to get fat/to snore

The other day, I decided to spend the afternoon in a park. Because it was finally not raining, I felt I should get outside and do something.

I brought my french book, my english book, my water bottle and my blanket. I couldn't decide what book to read when I got there so instead I took a nap. for an hour and a half.

Now, I have this habit when I'm asleep in public places to snore. I have woken myself up on buses before. It's very very very embarrasing. So, in true Mandy Murray fashion, I was in full form that afternoon. I woke myself up snoring. talk about embarrasing.

I was telling the girl that I live with that I fell asleep in the park and that I started snoring. The word that I thought was snoring in french is gonffler. Turns out that means to get fat. So, instead of telling Emmanuel that I was snoring in the park, I told her I was getting fat in the park.

The french word for snoring is ronffler not gonffler.

de la classe. very classy.

your francophone, Mandy

so here's the story

i got back into ireland two days ago at nearly midnight. dublin was as rainy and cold as the pilot had promised us it would have been just prior to our departure from Trapani airport in Sicily. I had a small burst of laughter when he made his announcement. apparently i was the only person on board who found humour in his irony.

although i am sure he was not intentionally ironic.

i am back in cork with a cup of coffee, a pad of paper and surrounded by the sent of ireland. the nostalgia nearly knocked me over as i entered the pub. sounds and smells i had long forgotten battled for significance and recognition. it was if i was walking into the bar in stratford, the one i worked so many years ago, on a weekday morning. the left over smells of the night before mixed with the residue of lemons and limes of the morning cleaning crew. a few tables are occupied by some afternoon risers that appear to have arisen in the spot they are in having only left the table through in their dreams.

working a morning shift at the bar in stratford had a way of making me feel out of place. i never discussed it with anyone, and really never thought much of it. in fact, i don't think i even understood it until i entered this pub today. the sights and sounds i recognized, but it was the time of day that didn't make sense. a place the i knew well and at the same time unwelcome.


i've been thrown back into a mix of weather and smells and sights and sounds that i know and recognize and understand and yet, and yet they almost don't feel quite right.

it is amazing how difficult it is adjusting to a new culture a second time

Dear --b,

your last post had a few mistakes that I would like to tune you into.

1) you never dryed (dried?) the dishes. Leanne always dryed (dried?).

2) We fought pretty much non-stop when we were both living at home.
The reasons we fought are two fold.

a) we have very similar personalities (but I'm the better looking one) and
b) you always being wrong and me having to correct you and you (for some reason) not liking that I was correcting you.

3)This guy that you speak of does not know that you stalked him on facebook.
This isnt really a mistake but more of an insight.

your welcome for correcting you.

--b and I are going to be meeting up in July in Paris, staying there with old roommates of mine and then travelling to London, England and back to France so that --b can learn some French and so that I can correct him again. I'm looking forward to it.

your francophone, Mandy

Canadian provinces

Today, I taught a class on the provinces in Canada. You would think this would have been an easy task for someone with 2 degrees.

WRONG.

I was going along fine, telling them where the provinces and the capitals were and a little bit about each province... the limited amount of info that i know about my own country.. but then, I got to Manitoba/Winnipeg. Ever since i was 7 or whatever the age is that you start learning about the provinces in Canada, i have always confused Manitoba and Winnipeg... and even now, after teaching two lessons on it.. I am unclear as to which one is the province and which one is the capital. Good thing I had my cheat sheet in front of me.. now, the thing about the cheat sheet is that you have to have the right answers on it. Of course, the first time I taught the class, I had that Manitoba was the capital and Winnipeg was the province. That’s apparently not right. MANITOBA is the province and WINNIPEG is the capital.

Wow. My two degrees are coming in handy. Wow.

I also taught a class on the Canadian Government which I am now an expert on. Who is the governor general? Well, I’m really glad you asked that question. Especially since I know the answer. It’s Michaelle Jean. Duh. Didn’t you know?

Jenn taught a class on Saskatchewan. The where-its-at province.
How many lakes are there in Saskatchewan? Great question. There are 105 lakes in Saskatchewan? Don’t confuse that the number 105 with 106 or 104 because one would be too many and one would be too less.

There are a lot of things going on in Saskatchewan that I’m sure you are unaware of. And, if you ever get to sit down with Jenn, she’ll tell you all about them. I on the other hand have not been asked to do a class on Saskatchewan so I’m just as much in the dark about the great mystery that is Saskatchewan as you are.

