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January 25, 2007

My head hurts...

So, I'm officially through my first week of French classes. Since the focus of the course is to learn "conversational" french, the teacher only speaks in French and we are not really allowed to speak any English either. And I know it's the best way to do it, but two hours straight of constant translating in my head leaves my brain a little fried. I am encouraged though as I am able to understand most everything...or at least the general idea of what she's saying. I figure it can only get better from here right?

I'm also doing some independant studying on the side...just for my own knowledge. David has dug out some of his favourite articles and studies, etc from his BA for me to read and write little summaries on. I just finished reading one yesterday on the outbreak of World War I...how and why it happened.
It was very interesting but frustrating too as I realized that so many people died for the pride and/or disillusionment of a few men and their main advisors. So much of it doesn't make sense to my standards. It seems like leaders then believed almost that there was no choice but to go to war...the wheels had been set in motion and it was inevitable...however I believe it was just one miscommunication after another. I wonder if things would have been different if there had been telephones and they could at least hear eachother's voice...as it is impossible to hear the intended tone in a telegram.
It's hard to believe that it's almost been 100 years.

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Posted by Maureen at January 25, 2007 1:28 AM