I'm making a list of things that I want to do while I'm funemployed, and I just added 'learn French' to it (coming right after 'learn how to knit' so that I can make my own ridiculous sweaters while watching 'Project Runway' in the future). I don't know if I will actually follow through on the goal to learn French, but I unfortunately have just enough knowledge about the language to know that I am completely butchering any attempts at pronunciation. That, combined with the fact that I had the black lung the entire time I was in Paris this spring, made me extremely uncomfortable talking to anyone, even though everyone took pity and spoke to me in English.
But the desire to learn French stems from the fact that I have this strange fascination with Carcassonne (the city, not the board game) and the whole south of France, and I wonder if it holds the key to some of my research for my gargoyle young adult romance novel. Without boring you too badly, Carcassonne is in the Languedoc, which is the area where the people used to speak a Romance language called langue d'oc (or Occitan, or Provencal). This differs from classic French, which was langue d'oil, because langue d'oc speakers used 'oc' as 'yes', while French speakers used 'oil' (later 'oui') as 'yes'. Anyway, having now already bored you, I will go on to say that Carcassonne and the surrounding region was home to a group called the Cathars, whose beliefs were deemed heretical by the Church, resulting in a crusade against them (which was far more 'successful' than the Crusades in the Holy Land, since the northern French/German armies basically wiped out the Cathars and took complete control of the region). Carcassonne continued to be a fabulous fortified city until fortifications stopped mattering so much, and is now rather sleepy, but it saw some amazing things over the past couple of thousand years.
So long, tangential story short, I would love to spend a couple of months in Europe next summer, if I can figure out a) how to do it affordably and without indulging the champagne tastes that I developed after staying in luxe properties all over India, and b) whether I can sublet my current place so that I don't have to move but also don't have to pay rent. Between England (where I could spend a lifetime), Paris (which I would quite like to see when I don't feel like I'm dying, since my first trip there was at the end of my two-week European odyssey with Claude, when my feet were covered in blisters and I had lost ten pounds due to our forced marches, and my second trip gave me an appreciation for what it would feel like to be dying of consumption there), and the south of France, I could quite easily stay two months -- or possibly expand and add more of Italy as well. Decisions, decisions, all of which will be determined by what's going on with my books and whether I can con anyone into going to some of these places with me.
I've now stayed up far longer than I intended. I made it to the big boss's staff meeting on time, where I delivered the slides that I made last night. It went well, and the big boss said that she dreamed last night that she and I were getting an apartment together -- so I think she's not looking forward to letting me go. Then, I slogged excessively all day, with a great lunch break to talk to two women who are starting to write fiction and wanted to hear how I got into it. As soon as I was done with my 1:1 with the big boss, I stole a sandwich from the cafe, swung by Philz to get some fortifying coffee, and went to Stanford for my magazine writing class. It was quite good; we each had to interview someone else in the class, which showed me that I'm reasonably good at making conversation and asking follow-ups, but my interviews have been tainted by doing hiring interviews -- I was asking questions that would give me insight into the girl's thought process, and didn't even think to ask questions like whether she wanted to have kids (since such questions are frowned upon/illegal due to possibility of discrimination). So, I'll have to get better at interviewing, but the exercise was fun.
Now, though, I must go to bed; no writing happened tonight, but I'll do some tomorrow if it kills me. Goodnight!
Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: -
RescueTime productivity rating: - (global average: 0.84)
No comments:
Post a Comment