Portugal says "Olá!"

[MaryDearMary]

Oh I used to be so much better at speaking French! I was around French people all the time and I had to speak it and write it for the Parliament. Now I seldom speak French and I never write it. That's why I keep reading in French, so that I won't lose my familiarity with the language. I need to go and live in Paris for a year

Oh I had an Encyclopedia for Children! I used to fall asleep holding it and my parents would have to check on me in the middle of the night because they were worried I would hurt myself (like stick the pointy part of the cover into my eye or something). Also, they had to turn off the light otherwise they would pay too much for electricity!

Yes, she hates bookstores. She rolls her eyes to no end when I even mention having to go to the bookstore. Obviously I don't really need to go...I just really want to

[Sarahdg]

Katja, do you mean Mathilda as in Roald Dahl's book called Matilda? I loved that book!

[Lauriane]

Thanks Katja
You'll tell us what you think about it!
Oh I love bookstores too, particularly the old ones. In Toulouse there is this tiny English bookstore, called the Bookshop, and I looove to go there. Plus the owner is a really nice English guy with huge glasses and a really awesome accent
What I would dream to do is to own a little bookshop/library where youncan sit on old sofas and armchairs while you read a book and drink your tea *sigh*
My mother doesnt really like books, and since I was a kid, whenever I read a book that I really like, it's like I'm in a bubble: you can talk to me, but don't expect me to reply. It annoyed my mom greatly (obviously hehe) and she would get mad at me

[MaryDearMary]

whenever I read a book that I really like, it's like I'm in a bubble: you can talk to me, but don't expect me to reply.

That's me! I'm exactly like that! I hear people talking, better yet I hear some sort of sound, but I can't make anything of it. It's just like background noise. My sister hates it too. After a while she's basically screaming "Raqueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!!!!" and I look up, all calm and happy: "Did you say something?"

I had never thought about it but now that you mentioned it owning a bookstore like that would be so awesome!

Matilda! I read that book! It was so beautifully written and thought of!

[LittlestThing]

Raquel: Still, I take it you're fluent I believe you can't forget a language, you can lose your "word treasure" - vocabulary - or, as you said, the familiarity... lol I know when I don't speak Croatian for a while I speak half Slovene half Croatian, then it goes to Croatian, when I'm there for over 2 weeks, and when I come back, I have trouble speaking Slovene...
French is just so difficult! Sometimes I wonder how kids there learn how to speak it. It's almost impossible to understand what a person is saying. But at the same time it's so beautiful... sigh

Sarah: Yes, did I spell the title wrong? It was my favorite book when I was younger - it still is in a way. I just love Roald Dahl!

Lauriane: My best friend is like that. When she's reading or watching TV or... doing anything, really. I guess when it comes to her, we could say she's generally incapable of multitasking I'd love to go to a book shop like that! Who knows, maybe you do open it one day.

And the film.... aww, I love it soooo much!!! It definitely is one of my favorites, if not a favorite... From beginning to the end, it's so beautifully done, very well thought-through. Every single aspect of it is great, from cinematography (is that the word?) to the actors... don't even get me started on the actors - their chemistry is amazing, no wonder why they have such a cute baby today It's a perfect love story. I had some serious youtube-ing to do afterwards
I will recommend it to everyone

PS. The last couple of posts in both topics I've posted were't proof-read and they have more than just grammar and spelling mistakes sorry for that

[Sarahdg]

Katja: Maybe it was Mathilda for you? In Australia it was Matilda, but meh same thing. I loved that book too when I was growing up. I read it multiple times. Gosh it seems so long ago since I read it. I have seen the movie a couple of times too. It's weird though because I used to read Sweet Valley High (Babysitters Club) books but other than that they used to babysit and there were twins in the book I really do not remember what happened in any of them!

Are you guys all studying English literature? I feel left out of all the discussion about books I hardly ever even heard of. Maybe I need to read some more.

[LittlestThing]

It was definitely Matilda for us We seldom use unnecessary letters Spelling is probably the easiest thing in our language, because we basically write as we pronounce (well, if you pronounce correctly). We don't even use double letters.
I have a shelf of Roald Dahl's books, I should take a photo . I love Charlie and the chocolate factory and that book about turtles... I never liked the Witches though...

Actually, we're at Ancient world literature now I don't know how studying language&literature goes around the world, but here it's:
We have to read 5ish books a year and to each we devote about 3 hours (plus homework ). Then you have some grammar time, depends on the year, but the curriculum for me this year has very little grammar (like 1/4). Then we have this huge text book, which is filled with passages from different literary works. In first couple of grades, there are fairytales and short poems, mostly Slovene, but in this year's we have everything from the Bible, Sapfo, Sophocles to Jane Austen and J.D. Salinger. And before the passage, there is a short summary, then after it there are questions, some info about the author, literary devices... We don't actually read that much at school, but we get familliarized with works. 1-2 hours for one author. Oh, how long are school lessons elsewhere?

I kind of went OT here...

I'm sure I'll forget most of what I've learned too

[Sarahdg]

Well class times differed depending on what year you were in I think. In the first 4 years of high school, you have more subject, so I think you had less classes. In the last two years, each class was 50 minutes, and for every subject we had a "double class" once a week - so it would be 1hr40mins. We would have 6 classes a day; 2 classes then morning break, 2 more and then lunch and then 2 after lunch. Hmm although I had the feeling we used to get an afternoon break too but I don't think so. So we in the last 2 years you would usually get 5 classes of each subject per week. Then depending on how many classes you were doing, you might get some "spares" where you were meant to sit in the common room and study (ahem except when you friends had spares at the same time you can imagine there wasn't always much study being done).

