A Very Good Day

What a day it's been! It's been one of the best days I've had in weeks, which feels amazing.

It was a pretty chilly start to the day. I'm hoping that's the last of the arctic air. Work went smoothly this morning and all my finance stuff totalled properly on the first time. That's pretty rare in itself. So that put things off to a good start.

This afternoon I started the next level of my French classes. My co-worker and I weren't looking forward to it. Our first 2 levels weren't exactly thrilling and our teachers weren't all that good. We decided to switch to an afternoon class this time to see if we'd be a little more alert. I think that might have done the trick. That and the fact that our teacher seems pretty awesome. We have a female teacher this time and her teaching style is so different from the other 2 we had. She likes to write things done and puts a lot of emphasis on verbal communication, which is where I need the most help. This might not be so bad this time.

After work, the bus gods were making up for the last 2 days and I only had to wait 1 minute for my bus and I got a seat! Woohoo! We flew home. I can't recall the last time I got home so quickly. It gave me plenty of time to check my email, brush my hair, change my top and head back out. I met up with one of my best friends for dinner tonight. As always, the meal was great and the conversation was even better. There was some laughter involved as well, which is never a bad thing. And we capped off the evening with one heck of a dessert. I'm very happy we opted to split it because I think we both would have been rather ill had we tried to eat one ourselves.

Just as I was getting home, I got a text message from my brother telling me to check my email. I thought that perhaps he'd sent me another photo of my adorable niece but nope, it was something better. He'd got my niece laughing and he recorded it and sent it to me. I was grinning from ear to ear hearing her laugh. It's such a happy,joyful and innocent sound. Incredible. And the perfect way to end a wonderful day.

And tomorrow's Friday so that's awesome too!

Good Night!

Sarah

Tonight's Dessert

C'est Fini!!

It's been 13 long weeks, but I'm finally done. Until February. LOL.

Yes, today was my last french class of this session. And the even better news is that I "met" the course objectives which means I get to move onto the next level in February. I'm on my way to being bilingual. It's a long and frustrating road but it's worth it in the end.

My afternoon was a blur. Playing catch up from being in class all morning :) It's going to be a little strange next Wednesday, being in the office in the morning. I'm sure I'll re-adjust quickly.

I did something kind of cool this evening. The lead guitarist, Sal Costa, from one of my favourite bands, My Darkest Days, did a live web chat to answer questions about his new clothing line. He's released a few items so far and will be releasing more tomorrow. The really wicked part is that he donates partial proceeds to charity. And the charity changes every so often too. I think that's awesome.

Anyhow, he was answering questions from the fans and I got 2 questions answered and a request answered. LOL. One of my questions was the last one he answered and it was the most important one. Sal is a very big proponent of healthy living and eating. He gave a very honest and straightforward answer to my question, which was "What's the most important healthy eating tip you can give". And he answered it! He reminded everyone that if you eat garbage, you'll feel and look bad. You are what you eat. He recommended staying away from bad fats and to eat 6 small meals through out the day to get your metabolism up. It makes sense and I've definitely heard that recommendation before.

It seems like a simple concept, but putting it into place is the trick. Especially is you're rather set in the way you live/eat already. The "diet" industry in North America is a multi-billion dollar industry. There is just so much out there. Shakes, pills, vitamins, diets, work outs, equipments, meal plans, drugs... and there's so much hype around all of them. It's very hard to wade through all of that noise and figure out what is real, what works and what makes the most sense for me. Just because something works for one person, don't mean it will work for me.

I definitely have something to mull over for a little bit. Maybe simplicity is the key?

Good Night!

Sarah

French - How I Loathe Thee

I am not an idiot. Ok, well most of the time I'm not an idiot. Judging by how badly I just did on my french homework, an argument can be made to the contrary. Even after re-reading my notes I still couldn't get it. The fact that the teacher hadn't covered this off in class yet might have something to do with it. I have a vague recollection of him mentioning something in the last 10 minutes of class that kind of hinted towards what we needed to know for our homework assignment but that's all.

Just to make sure I hadn't blacked out or something during our last class, I contacted my co-worker who's in class with me and she confirmed what I'd been lead to believe. No, we didn't cover it in class. Now I don't feel quite as much of an idiot. It's nice to have someone to confirm that you're not as stupid as you feel.

What pisses me off is that our teacher is assuming that we'll know this. Some of the answers I was able to figure out based on some deductive reasoning but the rest? No fucking idea. If the teacher would have just taken the time to clearly explain how/when/why each one is used, I'd be able to understand what's going on. But he didn't and now I'm just confused and frustrated. Nuts to that. I'm giving up on the french and reading my book. It's much more entertaining.

There are only 2 classes left in this semester. I can do this. I can get through this. I'm thinking at this point, it might be easier to hire one of my co-workers to tutor me. Seriously. They've been speaking french all their lives. They learnt grammar and spelling so they should be able to explain it. And maybe explain the how, when and why too. A couple of our colleagues have looked through our french books and they just start laughing and then wish us good luck and walk away muttering about it not being "real" french. I think I'm doomed.

The only bright side to this seems to be that my use of numbers in french has improved and I'm getting better at asking questions in french. Still can't spell in french to save my life but we'll take it one hurdle at a time here. 

Good Night!

Sarah

Holy Math Hell Batman!

I like to consider myself a pretty smart cookie. In high school, I got good grades without trying too hard. When I applied myself, I got great grades. Except in two classes: Math and French.