Your francophone, Mandy

Staff Meeting

When Mands and I were younger we used to wash dishes together, or rather next to each other. In fact, she did the washing and I would push her and poke her until she turned and shoved me across the room. I was supposed to be drying but the by the time i collected myself off the floor the dishes would have dried themselves and the family would have been off to bed. I think we've come a long way since then. However now we have continental Europe to share instead of the kitchen sink. Also, I am on my own island.

Dad is so very proud of the both of us.

Salut Maman had a staff meeting yesterday. Well, in fact we had a staff meeting two days ago, but we had another one yesterday. for the purposes of this story we had our meeting yesterday because i am the one writing and i am the one who can frame this story as i please.

we talked on end about several things, like how there was a new boy in her life and i hadn't met him nor seen a picture of him. which, of course, led us to browse each other's various online profiles and various online photo galleries. an hour and a half later we settled down to cover the various agenda items we would inevitably never get to.

In the end we decided that she would post on the even days and I would post on the odd days. thanks for tuning in, i am off to Galway today.

sub-clause 23: co-writer may post on non-designated days on special occasions including birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and tuesdays.

Horse Racing (concours des chevaux)

Horse racing is apparently very big in France. Who knew?

On Saturday, I went with my host family to watch the horse races not far from Dijon. There were two different competitions going on and both were very interesting. I’ve never seen horse races before and certainly not in French and so it was a whole new experience for me. The announcer sounded like an auctioneer and I found this quite amusing (maron en francais) because auctioneers are usually hard to understand in English, let alone when they are speaking in French. It was quite drole. I knew that my friend Jacquie would have thoroughly enjoyed this day. Jacquie competitively rides horses. So, we saw two different competitions (concours en francais). One was the hurdles and the other was a course. The horses were apparently especially fast this year (so says my host dad) I obviously had no idea if this was true or not and wasn’t about to argue with him especially since he is a very strict no nonsense man. I met him for the first time on Friday night (I have been here since Monday) He works 70 hours a week and doesn’t work on the weekend so he’s apparently very busy. So, if he says that the horses are especially fast this year than I'm going to agree with him. We spent the day watching these massive animals being told what to do by the riders.

It was "assez impressionante"

your francophone, Mandy

Crossing Italian Roads 101

1. Forget everything you were taught in preschool, or if you are from small town rural Ontario like myself, grade nine orientation hosted by Mr. Hurley. Ms Joanne may have made some interesting points about looking both ways and holding a grownups hand (not to mention putting it to a rhyme of some sort that i will only remember when Neil comes home from his first week of nursery school reciting it over and over again). Trust me when i tell you that those ingrained rules will only slow you down. Italian drivers appear to take pride in scaring rookie pedestrians; if you look new you're worth more for their scorecard.

2. Find a zebra crossing. If you don't know what a zebra crossing is you can ask Paul McCartney. If you don't know who he is or why he might know try your parents record collection, or your younger brothers collection for that matter, or your lanky red headed ex-roomates wall for the Abbey Road picture. If you still don't know what I am talking about it is likely that you cannot read english and should have that checked out before crossing any road at any point with, or without, a given animal as our guide.

3. remember what it was i was talking about in the first place and get me back on track.

4. standing at the zebra crossing, staring straight ahead, take a step out into the street and keep walking. not faster or slower, but maintain the same semi hurried pace of those around you. Keep your eyes straight ahead as much as you can. This will help keep your eyes on the target destination as well as keep your eyes from drifting upwards while you gawk at the pretty buildings. Looking up means you are a tourist and thus worth more points.

5. Kiss the footpath that you've just made it to. Well done, you're now a licensed Italian and understand a very important part of their culture. A part it took me two months to learn, but only moments to forget.

... but that story's for another day.

