Holidays and English.

First off, it's been a while again since my last blog post. I've been more up than down since. I feel as though I'm steadying out instead of being on a roller coaster. So, since my last post Thanksgiving has happened, the Christmas season has commenced, and life is generally delicious at this point.

First off, here's a quick rundown of events! Thanksgiving was fantastic. In case anyone who reads this doesn't understand the whole point of Thanksgiving, no, it is not celebrated in France. But a Thanksgiving dinner was set up by the wonderful site director from AHA, and it was probably one of the best I've had. The meal itself was okay and not the same as what I'm used to. What really was important to me was having that piece of home and sharing a piece of my culture with my host family.
                 Meanwhile, there has been a fair for the past three weeks. This last weekend was the last of it. I went once with my Japanese roommate, Ayaka. It was magical. Experiencing a real autumn is something else for me. The trees are almost barren, orange leaves are on the ground, it is legitimately dark outside, the fair rides are colorful, there are churros, and it was late November. The only downfall was that the wind was blowing as if the world was about to end (18 days) and something smashed so hard into my face that I almost fell to the ground. I was practically sobbing out of surprise and confusion. My nose bruised up a little afterwards. It's doing all right now, but I will forever wonder what hit me.
                 This last weekend the Christmas market started in the centre ville. The lights were turned on and there's a giant Christmas tree looking all badass. To my surprise, the lights are LEDs and very bright and colorful. The experience of walking around the market and the lights and the strike that was happening right in front of the tram ... it was all very European. I ended up going out and having some delicious baked potatoes at a restaurant with some AHA buddies. First off, I'm not a drinker. I don't drink alcohol. I taste it and that's good enough. There's nothing wrong with tasting things. I really don't like not being in control of myself and I have had bad experienced with drunk people. But since it was a nice restaurant and I felt as though I was in nice company I had one Pina Colada. It was good, and I was a little tipsy afterwards. That's good enough for me and probably won't happen for another couple months. Getting drunk just isn't my thing.
                Other than that, I've just been going to classes and doing presentations with some exams here and there. Speaking with my host family, eating French food, learning about other cultures, speaking French, ... stuff like that.
                To wrap events off, I'd like to just say that I'm headed to Grenoble come February and then heading to Alaska at the end of April. I'll have give-or-take four or five months in Alaska then I'm off to Japan. Going abroad is the best decision I have ever made. I just want to go abroad forever.


Now I would like to talk about holidays and my take on them. Since it's the "Holiday Season". To be honest, I am kind of superficial when it comes to holidays. Thanksgiving is about turkey, watching Macy's Day Parade, orange colors, and pie with lots of whipped cream. Also, there is apparently this rule where you eat until your innards explode. I don't know, I never partake in that ritual. Christmas is about Santa, watching old Christmas cartoons, lots of decorations and lights, eating yule logs, presents, and magic. Halloween is about freezing to death, costumes that aren't practical in Alaska, getting candy that nobody even likes, me refusing to go into Haunted Houses, avoiding fake spiders everywhere for like a month, and freezing to death. Valentine's Day is about hearts, picking out the select few chocolates I like out of the huge 'assorted' box, figuring out what to do with said giant heart-shaped box, accepting flowers and trying not to be weird about it, and reading lots of whiny Facebook posts. St. Patrick's day is about breaking my pacifist oath and murdering anyone who dares pinch me because I give no fucks about this holiday (I apologize to my Irish heritage). Easter is about painting eggs even though I have not enjoyed this activity since I was like five, finding the eggs and hoping that I did not miss one, eating roast ham, and knowing that my dad is probably watching the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. July 4th is about America and American colored everything, which is one of my favorite things. I love having American colored cake. Strawberries with white and blue frosting. I hate BBQ, but everything else is fantastic. There are other holidays in the year, but those are the Big Six (was that six? I'm too lazy to count).
                  I probably sound a little pessimistic towards the end, but I'm not really. I love most of these holidays, and really ... the most important part to me is spending the time with friends, family, and such. Also, some little personal time to appreciate myself as a human being and renew my energies.
                 Anyway, I don't celebrate these holidays for Christianity. One, because I am not Christian, and I have not been since I was a sophomore in high school. Two, why should I not celebrate a commercialized holiday that originated as a Pagan holiday in the first place just because Christians wanted to have some good holiday fun too? Third, who cares why you celebrate a holiday? If you are having fun and having special time with your religion or your family or your friends ... that's all that matters, right? But since I've converted to Paganism, I have been inserting more 'religious' tones to my holidays.
                So in case you're behind, I am Pagan and have fully converted (this is fairly new, and it was not done on a whim, but after lots of research and epiphanies and the sort of things you have when you know you've found your religion).
                What is this Pagan thing, anyway? Well, I've always believed in energies in the Earth and the Universe and spirits after death and things like that. I just always incorporated it into whatever I considered myself at the time (Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, I have gone through religions). Finally, one day, I decided to look up Paganism (specifically Wiccan, I say I am Pagan because that has less negative connotation than Wiccan does - and Wiccan is like a branch of Pagan, err ... more like a branch off of Neo-Pagan, which is a branch off of Pagan. It's complicated), and found that it was my calling. Now, I'm not going to get all religious and preachy because I feel that religion is a very personal thing that should stay personal. These are my personal beliefs and I will keep them to myself unless asked.
                 Basically, I found what was right for me. I've always been kind of jealous of people who already were set in their beliefs whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Agnosticism. People who already had a religion (or lack thereof) they loved and they said 'felt right'. I have gone from religion to religion searching for it and have always just kind of been in a limbo. I stuck with agnosticism for a while because it was the closest thing to feeling right. I always knew I wasn't fully satisfied. Now I understand. I don't think you have to have a religion to feel right. Everyone is different. The only preachy thing I can say is find what feels right, not what people tell you is right. Follow your heart. Or your stomach butterflies. Or your brain. Or whatever it is that helps you feel right.

