michael and I practiced our Russian all during homeroom. It was fun to actually be able to say a few things like "straasveetsya" which is the best I can do phonetically. It means hello. We also practiced asking each other what our names were and how we were. It was rather amusing actually, not at all boring. Yay! it's fun to speak Russian because it sounds so cool. Hello is my favorite word to say other than Yabloko (apple) because it sounds the most Russian. Jon-Michael and I also got to learn how to write our names in Russian. YAY!

I really do need to post my list of "useful" French phrases. It seems like I get more and more everyday. Maybe I'll do that here in a minute. Sounds like something good. Though I really should work on chemistry...Nah!

Russian Wednesday(yay), Catching Up, and HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

ick ick ick! Okay so My grandma's been having problem's and I haven't been able to get online much so the blog is seriously behind. I still havn't gotten into the template and added Mrs. McLaughlin to the people section.

6 in Russian today. We began to learn such useful (I'm being serious about this useful) phrases as: hello, good-bye, what's your name? and How are you? I would type them here because 1. I don't have a Russian font and 2. I don't want anyone making fun of me writing them phonetically in english. So sorry. Maybe in the future I'll work with it but for now, you just have to hear about it in English.

I've begun to collect a list of "Useful" French Phrases. When I get a chance which may be tomorrow because I don't have to stay afterschool for once, I'll be posting them. I'll periodically add to them either in the same entry or I'll just make separate entries. I'm not sure yet.

"Useful" Spanish Phrase of the Day: Deje un mensaje despues del tono Leave a message after the tone.

Estoy Enferma

Estoy enferma

Finally I learned how to say something cool in Spanish class. I actually learned it Thursday but forgot to post it in the blog! It means "I'm sick" I was happy to learn it because I've had a cold for the past couple of weeks.

I have to write a persuasive essay for McLaughlin. I have no idea what my topic is going to be either. We had to write a thesis statement so I made up a really bad one that's not going to be what I actually use.

The Spanish news is that Friday I freaked everyone out again (or was it thursday?... No, friday) we always have to make flashcards with our new vocabulary after we take a test so thursday night I did but I also had to type them up and IM them to a friend who had forgotten his book. Therefore, I actually wrote the words twice. Usually I can remember quite a few words just by doing the flashcards but Friday I was remembering them really well and of course all the people in the *cough cough*LD*cough cough* spanish class started freaking out they were all like "what did you do go and study 'till four in the morining." Well obviously they think I don't have a life. For their information I do and I can't help it that Language is my gift. So yeah I'm telling them "no I don't" and the whole time I'm thinking "Just shut up you idiots.." It's not that I was embarrassed I actually kind of enjoyed the attention. Yet in a way it's kind of annoying... ah well. I've got to get off and let my mom on so g'night all....

Russian (yay) Yesterday and English Teacher

So we had Russian after school yesterday. This week there were only four people as opposed to last time's 15. Ah well. We practeced writing the letters of the alphabet and we also practiced writing words to help us with our cursive. That's about it.

I have made an executive descision. I'm including English. I can't not include it anymore. (Yes, I know that's a double negative.) Here's why... My hobbie in English class is that whenever we have a test with short answers, I always pick the short answer where I can write an opinion. That way, I can say whatever I want and get points for it just so long as I support my answer. I keep doing it for one reason... Reaction. Mrs. McLaughlin always writes some rather interesting comments on my short answer answers. Today however, I got the best one of all, and I actually wrote something halfway decent. So here it is. The question is underlined, my answer is in regular font and her comment is in italics. Enjoy!

Do you think Bradbury is too pessimistic about technology? Support your opinion with details from [The Pedestrian] and from the real world.

No because I can see his point. In the story, it talks about how everyone sits at home watching something similar to television. No one does anything else. I can definitely see where he's coming from because one thing people in the real world like to do is sit around and watch T.V. More people watch T.V. than read. It's rather scary if you think about it.
Yes! Also scary is how they're in denial about it! Scarier-the books on the best-seller list are mostly garbage!

So there you have it. Personally, I found it all quite funny and so even though this is mostly experiences with foreign language, I have to talk about English just because of this. Whenever I get a new one, I'll post it and when I find the others that I did, I will post them too! whoo hoo! Cheap entertainment!