“Le Foot” (Soccer)

On Thurs night, Jenn and I played soccer with about 8 male teachers from another high school. Talk about intimidating. Jenn and I were the only girls that played. Jenn used to play varsity soccer for Laurier and so she’s very good. I, on the other hand, am very average. I’m an alright soccer player. So, Jenn has played with them before and so they all know her very well and I come in, as the new girl, scared out of my mind but determined to not only play but play well. They automatically assume that I am as good as Jenn (which i’m obviously not..) I end up holding my own and learning a whole new set of vocab words around playing a sport. I even scored a goal!!
After our soccer (le foot en français) game, we went back to another teacher’s house from the same high school to eat and have a few drinks. It was a really good night.

your francophone, Mandy

Being French

I know that i’ve written about this before, but being in France is so great. These people really know how to live. No one ever works more than 35 hrs a week (except for my host dad that I will tell you about later) This means that, because they only work 35 hours a week, they have time in the middle of the afternoon to take 2 hr lunches (because they know how to live). This also means that in the afternoon, the restaurants are packed with people sitting outside watching the foot traffic and having a cafe or a beer. Jenn and I went down to a cafe to have a beer and the place was packed. So, we sat down being very french and say beside each other outside to watch the foot traffic. Being French also means eating crepes. I finally had my first crepe of the season the other day and it was delicious (crepe au nutella). I never eat nutella at home but for some reason, when I get to France, all i want to do is eat nutella crepes, eh Dominique?!? The crepe was just as amazing as I remembered. Being French also means actually have a good H&M to shop in. So, of course, I did that as well.

your francophone, Mandy

French School System

I started observing classes at the high school last Tuesday. Their school system is soo different than ours. They take school very seriously. No one ever goes to the washroom during class, no one ever asks to leave, no one ever forgets their books and if they do, the teacher gets very upset with them and they will never do it again. They always have their homework done and if, by chance, they don’t.. the teacher yells at them and they never forget to do their homework again. At the end of their high school career, they have to take a country wide test to make sure that they are at certain level to continue on in university. This test is very stressful and quite a few people fail.

The other day, Jenn (who is also doing her internship for teacher’s college in Dijon) and I were observing a French class where the teacher is especially strict when it comes to homework. Not only do the students have to have their homework done but it has to be neat. The title of the homework has to be underlined and the title has to be capitalized. She went around and checked homework at the beginning of the class and there was a student who didn’t have their homework done and the teacher asked the students if he thought she was an idiot. She gave him an afternoon’s worth of detentions and went on with the class. Later on in the class she realized that the same student and the student beside him didn’t have their books with them in class. She asked them why they didn’t have their books and they replied that the one boy has lost his book and so the boy who didn’t have his homework done at the beginning of class had lent him his book. The boy who had borrowed the book had left the borrowed book at home by accident and so that left them both without a book. The teacher gave the boy who didn’t have his homework done and who had lent the other boy his book another detention (an afternoon’s worth) because he was stupid enough to lend someone a book and not ask for it back.

It was pretty intense.

your francophone, Mandy

Paris cont'd

While i was still in Toronto, comme d’habitude (like usual) I ended up taking things out of my huge suitcase and putting it into a self created box (Leanne created it).. i wasn’t sure if i was going to end up with all of my things that were in this box in Paris and so i was very relieved when i saw the box coming down the conveyor belt in Paris.. Leanne had written "if you find me, please return me to rr #5 seaforth.." and i was watching the other people reading this on the box as it was coming down the conveyor belt and laughing with their friends. I created quite the entertainment.
There was a man waiting for me from the organization that i went with when i arrived and i was so glad to see him.. last time i arrived in paris, it was not as easy. He grabbed my suitcase, and put it in his car and drove me to the hotel where the other lady from the organization was.. i was able to shower/nap and felt refreshed by the time i got on the train in Paris to Dijon.

When I got off the train station in Dijon, there were two women waiting for me (they had my name on a piece of paper AMANDA MURRAY just like my family does when I get off the train in Stratford) One woman is the principal of the school that Im working at and the other one was the woman who i was going to be staying with.. I was originally supposed to be staying at the principal of the schools house but that got changed and i was now living with this new woman and her 4 kids.. there are actually 7 kids in the fam but only 4 of them at the house right now.. so, she takes me to my new home and i meet the other kids who are really cute and very French. There is a girl who is 18 and she lives across the hall from me and the two of us share a bathroom. There is a son who is 21 and then twins who are 12. The twins asked me a million and one questions about Canada and spoke way too fast but they are so cute.

