(no subject)
Eep, I've once again accumulated a posting backlog. Have some bullet points! In no particular order:
• Hmm, Nicholas Le Floch. You are young, apparently hot, somewhat emo, smarter than you seem, Breton, and at this point a newly-minted parvenu here to introduce me to the seamy underworld of eighteenth-century Paris? I think there's room among my favorite detectives for you. Come hang with Brother Cadfael (and Hugh Beringar), Lord Peter Wimsey, Friar William of Baskerville, et alia. Also, you seem to have a TV series. Yay!
• French pronunciation. I decided to look for some online tutorials after being particularly conscious of butchering my pronunciation while I was chatting on Friday with my landlady (my pronunciation is what seems to have suffered most in the 5 years between my semester in Dijon and my return to France in September 2010). So, there are rules for pronouncing French vowels. Rules I never knew! In fact, there's a whole set of vowel sounds no one ever told me about. Nasal vowels. Who knew? Admittedly, the last time I had any instruction in French pronunciation was probably sometime in 2002 just before I graduated from high school, but still! It probably wouldn't have been as much of an issue if I'd been speaking French continuously and keeping my pronunciation straight through constant use, but yeah, my pronunciation might be the rustiest of all!
• Things that are apparently triggering of hideous social-anxiety attacks. Looking up French pronunciation! Speaking French is a major focus of my social anxiety right now, so possibly not that surprising, but whoa. I was a disastrous mess on Saturday when I put down the internet and went out among the French people. I'm doing better now, but I really have to cultivate opportunities to speak more French. You'd think it would be easy - in France - but yeah, not if you're me.
• Archives. OMG!!! I've discovered that there are copies of all kinds of Breton charters in various early modern collections in the Bibliothèque nationale de France that haven't survived in their originals. I'm sure this isn't news to other historians of eleventh-century Brittany, but this like, doubles my source base for some parts of Brittany. I'm going through the copies of the copies in the Fonds La Borderie in the archives here and getting all the manuscript numbers for the BnF, and it's super-exciting.
• Laundry. Clean sheets! I finally did my light wash. Now, of course, my darks are building up again, and I'll probably have to drag myself and another load of laundry to the laundromat over the weekend.
• Plans. I think I'm going to dedicate the rest of this week to finishing up the Marmoutier stuff in the Fonds La Borderie and go to Saint-Brieuc next week. If it warms up, I might also take my delayed trip to Dol on Saturday, although this is also the last weekend of les soldes, and I've contracted a desire to shop - I want some boots, and also one of those short floofy skirts, before I'm definitively too old to wear one. 28 isn't too old, right? Because if it is, I only have a day left before I have to dress like an adult!
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/666239.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.
• Hmm, Nicholas Le Floch. You are young, apparently hot, somewhat emo, smarter than you seem, Breton, and at this point a newly-minted parvenu here to introduce me to the seamy underworld of eighteenth-century Paris? I think there's room among my favorite detectives for you. Come hang with Brother Cadfael (and Hugh Beringar), Lord Peter Wimsey, Friar William of Baskerville, et alia. Also, you seem to have a TV series. Yay!
• French pronunciation. I decided to look for some online tutorials after being particularly conscious of butchering my pronunciation while I was chatting on Friday with my landlady (my pronunciation is what seems to have suffered most in the 5 years between my semester in Dijon and my return to France in September 2010). So, there are rules for pronouncing French vowels. Rules I never knew! In fact, there's a whole set of vowel sounds no one ever told me about. Nasal vowels. Who knew? Admittedly, the last time I had any instruction in French pronunciation was probably sometime in 2002 just before I graduated from high school, but still! It probably wouldn't have been as much of an issue if I'd been speaking French continuously and keeping my pronunciation straight through constant use, but yeah, my pronunciation might be the rustiest of all!
• Things that are apparently triggering of hideous social-anxiety attacks. Looking up French pronunciation! Speaking French is a major focus of my social anxiety right now, so possibly not that surprising, but whoa. I was a disastrous mess on Saturday when I put down the internet and went out among the French people. I'm doing better now, but I really have to cultivate opportunities to speak more French. You'd think it would be easy - in France - but yeah, not if you're me.
• Archives. OMG!!! I've discovered that there are copies of all kinds of Breton charters in various early modern collections in the Bibliothèque nationale de France that haven't survived in their originals. I'm sure this isn't news to other historians of eleventh-century Brittany, but this like, doubles my source base for some parts of Brittany. I'm going through the copies of the copies in the Fonds La Borderie in the archives here and getting all the manuscript numbers for the BnF, and it's super-exciting.
• Laundry. Clean sheets! I finally did my light wash. Now, of course, my darks are building up again, and I'll probably have to drag myself and another load of laundry to the laundromat over the weekend.
• Plans. I think I'm going to dedicate the rest of this week to finishing up the Marmoutier stuff in the Fonds La Borderie and go to Saint-Brieuc next week. If it warms up, I might also take my delayed trip to Dol on Saturday, although this is also the last weekend of les soldes, and I've contracted a desire to shop - I want some boots, and also one of those short floofy skirts, before I'm definitively too old to wear one. 28 isn't too old, right? Because if it is, I only have a day left before I have to dress like an adult!
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/666239.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.