Reviews:Movies:La Vita è Bella

La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful)
Directed By: Roberto Benigni
Staring: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi
Languages: Italian, English Subtitles, German (German not subtitled)


This movie is absolutly wonderful! Guido Orefice usues humor and surprise to court and eventually marry the beautiful Dora. Five years later they have a son and the Nazi's have taken power. Guido and his family are taken to a concentration camp. There, Guido tries to comfort his son by telling him they are playing a game.
Essentially this movie holds the theme of sarcifice. It does a good job of telling about the horrors of the holocaust without getting to violent. I know, I know, The Holocaust was a terrible event. I've read. But still this movie does a good job. I don't think that blood is usually neccesary. Much can be left up to the imagination. Though this story isn't really about the son, more about Guido, it tells about the Holocaust from the son's point of view.
Overall Fluency Rating: 5

Weeked

So, over the weekend I had some interesting things happen. First off, Saturday evening my Mom, Dad, and I went to my brother's house to eat, hang out, and watch movies. One of the movies we watched was one I've been wanting to see... Life is Beautiful. IT WAS REALLY GOOD! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me feel warm and fuzzy. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how good it was. I'll be posting the review because it's in italian.

Next fall, I'm planning on doing post-secondary. Which is when I go to college for free and get both high school and college credit. I'm planning on attending Kent State. My problem however, was that I can't access the online catalog from my computer. So I went with mom to work yesterday and got on the computer there and accessed the catalog. RUSSIAN! Kent state has RUSSIAN! They also have ITALIAN!! And French, and Spanish and Japanese. I'm going to attempt to either take Russian or Italian next year! Yay!

Fun in Study Hall

During exam week, we have 3 exams a day and we have study halls during the lunch periods which are 4/5 6/7 and 8/9. the people who have lunch go to lunch and everyone who has a class one of those periods goes to the class to do nothing. 8/9 is when I usually have French. Now that you know all of that, here's the story.

Madame wants us to do something productive while we're in study hall in her room. She had some games out (in french of course) that I assume were out because AP is in there the period before us. So my friend Joye and I started looking at a game called 'fish.' "Poisson' in french. We asked Madame if we could play and she said yes just so long as we played it in french. Joye, me and two or three other girls spent the period going back and forth with "donne-moi tout les cartes de..." and then inserting the name such as "René Requin" It was actually really fun. Not only did we ask those things but we threw in other words here and there. Le salle bête when someone stole three of the four cards you needed. Zut when the same thing happened. Yup. Good times. Don't know when or if we'll be able to do it again. But it was fun!

Exams

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! Okay, I feel much better now... Exams started today. They were supposed to start yesterday but didn't because of a snowday. Unfortunetly, the snow also cancelled Russian for the week. Jon-Michael and I were sad.

Took the Spanish exam today among others. It was pretty easy but I think I messed up on one part. Shields also showed us the test we took Tuesday. I got 36 out of 35. Whoop de doo! I don't take the French exam until next Tuesday. I'm going away with my youth group for the weekend. I can't wait.

One thing I've noticed since starting this blog; The french door is open more often. I think about all the language stuff and then I start thinking about french, then I start realizing that I know how to speak quite a bit of French. It's all rather exciting!

Did I mention that I watched the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast in French the other night? It was rather interesting. I was surprised at how much I actually understood.

Afterschool Meeting

Five girls meet with Madame after school. She wants us all to take the National French Test as I think I've mentioned before. So we had our weekly meeting and Haley brought snacks. Boy she brought a bunch too! Chips and Italian ice, cookies too. French three had french club today so Madame had some stuffe called Buch de Noel. It was really good and she gave us all the recipe.

We learned about opposites today. Learned about a bunch of new words. I had to leave early and go to another meeting elswhere in the school. Now there are two other people reading Chair de Poule books.

When I walked into spanish today, I about passed out! It was so hot! I was wearing a hoodie too! ACK! Spanish usually isn't as exciting as French, but then my class is really slow. I joke that it's the LD spanish class. (No offence to anyone with a learning disability) It's made up of preps and guys who sit around and play Halo 2 all day. Mr. Shields gave us this worksheet that had English phrases we were supposed to translate. When I finished, no one else was done. So I amused myself by translating the sentences into French too! Man, I have no life!