I will continue avec mes aventures demain but right now, i need to go to bed : )

Your francophone, Mandy

is this going to work?

bbb,

how are we going to make this work? are we going to write on the same blog?

ps, i arrived at my final destination which is Dijon, France. Im living with a family with 7 kids so its going to be quite the experience.. I start my first day of work tomorrow at the local school teaching english.. I dont think I could have packed more into the last 4 days. So far everything has run very smoothly and i have no reason to think that tomorrow will not be the same.

your francophone,

Mandy

Tears that Tear

if i could talk a bit about the pianoforte i think i could go to sleep a happy camper.

there is an instrument called a harpischord. a musician presses on a series of keys that trigger a mechanisim that plucks a series of strings; one key for every string. this might sound familiar to some of you.

the instrument is the grandfather to what we know as a piano; a name that we take from the italian name for the same instrument: pianoforte. Piano e italiano e softly or slowly or take it easy; forte e italiano e strong, hard or forceful. It gets it's name because it's grandfather, the harpsichord, had only one way to play it. no matter what amount of pressure was applied to the key, the mechanism would always play the same strength of tone. The pianoforte allows for the musician to control the sound the string makes by the pressure applied to the key. Thus playing the instrument piano e forte, softly or with strength and many imbetween.

There was a pianist I went to see in Napoles. He was a friend of my host and was playing at a small bar one of the nights i was in town. It was small, very small. We arrived earily enough to get a seat, several people arrived early enough to get standing room and others arrived early enough to sit on the laps of some of those who had arrived earlier. i was not of the arrived earlier crowd, i was of the early enough.

Pianoforte took his seat on stage. He wore a dark shirt, a dark scarf, a dark beard and dark hair long enough to tuck behind his ear and complete the personication of musical tallent; and his stereotypical get up did not disapoint. He was flanked by a large black woman with the voice of two large black women who i realized shortly into the set was a petite, white, italian woman of about my age perched on a stool. They played and played and sang and sang.

Accompaning the duo was a violinist who played beautifully when she wasn't positioning her microphone and a guitarist who gave his guitar to a girl seated next to him exchange for her number. She didn't look like she wanted to be a part of either. This was all well and good because Pianoforte and large black white girl were tearing the roof off while i teared up in the front row.

They played until three am and then we went for caffe. This is what Napolian do, and who was I to argue with good music and caffinated beverages.

le commencement

I'm not really sure how this is going to work. I am going to try to contribute to this blog because I am now en route to France to start an internship. Brad and I will be writing on the same blog (I think?!?!) is that how this is going to work, brad? i'm sure but i know that by the next time I write, Brad will have figured something out, changed everything around but hopefully he won't change the password so that i can continue writing.

So, this is my beginning. I am sitting in the airport gettting ready to board l'avion. My parents and Leanne just dropped me off. There is no one interesting to look at nor is there anyone to make fun of so I thought I would surf the web and thanks to my new beautiful laptop, I can do that in the airport. I am taking a 8:20pm flight to Paris and apparently we have to board an hour early. excellent. I can't wait.

I hope to actually keep writing on this blog and be a better writer than Brad. we always compete like that. so, we'll see..

your francophone, Mandy

Jack Bauer

What i've learned about english is that we actually have sayings that are cooler than we think. I am sure you've been in a spot where you're chatting away to someone and they'll pull out some wicked saying to express their emotions about how that bird just voided on their puma's and you stand there gapping wishing that you had something as colourful to say.

it means the son of a donkey's illegitimate child with a humming bird
wow, we don't have anything like that in english you say.


but, little do you realize, we do.


i believe the main reason we don't know about them is because we haven't had to translate them litterally into another language. in fact, our language is full of them and if you pay attention your likely used one just this morning.

a few to think about are...

eves dropping; bone head; cute chick;

and of course, one of my favourites, not her strong suit.

anyways, the reason i thought of all this was because another helpex'r said that about his girlfriend. it made me think about it, and figure out why it meant what it meant and then made me wish i knew more people who played eucher.

(consider also telling someone they have been trumped, euchered or have renagged outside the context of a card game.)

you can find more at the Dictionary for Urban Language website. There isn't a link here because we run a family blog and most of the DUL isn't for family audiences; if you want to find it, you will.

Words and Mots

I think what my firend who hates the random uses of random hates the most is that so very often tossing in odd or unexpectedly is so much more appropriate.

Example:

I was in Roma staying with a friend of mine and unexpectedly he asked if i'd like to tag along on one of his guided tours through the Vaticant Museum and Cistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.

bum, i don't know for sure what my plans are for toda..
you wouldn't have to pay
i think something just cleared up

His client that afternoon was a group from some credit card company
which turned out not so much a group but a father a son duo; the president of whatever was showing his dad the Vaticant. Who, despite a constant effort from
the son to keep the tour moving, wanted to stop at every single bit of art.
Oddly enough it reminded me of another father/son relationship; not the one I am
part of, but one that I might resemble in a few years.

