Happy January folks! My 2015 resolution of BE BETTER AT EVERYTHING is going well. I’ve just had a very productive morning.
Job 1: I successfully located the little grey plastic funnel
dishwasher-attachment-thing, thus enabling me to refill the dishwasher salt for
the first time. Having been given extremely specific instructions on
maintaining all household appliances in the apartment I’m renting, I even
watched 3 different youtube videos on how to use said funnel to insert said
salt before copying the whole process VERY CAREFULLY. Don’t worry – there’s supposed to be some
weird water in there already, and it’s supposed to take a surprisingly large
amount of salt to fill the thing. DISHWASHER MAINTENANCE COMPLETE.
Job 2: I continued my mission to use increasingly more
coffee and increasingly less water in my coffee-machine. My goal is to see how
far I can go before the stuff that comes out would technically be termed mud.
Job 3: French homework. Instead of doing this in a 15-minute
rush before my French class on a Wednesday, this week I am grown-up and mature
and doing it 2 days in advance in a neat and organised fashion. This week, my
homework was a written composition about how I spent New Year, using at least
20 verbs and at least 2 past tenses.
I’ve just finished. It took ages. I drank all the coffee and
shouted at Google Translate three times, but it was worth it. I was feeling
pretty smug by the end – I’ve used the word ‘twinkle’ for goodness’ sake, and 3 (that's right, 3!) reflexive verbs.
And then I read it back to myself, and realised that when I
write in French, I sound like a small child. I have completely regressed. I
should probably change the dots over the i’s into small hearts for truer
authenticity.
Don’t believe me? Here, for your amusement, is the English translation of what I wrote. On the plus side, it doubles as a blog entry about New Year, albeit through
the eyes of a 9-year-old (who drinks champagne).
I spent New Year’s Eve in Paris. After Christmas, which I
spent at my parents’ house in England, I went to London. When I arrived in
London, I met my friends at St Pancras Station. It was the day before New Year’s
Eve.
On the 31st December, it was cold, but it was
also sunny. So, we went to the Jardin des Plantes and we walked about. After
that, we visited the Evolution Museum, which is a museum in the Jardin des
Plantes with lots of information about Natural History. The panda was my
favourite animal.
Then, we walked to the Arab World Institute. There, we
climbed up to the ninth floor to see the magnificent view. It was awesome!
Later, we were walking in the Jardin des Tuileries when the
sun set. The sky had lots of different shades of pink and purple. Suddenly, the
Eiffel Tower started twinkling. It was perfect!
That evening, we returned to my house, where another friend
joined us. We cooked a traditional cassoulet, we drank champagne, and for
dessert we ate a Christmas Chocolate Log. On the log, there was a small model
of Father Christmas. It was the first time that I saw Father Christmas holding
an axe!
It was a really cool New Year’s Eve!