Books and Recipe

Madame is getting more books! She showed me the catalog today and she's getting like ten books! I can't wait until they come in. Then I can read them! For now, she gave me another Chair de Poule book. In english the title is Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes. In french, it's La Revanche Des Lutins. I havn't started it yet.

In our Cahier (workbook) today, we read a recipe. It sounded really good so I thought I'd post it. I'll let you know when I try it.
Salade Niçoise (pour 4 personnes)
-Prenez un grand bol.
-Dans ce bol, mettez quelues feuilles de salade.
-Coupez quatre tomates en tranches et mettez-les dans le bol.
-Ajoutez d'autres feuilles de salade.
-Coupez deux oeufs durs en trances et ajoutez-les à la salade.
-Ajoutez aussi des anchois, du thon et, si vous voulez, du jambon coupé en cubes.
-Ajoutez du sel et du poivre.
-Sur cette salade, versez une cuillère de vinaigre et trois cuillères d'huile.
-Mettez la salade su réfrigérateur une demi-heure.
-Votre salade est prête. Vous pouvez la serbir.
Bon appétit!


see, it sounds really good except for the anchovies. Even the tomatoes sound good and I don't even like them. Here's the new vocab I learned.
coupez- Cut
Versez- Pour
l'huile- Oil
prête- ready

Spanish class has been okay the last couple of days. Mr. Shields is sick. He was at school yesterday, but not tuesday or today. It's rather boring sitting there for an hour, watching a movie and answering questions.

Reviews:Books:Prends Garde Au Bonhomme De Neige

Prends Garde Au Bonhomme De Neige
By: R.L. Stine
Translated By: J. Lussier
Language: French

This is in the Chair de Poule series. In english, that is Goosebumps. I guess you could say that this the the first "real" book I've read in French. (I don't count those thin little 32 page books that Madame was giving me.)

This book was surprisingly good. It pulled me in and made me want to know what was going to happen next. I wanted to know why there were strange snowmen outside of each house in the little village, and why there was a strange man living on the mountain with a white wolf. Basically, this story is about a girl and her aunt who move from montreal to an unnamed little town where it snows all the time. The girl hears strange stories about a giant evil snowman who lives on the summet of the mountain. The story progresses from there.

Overall Fluency Rating: 3

**Special Note** When Madame gave me this book she told me it was hard. Personally I didn't find it hard but then I'm one of those types who reads all the time.

What I Did Today En Français

Configuring electrons is fun! Alright, so just for fun I told my mom in french what I did when I got home from school today. Of course she didn't understand it and told me to "tell" her. Since she doesn't appreciate the fact that I can speak french, I have decided to post it here. So with out further ado...
Mon Après-Midi
Premier, j'ai couri. J'ai fait des animaux. J'ai nettoié mon bureau un peu. Finalement, j'ai joué du piano et J'ai fait mes devoirs.

So that was my afternoon. whoop de doo!

I just realized how much french I've been putting into this blog. Sorry but I know more french than anything else and I can't really Type sign language now can I? But I do have a sentence or two that I have retained for use if I ever travel to Spain.
Mi hermano es gordo y feo
Mi padre toca la guitarra.

That's all I've got.

Reviews:Movies:"La Belle et La Bête"

La Belle et La Bête
Directed by: Jean Cocteau
Starring: Jean Marais, Josette Day
Language: French with English Subtitles

This is a wonderful film. It could even be called a work of art. Yes, it is older, yes, it's in black and white, but that just adds to the beauty of it. This is the typical story of beauty and the beast. Belle asks her father to bring her a rose from his trip. He happens to pluck one out of the garden of the beast... Things go from there. There are some interesting things done with the story however, such as the beast's smoking hands. There are many interesting camera shots, such as one that done through the window of a litter that's being carried. There are also some interesting effects. Though nothing like Star Wars, they look pretty cool. If One happens to see the dvd version of this movie, it is also worthwhile to check out at least a little of the Philip Glass opera that is included. A downside is that the movie can be slightly confusing at times. When my family watched it, we didn't quite understand the whole thing with the smoking hands and had to go back to the opening and watch it again.
Some humor, love, romance, and an interesting ending all make this a great film for everyone!

