Final Exam Course 2 Tomorrow

So I should be studying but I've 21 hours till the exam and figure I've got some time to waste.

I suppose the CRTC is a bit perturbed this morning. Tony Clement ruled against them, pushing the CRTC one step closer to non-existence. I know there's a clause in the Telecommunications Act for the veto but monkey see monkey do. How long till ABC owns our beloved CBC? I doubt that will happen but I do see the CRTC being eliminated. I've had a handful of people ask me to sign a petition to disband it, since the conservative government is backing the destruction of the CRTC I guess there's no point not signing it now. Such a disappointment, I really hope the changes proposed actually happen, based on my personal experience I suspect Canadians are not going to be as happy as they expect to be. Let me illustrate my point, let's say there are two major sellers of cola, Pepsi and Coke, one can of each costs one dollar. Let's say to create competition between the two we allow companies to make and sell other types of cola, now we have RC and PC, both of which are cheaper, both of which taste like shit BTW. Did Coke and Pepsi drop their price to .75 cents a can? I don't know because I stopped drinking coke when I found out the acid was burning my stomach. Anyway good luck to Canada, the future (as it always is) is filled with uncertainty, I hope we all get what we deserve.

Down to 20 hours 50 min till exam time. It is actually fun to learn French, almost everyone is positive about it. It's also frustrating and difficult sometimes but when you catch a phrase you've never understood before it's quite a nice feeling. Just yesterday Kate said 'Si comme tu veux' and I marvelled that I understood it. I remember hearing the phrase from her before but yesterday I was able to translate it. It's a simple phrase I know (it means 'if you want') but it's hard to hear the specific words. It may not be a difficult sentence with difficult words but when all you hear is simmmm naaaa wahhhhh it's hard to know what the hell is going on. So when I heard each word clear from Kate it made me realize that I am making progress. Sometimes it's not quite as uplifting, for months I thought people were saying 'Super grave' to each other and I'm thinking it can't be grave (like grave in English) it must be some other word so one day I asked Ludo, what the hell is super grave. He of course didn't know what I was talking about so I described the context to him from earlier in the day. It's 'Ce n'est pas grave' ('it's not grave' or basically 'everything is cool', 'don't worry about it') he said. People don't pronounce the ne! I remember from my first class in the summer my prof suggesting that the ne in negative sentences will eventually not exist as the language evolves so I know why people say it like that but again it's hard to hear it. It could just as easily been something completely different.

So hearing French is hard, I'm also a very slow speaker. I have to plan everything out before I say it which makes for some challenges. I've been told I have a pretty good accent, especially for someone know to the language. I'm sure it wouldn't take people long to decipher my true nature [insert evil laugh here] but when I do plan out the sentence I guess I don't sound too anglo. When I first arrived I would attempt French and people would tell me they speak English, often poorly but most anglos speak it poorly as well (myself included I'm sure). So we would communicate in broken English. Now I say things to people and respond is long French sentences and I have to interrupt them to tell them I don't understand. People get so apologetic it's funny but it's great! I want people to speak to me in French, not English although I know they want to practice English too. I like seeing how much I can understand and if it's not an important item I'll just nod whilst picking up one in three words.

Kate had one wisdom tooth out yesterday and it was a bit stressful. She was supposed to have two out but this one was near the nerve and ending up taking so much time and energy that they decide to leave the other one. It's in no immediate danger of causing damage to the rest of her teeth. Today she is in bed, working though and while she is swollen it's only one corner of her mouth so I think it's better than it could be. When I had all four out I couldn't eat anything for a week and even then it hurt like a sonofabitch. I would wake up with blood all over my pillow and the drugs made me unconscious for the first three whole days. Kate isn't bleeding I can understand most of what she's saying and she's up and working so I'm pleased with that.

So I've got a lot of crappy studying to do and I better make Kate some soup, down 20 hours 35 min but I've got a system and I know a couple of the things on the test. Like congegate some verb in every tense. We've learned 7 and some verbs like avoir and etre do not like to follow the general rules I like to call them the rebel verbs, faire is in there too but aller is a bit of a poser and tends to hang out by itself. And then there are a few other odd balls like pouvoir and savoir, or some have tiny little rules like appeler, sometimes there are two ls sometimes one, or sometimes the accents change. Il faut que j'etudie maintenent, a bientot.