Ani's 2018 Log

[reineke]

[Ani]

Ok!! I'm gonna do it. Oh my gosh I'm so excited. Only... I think I put the CD's in a "safe place" And we all know what that means. I'll take a look around and see if I can find them. Maybe I was smart and ripped then to the computer (nah probably not :-p).

I listened to some of la Vieille Branche podcast That Mamapata recommended today. I'm pretty happy with it. Looks like there's some really interesting ones. Also took a 30 minute italki lesson right in the middle of the day. I never do lessons without DH home to watch the kids so usually that means I can wake up at 6 to do them early, or I'm waiting until after 9pm when kids are (hopefully) in bed. Neither is great. The kids were *so* excited to get a cartoon in the middle of the school day. They thought I should take lessons every day lol. For my French though.. my speaking was definitely unimpressive after teaching a few hours in English. Quite hard to switch to French mode and I made a billion mistakes. This teacher is also a fairly good challenge for me because she delves into some really complex questions like the emotional dynamics of a large family and how I plan to try to keep the family bonded in the future. I'm usually thinking so hard I can't really plan out my sentences at all so I'm just talking and hoping it comes out right. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I notice I miss-connect sentence chunks and I do a lot of start-stop-rephrase. I do it in English too but it's more frequent in French. Hopefully just do it & talking to an adult will help smooth everything out.

[Ani]

I found my Italian CD's! I was so smart -- I did put them in a special place. "You know you're a language nerd when".. You realize you've carefully placed your Assimil CD's in a small glass cabinet that holds 100+ year old books passed down by your grandfather, 100-200 year old glassware & pottery from your various grandmothers and great grandmothers, etc. First 7 lessons done.

Yesterday we hiked a nearby mountain for blueberries. I'm not sure how many miles but we had a gain of 2000 vertical feet. My legs are sure sore today lol.

Been chatting with a French speaker who showed me the word "dénivelée". -- C'est une randonnée de 2000' de dénivelée. I've had trouble taking about hiking to the two italki tutors that I've used because they didn't seem to know anything about it. If I asked what you'd call a certain feature by description, they had no idea, even after I looked it up sometimes. This guy is a surveyor so I'm going to make sure we talk about every geographical thing I've ever wondered about and try to expend my vocabulary in that direction

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We were level with the clouds at the top and sometimes over them so the pics from up there aren't great. You could see my house from up here if it weren't tucked behind a tiny hill.

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After the hardest part of the descent. Better pics below the clouds

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Blueberries! Also lingonberries and crow berries (that I think are called cloud berries in other parts of the world)

I definitely ate as many as picked to take home, and we brought home a good bit. Could have done more but it was late and our fingers were freezing. I should be able to make jam and a pie this week though.

[renaissancemedici]

In bocca al lupo!

[Ani]

In bocca al lupo!

Grazie!


My new language exchange friend is awesome.
land surveyor -- géomètre topographe
chartered surveyor -- géomètre expert.
le bornage - property boundary marker


My legs have finally recovered from the hike. It's wildly gorgeous outside today.

[reineke]

In bocca al lupo!

Grazie!

Nooo! The "proper" response is crepi il lupo! Or, whatever.

[lavengro]

In bocca al lupo!

Grazie!

Nooo! The "proper" response is crepi il lupo! Or, whatever.

I would have thought a fox would be not keen on that particular expression, out of some sort of common interest courtesy?

[reineke]

A fox would love the second part of that expression.

[Ani]

In bocca al lupo!

Grazie!

Nooo! The "proper" response is crepi il lupo! Or, whatever.

Thank you for the correction


Peter Brown is going to be the downfall of my language learning. He's turning cotton balls on the lathe... What's that going to look like? I dunno. Hey look this next one looks like... What could that be? Bread? He's turning bread on the lathe.. what's he gunna do with it afterwards?

But after I managed to turn him off, I stayed awake an extra hour having a political conversation with myself in French. I don't know if that's good because it was in French, or just crazy because I was literally talking to myself about my own thoughts.

[Cavesa]

But after I managed to turn him off, I stayed awake an extra hour having a political conversation with myself in French. I don't know if that's good because it was in French, or just crazy because I was literally talking to myself about my own thoughts.

At least it was a discussion with someone interesting and reasonable.

I think the world would be a much better place if more people took the time to sort their thoughts out from time to time. And if they were talking to themselves out loud, they might even weed out some of the most horrible ones