Homework

Instead of a blog this week, I want you to imagine a topic you really enjoy reading about. If I had blogged about that, what would I have said? Reach deep inside yourself and create a first, second and third paragraph. Include juicy tidbits and interesting facts. Think of a web site you would want to link to that topic. What draws you to that topic? Include little details that would make the blog fascinating and really hold your interest.

As part of my quest for a B2 or C1 certificate in French, I've been doing B2 French exercises on https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/. You watch a video and then do exercises. At first it was a chore, but as I got used to it, it became okay. I'm learning stuff American news doesn't cover. Last night I watched two videos in particular that I completely bombed the test on. Instead of answers, the answers were questions. It felt so abstract, especially the one for which I didn't know the topic. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how well I understand the video. The test part can be tricky with its synonyms and cultural obscurities.

Last night I also started a new book in French after finishing the absolutely dismal John Grisham book that made me quit John Grisham novels. It was The Chamber. The French title would be translated as Death Row. It was a piece of crap. At one point I set it aside and read an Isaac Asimov novel then later started it up again. It was about a lawyer trying to save a man on death row. He engages in unethical behavior, etc. At the end the man dies anyway. The whole thing was an ultra-liberal, bleeding heart liberal attack on the death penalty while almost completely ignoring the victims. As I read it, I kept asking, What about the victims?! The murderer was portrayed as noble, heroic and courageous. The attitude was that it's a darn shame about those victims, but the death penalty is the "real crime". Uh, no. We actually need to expand the death penalty to include child molesters. Well, that's it. I'm done with Grisham. I never read him back in the day anyway. The Firm and the Pelican Brief weren't bad, but I want politics out of my educational entertainment. I tried Grisham because I've been trying to read things I don't normally read. Maybe my horizons are broad enough already.

The new book I started is much better. Except for the onslaught of vocabulary and unusual expressions, that is. I'm having to constantly look things up and puzzle out the meanings of odd expressions. Combine that with the two failed video exercises, and it was almost a double whammy last night. But every new author brings a new set of vocabulary. If I can get up to speed on that, it should be much smoother sailing. The expressions I'm not sure about. I may have to learn to live with those. Maybe that's okay. It's enough of a page-turner to keep going to find out what happens next. One thing that disturbed me was having to look up a word that wasn't in my French dictionary or translatable by Google. https://www.le-dictionnaire.com/ told me it was a rare word. In YA? No, don't do that to me.

Have a great weekend.