You’re exactly my brand of heroin

I’m sick. I’m actually quite proud I’m sick even though it’s gross. I don’t normally go to the doctors if I’m sick. I know what’s wrong with me I don’t need to explain it to someone else. I will however willingly take the medication and tablets prescribed to me. We do not live in the stone age anymore. We had technology. And with that came the miraculous invention of lovely chemicals that keep us well and alive. So I hate it when I say ‘Mum I’ve got a headache’ and she replies ‘Haven’t drunk enough water. Go have a big glass now.’ Water was the cure for those without chemicals. I used to just go to dad whenever I was sick. ‘Now take these ones and these ones and these ones.’ And within maybe two hours and a little nap I was fine. I did however hate drinking medication. Whenever I got sick I always knew that the doctor would prescribe me that same medication. He did offer the yummy banana flavoured but I’m opposed to banana flavouring, actual and smell. So I would be stuck with the cherry. I would like to also say that it is stupid to give a child medication that they don’t want and flavour it with fruit. Most children don’t eat a lot of fruit and if they do it’s not normally cherries. Make it chocolate flavoured. We have chemicals now to do that. So I was so happy when I was allowed to be prescribed tablets. Swallow, no taste, sickness gone.

So my host mother dragged me to the doctors here after I said ‘Please stop the car’ and was sick in a parking lot off the side of the highway. The doctor turned out to be my second host dad. He laughed. Gave me a prescription and off we went. The nurse gave me boxes of medication with instructions to take one of these if you’re feeling this. I went home and found out that my medication was powder I’m supposed to mix with water and drink. I was ranting last night about how why on earth would people willingly subject themselves to this taste when there are tablets out there, this kind of medication is for babies, I’m an adult here too I want tablets so I don’t have to taste this, Nature doesn’t care if we get better using her or chemicals either way it saves our lives so why not the chemicals. My host mum picked up my box of medication, looked it over and said ‘No Ashleigh it doesn’t say anywhere on here that this is for babies.’ I tried to explain that in Australia only babies take oral medication. Everyone else gets prescribed tablets cause they’re old and wise enough not to choke themselves. I drunk the disgusting thing with a fair few glasses of water after.

So I have worked out that for me to really learn French I have to read it. I’ve always learnt and understood something by either reading it or putting it into words so I can read it back. I’ve always read. I can’t remember when or how I learnt. I was the only one in grade one to be able to read already. That never made me smarter than the other children. I was just nerdy at a younger age. In grade 11 the ‘Twilight’ craze swept most of my year. By grade 12 a lot of the girls in school had read this book. Not a masterpiece of writing and was easily devoured by me in an afternoon but oh so sweet and easy to read. I love it. I will admit that I love a good ‘I love you’ story. Not full blown man-lady stories, I love your sweet, enchanting, head over heels, never would happen in real life ‘I love you’ stories. So I found the French ‘Twilight’. Here it’s called ‘Fascination’ which I think is a much better title. So I decided to read it. At first I cheated. I just read through it while I was going through the English version in my head and putting that on top of the sentences where I thought they matched up. I’m able to memorise books. Not word for word unless I’ve read it 100 times, but the plot, the chapters, most paragraphs and some sentences. Then I was talking with my host brother and it annoyed me cause I wasn’t really learning any new words very fast. My host brother said ‘Maybe it’s cause what you’re doing now to learn isn’t the way you learn.’ So I knew I needed a book. So now I am going through ‘Fascination’ properly. It’s hard to read because you can’t read it word for word. Sometimes you have to find whole phrases that make one word to make the rest of the sentence make sense. Sentence structure is also hard for me. I don’t know a lot of French grammar yet. So doing this is really teaching me a lot more because it’s me doing this. My inner punk listens to me when I’m trying to teach it something in a way that I’ve always learnt.

The two books. The one of the left English. So I cheated a little bit. Sometimes I use the English to see how the sentence should go. And sometimes I just like to read in English again to refresh me and give my brain a rest. On the right ‘Fascination’. Such a better title.

So because I’m going through word for word there are words I don’t understand.

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My tiny dictionary my teachers hate because I’m doing the science subjects and my dictionary is so tiny it doesn’t have scientific French terms in for me to understand what they are talking about. Then once I’ve found the word in my dictionary and it’s a verb so the form has been changed to correspond with the tense I have to go to this book:

I never used this book until I started reading Twilight. It went straight in talking about all kinds of tenses and past participles. So I ordered a book off Amazon that is for ‘English Students Learning French’ where it explains every type of tense, grammar name and then gives the French verb and then the English for all the tenses.

 

Then I write down the word in this book. Red pen for the French word. Black pen for the English. Blue pen for explanation if the word is a verb, what tense it corresponds with and which original doing word. After I’ve got the words meaning I write it in pencil very lightly in ‘Fascination’. I feel very evil for writing in a book but it’s necessary and it’s my book and the book police are going to get me.

So these are all my books I’ve been carrying around just to read one. I’ve also been getting help  with the pronunciation of the words I learnt for the day.

In true ‘Twilight’ fashion I pulled out the French book with my host sisters and host cousins around. They asked me what it was I gave it to them. They all read it. Were cranky I hadn’t bought the other books in the series. Why would I? I already have them in English at home. French ‘Twilight’ is sentimental. I found out this week that my host sister bought all the ‘Twilight’ series and was not sharing them with her brothers. I will have to tell her about the movie which is coming out. Which I will most likely miss the English version at the cinema and just can’t watch the French version though I probably will and then desperately try to get to England for it.