Painful things...

So...last week we had to do this thing that I wasn`t looking forward to. We had worked on a legend...creating a legend based on a photo of sometype of landmark here in Riviere-du-Loup. Once we were finished the legend, we had to make preparations for decorating a kiosk type thing because we would be performing our legend for the fine folks of RDL!! yep. Speaking a ton of french at one time to a heck of a lot of Francphones. J'ai été très nerveuse! I ended up being assigned the storyteller. Gee what a surprise!! I wrote most of the story and I was the most familiar with the storyline, so when I read it, I was animated, knew when to stress certain words etc...so...I read a 3 minute story about 10 -13 times really loudly for many, many people. I must admit prior to completing this evening of legend-telling I was an extremely reluctant to participate. Mostly because it made me feel like an elementary school kid who was putting together something for a science fair that everyones parents were going to come and check out and then it would be judged by someone. I rebelled against the who school kid thing. I had a rotten attitude. About an hour before we began, I thought...this could be painful and annoying or I can just decide to have fun. I decided to have fun. I was still really nervous though. Before I began the first run, I actually told our listeners that I was really nervous and they all smiled friendly, welcoming smiles and so I began. It was fun. I became more and more animated, and storyteller-like as we went along. I raised my voice, waved my hands, changed my tone, used different facial expressions...it was great! I also thought that I might lose my voice, but I didn`t. At the end of the night I found out we were actually being judged. I did notice a number of our instructors stopping and listening to many of the stories, but thought they just wanted to check it out. Anyhow...the long and short of the story...my group won for the best french and pronunciation!! YAY!! we got a gift certifcate for a great restaurant here in town. anyhow...

Tomorrow is my #2 on the list of Painful things...a debate about whether canada has a culture or not....in french. I hate formal debates in english and gee...sounds like fun to try and do one in french. We'll see...maybe I will decide to have fun.

I have to go study...I have tons of stuff to know for my 2 exams coming up and not enough time to actually get a good study in because they keep filling our time with stuff. Good stuff...like a weekend trip to Quebec city...good stuff. More on that later!!

out like trout.