It's kind of embarrassing because it looks like you guys work with more English books than we ever did. In high school we always had 3-4 books a year that we had to read and do assignments/exams on. We always had one Shakespeare book and then they usually tried to have at least one Australian author, and a couple of "classics". I'm trying to remember all the books we did and some I don't even remember! The Shakespeare ones we did were Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Macbeth...there has to be at least 2 more and I can't even remember. I know we did not do Romeo and Juliet and I remember I hated Julius Caesar but didn't mind Macbeth. As for the other books we did, I remember: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbirf (really glad we did that book it had to be one of my fave books that we studied), Maestro (that was by an Aussie author I believe), A Man For All Seasons. Wow you know what, I love reading and I can't believe I can't remember more books than that! Hmm actually, maybe in year 7 we didn't do that many books, but I'm sure we did Merchant of Venice in Year 7 (that's our first year of high school). I'm thinking maybe we did "So Much to Tell You" as a study book in year 8, but I'm not sure. I know I loved that book, but I really don't remember if we actually studied it or it was just one I read of my own choosing.
I do remember in year 7 we had a "reading competition" where the year 7 class that read the most books got to do a day excursion and not do any work. We had I think 2-3 months or something to read as many books as possible, and we had to give a report on the book to proove we had actually read it. Also, the person who read the most books got some other prize too. It was me and another girl in my class who were competing to read the most books. She won by like 2 books I think, but I read around 25 (I'm thinking it was 23 or 24 actually) books in the time we had and our class won the day excursion. They took us to some weird places though. We went to an acupuncturist and to the Jewish museum (that was interesting for me - and sad). I'm quite into history and cultural stuff. I studied a fair bit on WWII at high school and at University, and of my own accord I studied heaps on apartheid in South Africa. I was interested in that since I read a book called "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay. (Yep, there is a movie of the book too). He's a South African guy but he lives in Australia too. He also wrote a follow up book to The Power of One called Tandia. As you can imagine, the books were focussed on apartheid - it was one of the main themes in the book anyway. I think the books spoke to me because I hate discrimination of any kind, and apartheid in South Africa was a disgusting stain on humanity and I can't believe it was still going on until I was a teenager! I have yet to look at black history in American, but that's something I would probably find interesting too. I guess that's why sutdying WWII was interesting to me as well because it was ethnic cleansing.

Ok I'm gonna shut up now.

[Lauriane]

I unfortunately don't -and never did- have any class of English lit, though I'd have loved to. In Highschool we never had to read any English books, basically because all in all, the students' level was too low...

Oh I love To Kill a Mockingbird! Although I have yet to read it in English, I've read it a couple times or so.
I loved Roald Dahl as a kid, still do. I remember reading -and loving- James and the Giant Peach, and The Giraff, the pelly and me. I've read some of his short stories too (including the creepy Landlady).

Sarah, I sometimes tend forget that WWII and everything that happened with it was not that long ago... And I agree with you, it is so interesting (and scary too) to see how a few years back, some countries were still discriminating upon the color of your skin, or religion, or sexual orientation. Heck, who am I kidding, it's still happening...

I just learned that one of our candidates for president, Marine Le Pen, from the FN party (which is Front National, a party from the Right, that is basically opposed to immigration, that claims economic protectionism and is way too national) wants to reinstate death penalty. I know everyone has the right to have his/her opinion on dealth penalty, but to me it's just not right. We are in 2012, mens/womens, not matter how horrible they are, have rights. I feel like it's taking one hundred steps back from where we stand...
Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is (or was) the leader of the FN, was (several times) convicted for questionning and contesting the Shoah, among other things.

[MaryDearMary]

Katja: I knew you would love that movie! It's so awesome, so well-written, so beautifully filmed! It's my absolute favorite.
Oh, in high-school our classes range between 45 and 90 minutes. In college, we get 45 (excruciating) minutes

Lauriane: If I had ever doubted your awesomeness (which I never did!) I would have been convinced of it after your Le Pen comment. I just think the whole family should be forced to stay away from politics. I dread the future, I really do. Marine is not getting the low vote-percentage I thought she would. I mean, it's a low percentage, but I was hoping for a lot worse (like...0%).

Which lead me to what Sarah was saying about ethnic cleaning political programs and WWII. Although I have always felt some sort of curiosity towards the apartheid, the Rwanda situation (I even wrote a paper on it for Law School) and the Congo problem, but the Holocaust has always felt too close to home for me. I can't read about it without sobbing, I can't see a movie about it without instantly feel miserable and I once cried like a baby when staring at the pictures of children who had been killed in the Warsow ghetto. I share a birthday with Anne Frank and I have always lived my life with the absolute certainty that I would have been killed by the * if I was alive back then and living under the The Final Solution strategy. I'm short, brunette, with dark eyes and a potato-y shaped nose. It's very likely that I have Jewish blood on my mother's part (mainly because my grand-father comes from a small village that was almost entirely inhabited by Jewish people (and their offspring) fleeting the * occupied territories) and gypsy ancestors on my paternal side. That, along with the ideals I stand for and the things I defend, would probably condemn me to death in the late years of the Final Solution (when they were pretty much killing everyone). You guys are right, it wasn't that long ago. It's still very fresh in our minds as a world-community.