Un jour, des gens écriront des livres entiers sur ma personne.

[cerealjoe]

I like to talk while I think and I like to write out what I think and this needs a lot of thinking. I'll be honest, the entry on the Hello Kitty cookies has been sitting around for a while for the simple reason that I felt bad about posting a thing only written in French. It was as if I owed to someone to always write in English... when in reality I don't owe anything to anyone. In the end I opted for a short English version at the bottom of the post and it sounds pretty rushed. There are other things I feel bad about, posting too often is one of them. Posting about some random crap only I will ever care about. And then at the end I always remember that the reason I'm still making my little LJ journey is because this is pretty much the only instance of my doing something consistently and it keeps me sane. Life is shitty? Choke a virtual bitch on LJ. Have deadlines approaching and need to find ways to procrastinate? Write tons of random stuff on LJ. Need to squee because life is just that awesome? LJ again. Feeling pretty darn amazing and need to boost that ego some more? You know where to find me, LJ. Who'll read this stuff in ten years? Probably just me... and hopefully future!Gali will still be able to read both English and French and she'll understand that current!Gali does not make a difference between the two languages. There are things which are easier for me in English, don't ever, ever, ever (ever!) ask me to talk about my work in French. That is the thing I dread most! Having to present stuff at franco-français meetings and seminars makes up my nightmares. These days most everyday life things come in French, it's like that. I am now surrounded by French again and this kind of stuff happens. I'm pretty sure that if I were to go back to Ukraine for a long period of time and actually made the effort of learning the Ukrainian keyboard, I would eventually come up with posts in Ukie. I can only call this the "path of least resistance" way because that's what it is. Actually that's how I talk in real life. I won't just put in random French or Ukie words in a conversation with a person who only speaks in English because that would be just silly and rude and we would never understand one another. Still, I like knowing which languages my interlocutors speak because then I feel free to mix and match words from different languages. I like to laugh about the fact that unless a person perfectly understands Ukrainian, French and English their chances of understanding our family dinners are close to zero. It's probably a sign of some kind of mental degeneration but I don't really give a damn. So in the end, I'm going to muster up the courage and stop feeling bad about writing things in French even though that means that only three people will probably understand what I'm talking about. Unless I have more Francophone on my flist than I realise. And who cares if I post often, it's just more data for the people who will write my biography in the future. And here are two shots of Toulouse at night that I really can't think of anywhere else to put.

Comments

[mondmusik.livejournal.com]

I like it when you post something in French! I don't have it in school anymore and I don't want to forget it all again. So for me personally it's fun to see how much I (still) understand, and it's good practice!
And there's no reason to feel guilty about it either, if you ask me. It's your journal, and it's not like you suddenly stopped writing in English altogether.
But that's just my 2 cents. ^^

[cerealjoe.livejournal.com]

Heh... it's the same for me with entries in German and Finnish. I feel a kind of accomplishment if I manage to understand a tiny bit of what's written :)

It's also good to see that I have more French-knowledgeable peeps on my flist than I thought!

[abbichicken.livejournal.com]

I always feel sad when people aren't comfortable posting in a language they speak, or even one they don't. If I was multilingual, I would write in all languages, all the time, just because I could. Of course, if I was, perhaps I wouldn't value it as much as I imagine. I spent six years doing French four times a week; I have only once ever had occasion to speak it (a working knowledge has been handy for occasional research for something for work)and it makes me genuinely happy to see an entry from any of the French people on my flist, or on the girl's Facebook site, or similar, in French, because it is the only time I remember that, hey, I know a few words here and there. It bothers me that I spent so long learning French and that my Swedish is twelve times better than my French could perhaps ever be, given the lack of attention I've paid to it.

So, er, yeah. Please don't feel bad. Please. And do post however you damn well please in whatever language best suits you at that moment in time. As I always say, I love your LJ posts, and I don't know anyone else who uses this place the way you do, and it makes me happy to see your entries, however you phrase them.

[cerealjoe.livejournal.com]

I think people just have affinities with languages and that makes it so much easier to learn. If I hadn't lived in France as a child I'd probably never learned it, when I start thinking about it it's a damn confusing language!

As I always say, I love your LJ posts, and I don't know anyone else who uses this place the way you do, and it makes me happy to see your entries, however you phrase them.
Thank you!

[abbichicken.livejournal.com]

I always got on really well with it at school; it was by far the subject I most enjoyed, but I did have a fantastic teacher, too. Definitely agree on the affinities though - I could not get on with German at all. 3 years of it and I was hopeless, could barely string a sentence together. It just saddens me that I don't ever use my French, and now I actually have a bit of a cause to learn Swedish, I have trouble trying to sit myself down and learn anything else...so, all opportunities to use what little knowledge I do have, are ace!

[cinnamonghost.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly agree with the first comment!

People shouldn't feel guilty about the things they post in THEIR journals.

[pnolan.livejournal.com]

Sorry it's been so long, Gali! Just moved and didn't have internet for about a week! Anyway, I'm just catching up with your posts and I love them! You are terrific! Please keep up the posts and photos! And now I can copy your photos easier! All the best! Oh, and Indiana's state bird is the cardinal.

[cerealjoe.livejournal.com]

Yay!