Now, on the other hand there are times when a word simply must be used because no other word can express exactly what happened.

Example:

While we were engrossed in one of my friends explainations of a peice of art I heard a gasp to my left.

A girl is walking in the vaticant museum. The tour she had taken earlier had ended and she was doubling back to take in more of what the trou guide had rushed by. She crumples up a bit of paper the guide had given her a few moments ago. "Weirdo" she says as she tosses the number into the trash bin, "i'll bet he gives it to ever girl on his tour". She looks up to some art on the wall, a tapestry of Raphiel, and notices a Canada patch a bag just up ahead. As she gets closer to the group she see's they are listening intently to their own tour guide. Instead of interupting she decides to pass on by. However, as she is passing by she recognizes the shirt that Canada patch is wearing.

I hear a gasp to my left, however before I can react the gasp has turned into a low shout.

HOLY SHIT! BRAD?

An echo rolls down the hallway shaking the tapestries and turning heads.

I can't beleive it! and neither could I. did she just say that in the Vaticant? i thought to myself. Nevertheless, standing in front of me, in Rome of all places, was Shirley.

I grabbed her by the arm and lead her away before she brought the house down with more blasphemy.

Tree Stars

Quick, name your favourite Land Before Time film...

... if your answers "what do you mean favourite, wasn't there only one?" you are absolutely correct. a few of you nay sayers out there might be alt-tabbing your way over to wiki or imdb to prove me wrong, but to you i offer this food for thought:

get a life.

we all know that the WB, or who ever made them, took advantage of our love for Little Foot, Spike, Sara and Petwee, pastered them on the covers of some 20 odd sequels and tore a bit of our childhood away.

It was hard, I know, but lets all stick together and come to terms with the fact that it was 20 years ago and we're grown adults.

Great. Now, on a totally different note there's a friend of mine writing a blog and she just shared the address with me and I wanted to share the address with you. Her name is Megan, but i call her Ducky; I have since I met her like ages ago. She spoke like Ducky and thus would be re-christened Ducky for as long as she was part of my life.

This wonderful girl is writing from Botswana, Africa as she works with a community there on AIDS awareness, gathers footage for a documetary to be shared in Canada and has the experience of her life time. Internet access is likely limited (i don't know for sure) but I image she'll post more often than I have been. The link is to the right listed as Ducky in Botswana.

Enjoy,

Pane.

(yes dan, i know it was universal studios that made the film)

io sono fame

hey brad, how are you.
fine, you?
well, well. so, what have you been up to? we've been wondering about you. it was mothers day yesterday and i didn't hear from you.
right, well, you see. i called, and the line was and some friends are in the background and i was in the process of.
what's that brad, i can't hear you over you babbling aimlessly.

... then i woke up. so, happy mothers day and all. i am ashamed that your gift isn't going to be a real post because i've just arrived in Sicily and we're going out for drinks or a beach or something. However, in the mean time here are some photos of my stay in Soverato.

The jist of it is I danced and ate and danced and sang and danced and ate some more. Enjoy!

a dream

Dear Laura Ricciuti,

i had a dream the other night. i met up with you at school. it was between classes for me and i was lulling about in the hall. a groupd of us were chatting about nothing and everthing and you mentioned Percivil was getting married that afternoon. you didn't have a date you so asked me and i ditched class, hopped on your scooter and we sped across town.

we stopped at a shop where you picked out a rain jacket. no one noticed as you walked straight out the door. no one noticed until we took off around the building. i didn't even notice until the shop keeper was chasing us.

at the green room, ast the cerimony where the bridesmaids wehre getting ready i droopped you off. here i realized all i had to wear was my t-shirt and jeans. you gave me an outfit which i put on because that was the thing to do.

i wandered to a table where Karen Murray, Leanne and Tim McClure where sitting. I joined the conversation which was focused on how Leanne and Karen were wearing similar dresses. Mandy joined the table wearin, as you might imagine, the same dress again.

This all got very interesting when I realized the outfit you had given me, the one i put on without thinking about it because i trusted you, was the same dress again that the three of them had on. i was about to get up and rush out when i realized that the entire room was watching me; they had already noticed. with as much damage done as could possibly be done i sat back down, put my arm around Tim and laughed along with everyone else.

I thought perhaps you might get a kick out of that. I had another dream a while ago that you might get a kick out of too.

ciao,

--b