Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

It seems like a very, very long time ago that I thought I’d best get myself fluent in French if I ever wanted to live in France.

Some years after that initial thought, I started French with the Open University and three years later found myself the very proud owner of a Diploma in French. That should have been the end of that, but…. by that time we’d started picking up a fair number of Spanish guests so I thought I’d restart my long forgotten Spanish.

‘Tis now three years since I did that and the final exam for the Diploma in Spanish is next Monday.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, it turns out that one more course is enough to get me a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages which is definitely something I never ever thought there’d even be the remotest possibility of adding to my name. That “one more course” happens to be a level two English course which, all being well, I’ll be starting next February.

It still hasn’t fully sunk in that I have a Diploma in French and I get the certificate out now and again even now in case it was all a dream!

What next after the English though?

Well, as it happens, I’ll have an overhang of one course at that point (assuming that I pass the Spanish next week and the English next year). So, one more English course gets me a Diploma in English. That in turn leaves an overhang of one course towards the next degree…..

As I near the end of the Spanish course, one thing after another is getting finished off.

Yesterday, it was the end of the books that I reached. It seems like only yesterday when I was starting the first one yet it was right at the start of January!

Tonight, was the final get-together of our little online Spanish group. We’ve been getting together off and on for the last three years and ’twas the final meeting this evening so the headset has had its final use…. unless I take the head staggers and sign up for the German or perhaps the Italian course, of course…

Next week sees the exam so there’ll be something of a gap in the posts from me from later this week ’til at least Wednesday of next week.

Ordinarily, we can see Queribus no problem but for the last few days it’s been almost entirely shrouded in mist.

That’s messed up the walking season somewhat to put it mildly. Typically, walkers start with us and set off for Carcassonne which takes them about five days and goes pretty much directly there, over hill and dale. Ordinarily, I quite envy them as it’s a lovely walk (though, so far, I’ve been too lazy to do it) but it’s a different matter in this kind of weather. Cold and miserable is nice now and again but they’ll be lucky to even get up to Queribus the way it is at the moment.

We’ve even got snow on Canigou which ain’t a good sign this early on: usually it doesn’t even have a dusting for another month or so.

It looks like Pay Per Post lifted their 2 posts a day limit a little too soon as the number of opportunities on offer and the average payout from those available has dropped like a stone.

A few weeks ago, there would typically have been something like 100 posts available with maybe 1/3rd of those averaging around $7 to $10 or thereabouts. However, today there are still only 28 offers and only six of those are more than $6.

In fact, it’s worse than that as five of the six aren’t really available to me and the seventh is already used up.

So, nice idea to move the posting limit up to 3 per day but they need to pull in more advertisers or the whole lot will be cleared out very quickly indeed.

When you immigrate to France one of the things that they look for is a medical.

Seeing as Wendy’s Australian, she duly got the invitation for that medical exam in December 2004. We sat there for several hours and then just had to leave as we’d guests coming and loads of things to do. They said that they’d make another appointment.

That “other appointment” is this afternoon.

Yes, three years later!

In that time, Wendy has been to the doctor several times of course and even had a baby here so it does seem a bit silly that they’re inviting her for a medical at this point. Still, it’s France so they need documentation even if it’s pointless.