Since I was in an advanced stream, I was told to take advanced math. I managed to pass grade 9 advanced math with 73%. Things went south in grade 10 and I got out alive with 62%. You don't have to be a math whiz to see where this is going. Grade 11 math rolls around and I ask my councillor if I can drop down to general or business math. He said no. Since I was in an advanced program, I needed to stay in advanced math. Within the first month of school, the teacher asked to speak to me and he suggested that I drop down to a lower level of math. I laughed and explained that I'd tried that already. Thank god, he decided to strike a deal with me. If I put in the effort, he'd find a way to pass me. I managed to fail both major exams that year but still managed to squeak by with a 51%. For the record, that is the lowest grade I ever received in my scholastic career.

Learning from that lesson, in grade 12 I was taking OAC 1 French (they didn't have grade 12 french, just OAC 1 and OAC 2 and for those who don't know, OAC was like grade 13. It's long gone now). After the first 6 weeks of the class, I knew I was in uber trouble so I dropped it. In hind sight, that probably wasn't the best idea but meh. I liked having that spare period.

Fast forward to today. I'm in French class this morning and what does the teacher tell us that we're doing: Math. In French.

Are you fucking kidding me? My worst 2 subjects rolled together into one. This is my idea of hell. The stuff my nightmares are made of. It was brutal. One of the worst parts being that I have to use my fingers to count by 10s to remember the number in french above 30. LOL. And we were using numbers in the millions today. Speaking of which, whoever developed the french language was a real jackass. The works in french for Thousand, Million and Billion are all almost the same fucking word! They're: Mille, Million and Milliard. COME ON!!!!!

Class wasn't entirely horrible though. My co-worker, who was equally in hell as me, managed to provide me with some awesome comic relief.  The teacher asked us to come up with 6 math questions, including the answer. We took turns reading them and another person in the class had to answer the question. My co-worker read one of hers and the other class mate gave an answer and the teacher said "correct". My co-worker looked puzzled. I looked over. The answer she had written down didn't match the verbal answer given. Hmmm. She did the math again, same answer that she had written down. That's when I noticed the problem. She had written:

80 + 5 = 90

LMAO. Oops. Blond moment apparently. But we laughed and laughed. The teacher actually had to stop and ask us if we're ok, which didn't help our laughter. Epic fail. So awesome. For the record, this is also the same co-worker who texted me tonight and said "Thank you for ur Knicks".Apparently I own a basketball team and lent them to her. Her auto correct rocks. She was trying to say "Knowledge". Priceless. Cheer up, it's almost Friday.

Good Night!

Sarah

Randomness

I just finished my french home work. He gave us 3 activities to do this time. Thankfully, they were pretty repetitive so it didn't take me long to do. Also, the answers to 2 of the 3 are in the back of the book so that helped. There were only 3 words this time that I didn't know. My buddy Xtinktor translated for me. And then laughed at me. Jerk. LOL. Seriously, in what universe do you get "Stapler" from "Agrafeuse"?? French is fucked up. I'm sooo looking forward to class tomorrow. Yes, I was being sarcastic.

What I am looking forward to is Halloween. I'm very excited at the prospect of getting to go out and party/rock the night away. In a fun costume too. I honestly don't get out much. As I said to a friend earlier tonight, "I think there might be too much of Fun Sarah stored up". She hasn't been out much lately. This might be interesting. Thankfully, my wing-woman for the night (ok, it's a dude in drag) is also the DD so I'll have someone to keep me from doing anything overly stupid.
This is kind of when I miss Calgary (shocking, I know!). There were two awesome little bars within walking distance of my apartment. One had cheap wings, good food and hockey on many tvs and the other had reasonable drink prices and good live bands. My buddy Cam and I would venture out to one of them almost on a weekly basis. I don't really have anything near here like that.

It looks like the babyboom of 2012 is continuing into 2013. I've got 3 co-workers on mat leave already, the 3rd should be popping any day now and I just found out that a 4th one at the office is expecting. In addition to that, I two sets of friends who are expecting new bundles of joy in 2013. The babies just keep on coming! I'm still terrified. But a couple of them are growing on me.

BTW, I'm so in love with Pinterest!!!!!! It's awesome. I've wasted so much time on there. LOL.

Anyhow, I need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed (or something like that) for class tomorrow morning so I'd better log off.

Good Night!

Sarah

Teacher, teacher. Can you teach me?

Today's french class was the class from hell. It started out ok. I nailed like 3 questions in a row. But then the teacher got us all confused. By the end of class, all 9 of us were so mixed up, not a single one of us could come up with a correct answer. We were all playing a strange guessing game. It was brutal.

To make matters worse, once I got back to the office, I showed some of my notes and work books to my co-workers who's first language is french. They laughed their asses off. And were horrified by some of the bad stuff that was being taught to us. Great. Just great. No wonder the stuff I hear in the office doesn't match the stuff I learn in class. The really frustrating part was that I asked one of my co-workers the same question I'd asked my teacher. My co-worker was able to explain it to me in 30 seconds and I actually understood!!!! My teacher spent 30 minutes explaining the same damn thing and I still didn't understand it. So friggin' annoying.

Maybe I should just give up on the classes and hire my co-workers to teach me. It might be a better plan. Sigh.

I'm smart. I know I am. So why can't I get this? At least I wasn't alone in my misery or confusion.

Speaking of class, I keep thinking that I'd love to take some University classes. Maybe I'll work on getting my honours, then my masters and maybe even a PhD. I think I could handle and afford 1 class a semester. I kind of miss it. I do like to learn. Not a big fan of the home work but it's a necessary evil. I dunno. Something to thing about.

Good Night!

Dow's Lake with Carleton University in the background.

Sarah