Summer of French

It would be so much better if I meant French food or French cooking. But I don't.

I mean my reading knowledge of French class. That I'm taking to fulfill my third foreign language requirement. Like two of them won't cut it. Bleah.

All in all, the class itself has been really interesting and manageable. I like the teacher, and he does a good job of making life easy (by providing extra lists of vocabulary so that we don't have to do quite so much dictionary-thumbing) and interesting (by choosing good articles) for us. Class time passes pretty quick. So it's okay.

The bad things sort of outweigh that, though.

First, I spent $178 on textbooks, three of which are packets (which means that I can't sell them back). I've used them a total of three times. That's annoying. While I would rather read the articles we've done than dry, disconnected things from readers, I'd rather have had the choice to NOT BUY THE READERS. $178 is three weeks of groceries, two months of gas, four trips home, eating out five times, or a year's wardrobe for BeeBoo. (Not all of those things, one of those things as many times as I said it). So it bugs me that I spent it on books that I didn't use. (The "that I didn't use" being the operative phrase here).

Next, I don't know that my ability to read French is any better as a result of taking the class. I've learned a lot about how to use my dictionary and wordreference.com in order to prove that I'm capable of reading French, but I can't say that I've learned much other than several useful fixed phrases.

Maybe most annoyingly, I just don't care for French. **caution: rant ahead** I'm a pretty open-minded language learner. I mean, I study Spanish in ALL of my time. (Not just free time....ALL of it) And I took Portuguese and enjoyed it even though I get frustrated at my bad accent. And I'd like to learn other languages, difficult but useful ones like Swahili and Arabic. So I went into this whole French thing thinking that it'd be a pretty sweet deal....I'd learn a little about the language, not have to speak, get the culture some. But the more of the rules I learn, the more convinced I become that it's a ridiculous language! I guess not all languages can be as orderly and rule-based as Spanish. :-)

And last, but not least, we meet RIGHT in the MIDDLE of my day, EVERY DAY! So BeeBoo has had a REALLY BORING seven weeks...we don't do much other than watch her BabyTime (sign language...that's just what she calls it) every morning, scramble to get ready, run to her friends' houses to play, come home for nap, eat dinner, do some family time, go to bed, repeat. Bleah.

But, I'll be done next Wednesday. And I'll have almost a month before I have to be a teacher-student-mommy again. I'll get to just be a mommy for a while...and hopefully I can be a fun one since I won't have this silly class in the middle of every day!

Free time

So, I never thought too much free time would make me so crazy.

Ben and BeeBoo are out of town at the annual family reunion at Bethany Beach. I'm really bummed out because I don't get to go. It's really fun...the family rents out a bunch of beach houses, and we spend every morning on the beach under a huddle of beach umbrellas that serves as our little headquarters. Usually someone brings an inflatable pool for the babies/little ones, and everyone bobs on the waves out in the FREEZING cold water. It's (the water that is) never been above 73 degrees when I was there. That's cold. From what I hear, BeeBoo is liking the sand a lot, but going out in the water with her dad from time to time.

I've cleaned the house from top to bottom (it's probably cleaner than it's been in years), gone to Coldstone for ice cream, done both my French translations and studied for my exam, and watched more movies than we normally see in a month.

Oh, the movies are Osama, Bee Season, Radio, Intolerable Cruelty, Prime, The Bridges of Madison County. Radio was distinctly the best, Intolerable Cruelty the worst. Bee Season was fascinating and not what I expected it to be...T, you would love it, and mom you should watch it. Osama reminded me that pretty much only in the US should you expect a happy ending...I thought I need to learn more about Afghanistan before I try to watch another film like it. I enjoyed it, but felt very culturally ignorant.

I'm going to go to Borders to just bum around and read books about flowers, country houses, growing herbs, and orchards. It'll be super fun. Maybe I'll even splurge and get a steamer. Love those things!

I think the point of this post is that I've already forgotten how to be single. I can't imagine the transition people go through who move from married to single, especially with their kids. I mean, I even know this is only temporary, it's a vacation and there's no trauma involved, and I STILL don't know what to do with my time. Or how to cook for just myself. :-)

It's been a good week. Maybe I'll make a tradition of sending Ben off with the kids for a while...it can even be to do something I'm really envious of. Just to make me appreciate having them and how absorbed into my life they are.