Overall Fluency Rating: 4

Funny French Story

Yeah. So I have a few things to review. I'll be posting them as separate well...Posts. Today in French class, Madame said En Français of course something about how she was going to have one girl in our class sit in the front of the room. (the girl in question talks and laughs all the time.)Madame said that after the girl was sitting up front, she would attach a leash to her and pull it everytime the girl talks. Kind of like a dog. I know this sounds kind of cruel but here's the really funny part. The girl didn't understand what Madame said and started laughing. I mean COME ON!! Okay. Humorous French story for the day. Maybe it's one of those things you have to be there for. I'm not sure.

Goals

I have several goals for myself and language.

1. Learn Swahili
2.Go to France
3. Dream in another language
4. Read "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in French
5. Speak Fluent Russian
That's it. five simple things. At least for right now. I think there was something else I was going to post but I forget what it was. Oh well.

Doors

There are doors in my head. One door for each language I know. When I start speaking one of the languages, the door or sometimes I call it a drawer, Opens, and the language comes out. When I'm done, English sounds strange to me but eventually I go back to my dream-language. There is a lot behind my sign language door, and quite a bit behind the one labeled French. There isn't as much behind the Spanish door, and hardly anything behind Russian. It will come.

Today four other girls and I stayed after school for a french thing. Madame (our french teacher) wants us all to take this National French Test that is like a competition or something. I'm not real sure. But yeah, it was really fun, because we get to learn all this extra stuff. YAY! I eat language for breakfast!

I've been reading a Goosebumps book in French "Chair de poule" en français it's called "Prends Garde Au Bonhomme De Neige." It's a lot more interesting than some of the other books Madame has given me to read. (I beg books off of her.) It drove me nuts because there was this whole thing about this killer snowman and the main character of the book finally figured out why everyone was afraid to go to the Summet of the Mountain.

I think Madame was happy because when we were at the French Meeting, I told her how I liked the Goosebumps books. She said that was good and then asked if I understood them. I said "I don't understand some of the words, but I get the gist of it."

Alright. Mom will kill me if I don't go and get dinner so Au revoir, adios, De Sverdania for now.

Beginnings

I should've started this a long time ago. Back when I first started to learn French. But, c'est la vie... (did I spell that right?)

I absolutly love languages. I think I always have I just didn't notice it until recently. When I was younger, My family would go to county-wide church functions. I always wanted to sit so I could see the interpreters for the Deaf. My mother told me, though I don't remember, that when I was really little my grandmother taught me a song in norwegian. My mother said that I was 'bi-lingual' in that song. That I would sing it in norweigan and then switch to English then back to norwegian. I think that's kind of cool and I wish I could still do it. Just for fun. Also when I was younger, I would read books about codes. I'd read other books too, just because I love to read but I remember one book in particular that had all kinds of ways to send secret messages. But enough sentiment.

I know uh...*counts on fingers* five languages? yeah. I don't claim to be multi-linguistic though. Not yet.

Fluent In:
Sign Language
English

Working on
French
Spanish
Russian


Okay, I can say pretty much what I want in SL (Sign Language) I've been taking French for two consecutive school years and I've read several books, though nothing big like Notre Dame de Paris or anything like that. This is my first year taking Spanish, and my Spanish teacher also knows Russian and he's teaching a group of about 10 people Wednesday afternoons after school. We've had one lesson of that so far (we just started) It's great! Except that I pronounce the words with a french accent.

English is what I like to call my 'Dream-Language.' My uncle's mother was from Germany and she said she knew she was American when she dreamed in English. That's not the only reference I've heard to dreams and language, so I affectionetly call English my dream language or the language that I dream in. It is my 'native tongue' My goal is too dream in another language.

Okay. That's it for now. I have a lot more to say about things like Learning to Read, but It's 11:46PM and I've got to go to bed so I can go to school tomorrow. I had to write a report and that's the only reason I'm up.