French to Quebecois Translator Please!:)

Being a traveller, I sometimes display symptoms of a mental disorder.   I think it might be comparable to multiple personality disorder or perhaps just being a little bit skitzo.  I leave the place I am familiar with because I want to be on an adventure...except I get to my destination and I want everything to be familiar again. (Okay!!! Only a little!  I may be slightly addicted to purposely making myself completely uneasy.)

I had my first real French job interview today! So how did that go???  Well luckily, I don't want the job!  It's a great first step.  Getting your feet wet at an interview for a job you don't want  is great way to remove at least some degree of stress about not understanding culture and protocol!  I think the most terrifying part though, was that I had no clue what the interviewer was saying half the time. That can't be right. I speak French!  Nothing like  Parisian technical jargon to throw this Montreal girl off guard!  Mix it up with an accent I am not a hundred percent used to and VOILA,  it's a foreign language.  I always knew there were differences but, in a social setting, I can carry a conversation in without having to wonder what half the words mean.  Something I also came to notice is how much more poetic the simplest things here sound.  It is not always that the words used are different but they are used in different ways.   I wish I had a photo I could share with you.  The other day I walked by a vegetarian restaurant and what struck me was that it was called "un atelier de soja" which literally translates to, a Soy Workshop!  Does this flowery language reflect something on how an eatery location is perceived in French culture?

 I'll do my digging and one day, I'll get it! For now I'm loving that there is so much to discover about this language! ( Even though my other personality kinda hates it...LOL)


 

Perfection as a Goal is Waste of Time!

Being an outsider can be a little difficult at times.  You may not have followed the recipe given or expected in order to achieve what you want because the one you were told to follow back home is different.  So what to do?  It feels a little overwhelming but the cliché  about just being yourself may have been some of the best advice ever given.  Nowhere I have lived have I been considered perfect but the irony is that my perfections and imperfections are not always transferrable  skills.

So doesn't that just mean that perfect and imperfect are merely a matters of opinion.

My strengths in some places are my weaknesses in others and vice versa.  Living in the English part of Canada, having a Parisian French accent was considered "The Better French". Being here, however, there seems to be a novelty around being from Montreal.  I am different and different can be novel!  With my Canadian spirit and an acceptance that I am in France, feeling comfortable here is only a matter of time.  The lady selling me a SIM card may laugh and think my accent sounds ridiculous but the bar tender gave me a shot on the house for that very same reason. One thing is for sure, when you are different you don't go unnoticed and you always leave behind a lasting impression.

 

A Quick Glance Inside: The Intro to My Travel Blog!

At the moment, all of my physical possessions fit inside of a back pack and a large suitcase.  Though not a large physical  place to put my life's belongings, my most important possessions have been in that suitcase for the last four years.  The values, the broader perspective, the friendships I have acquired, the emotional moments and some severe cases of melodrama all fit inside and tag along wherever I go.  Be warned that the suitcase does get heavier in the metaphysical realm as you become a much denser person.

So why am I writing this? 

For one thing, everywhere I go, I make new memories.  I cherish them and I feel that this is a way for me to hold on to them forever.  I also want to encourage you to leap into the unknown.  I know how scared I still get.  I have now lived in several places and yet I still get nervous.  I think  if you can embark on a plane and change your life, leave behind your belongings, your friends and your families, you should! DOexpect some turbulence along the way! It will be a bumpy ride but you'll also fly higher than you've ever been!:)


Rolla