I had a franglais conversation (that's a mixture of French and English) with a real live francophone tonight... he was a playwright whose reading I was at, and we got to chatting about theatre and Montreal, and we were just switching back and forth. Usually I am too self-conscious about my French to use it with a native speaker--I'm so aware that I'm probably making silly mistakes, or that it's so much more of an effort to THINK of the words I want to use. But why not go for it? What did I do all those years of French immersion for if not to speak the language?
Actually, I was pretty pleased with myself for being socially... well, socially competent tonight. Usually I'm content just to nod and smile and listen to everyone else, but tonight I actually made the effort to not just give in to shyness.
This is great, because I have been feeling a bit defeated by life this week... some crap happened that has changed our financial situation a bit, and it was just one of those times when all the little things sort of piled up to make life much more difficult. I need to get into a better frame of mind before next week's workshop.
Onward and upward!
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