Finally, I'll finish this up with some talk about English and Americans. This kind of post was inevitable. Since I have started my journey to multilingualism, I have come to notice that there are a lot of bullshit things English speakers spread around about our language. Just to clear this up, I heard these type of things from Americans back when I was in America. Also, I came to notice that people who said these things don't know another language.
                  One of the things I have heard is that English is the only language that has synonyms or words that have multiple meanings. I have heard it both ways, just the latter, and just the former. Most of the time I brushed it off, not really caring, but once I started to learn French I realized just how much bullshit that was. Then in one of my courses back at UAF someone said that as an example. It was so hard not to correct him, but I kept telling myself it wasn't worth it to lead the conversation astray. I slightly regret it now because he probably instilled that false knowledge into other people's brains. Just in case you believe that nonsense, I can easily tell you that is not even close to true. I shouldn't have to say why it's not true. I speak English, all right French, and just enough Japanese to understand easy conversation.
                  Second. This one I hear on the internet a lot and I have heard in the past, probably mostly when I was in high school. English is the hardest language to learn. No. No, I'm sorry. For one thing, you can't rank languages like that. I feel like languages are like instruments. None of them are necessarily harder or easier than the other. It depends on the person. Your first language will be easy because you were learning it since you were in the womb; probably, I honestly don't know if that really works. From observation and speaking with international students all of the time, almost all of them say English is easy because they learned it when they were eight when their brains were perfectly spongy enough for language learning. But then they didn't use it and forgot most if it. Shit happens. I am sure that most languages work like that, if not all. It gets harder as you get older, some people are more inclined towards language learning, blah blah blah.
                Third. English has no formal language. Yeah. Okay. I don't have the energy to tell you why this is wrong so here is a link you will have to copy and pasta. Perhaps it is not the language that is not formal, but some of the people who use it?

http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic55311.html

                 That's about the end of my English rant. I love the English language, I think it is wonderful and fantastic. But I also respect English and other languages enough to know that these misconceptions are not fair. The sad part is I feel as though these misconceptions would be eradicated if more Americans were to learn foreign languages. Yes. I think learning a foreign language as a child should be mandatory in American schools. I respect those who think it shouldn't be mandatory and understand why they think that. This is a hot topic, I think. However, our education system is awful and Globalization is inevitable. You can hide from it and deny it all you want, but it is not going away. Just like cell phones, computers, and fugly box cars, Globalization is happening and it is not stopping anytime soon. That is not the only reason I think Americans should learn a foreign language as a child. Learning foreign languages helps people understand their own culture. The more I learn about French and Japanese the more I learn about English and what it is like to be an American. Besides that, learning languages is good for your brain. "Oh, but that is too much! They already have to do English, Math, History, et cetera!" Yeah? So do all of the other kids on the planet and it is obligatory for them to learn another language. "But we're not like the rest of the world!" That is true. But I'm not saying let's adopt socialism and the one-child policy. I'm saying, 'let's educate our children'. America does not have to be a bilingual country to teach the children foreign languages. Give them a choice even! Make it interesting.
                Next. One of the things I will miss in France is how political-correctness does not exist. When you say "America/American" you are talking about people from the United States of America. No one cares about the 'technicality' of the term. White people are white, black people are black ... people are people. Though, I have come to notice there are a few things that are a little on the racist/sexist side. Both males and females have very high standards for looks, but girls generally aren't supposed to show much skin and if they do they are a slut, end of story (or they're American). There are a lot of Muslims here, and I have heard that there is some friction between them and this very Catholic country. I have yet to experience anything like that, though. All countries have their bad sides, I suppose.
               I think I will wrap this up with some things about France. I'll give you a list of 10:
1. Everything is closed on Sundays. A lot of things are closed on Mondays too.
2. Restaurants close from 2 PM - 7 PM. Every day.
3. There is no mesh on the windows, but there are apocalypse shutters (metal shutters that don't allow for any sunlight to filter through).
4. The kiss on the cheek thing is actually not a real kiss. You touch cheeks. It is called les bisous, and each area has a different amount. Angers apparently is four times, but I have only experienced two, one on each cheek.
5. Apparently you don't tip waiters in France.
6. French people really like eye contact, and if you catch them staring they will continue to stare until they slowly turn their head away. Staring is more acceptable here.
7. Personal bubbles are smaller here.
8. Everyone jay-walks and cars will generally stop to let you walk past (probably because they are scared to hit someone). Also, cars are so small here.
9. People are not rude, in fact, I find more Americans here to be rude than the French. Problem solved.
10. There is delicious food here.

That's all until next time!

Bisous!