Vendredi, 6 Février, 2015
Verse of the Day: « Celui qui
poursuit la justice et la bonté trouvera la vie, la justice, et la gloire. »—Proverbes 21 :21
Quote of the Day:
"One must know when to doubt, when to submit, and when
to believe."—Blaise Pascal
« Il faut
savoir douter où il faut, se soumettre où il faut, croire où il faut. »—Blaise
Pascal
Information About
France: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
What’s Really
Happening Over Here: http://www.lefigaro.fr/
A Day In the Life:
Today was a great day. I was able to get up early, spend
some time in the Word, spend some time “beating my body and making it my slave
(no, that’s not literally what I did. I worked out.)”, and then get some work
done. I have started a few new personal traditions since I’ve been here, ones
that I plan to carry out for the rest of my life.
First, every Friday, I will go to the movies. Second, Friday
night through Saturday night is my “cheat day” for the week for food. Third,
every Saturday I’m going to eat pizza. So, needless to say I’m pretty pumped.
Going to the movies though actually started as part of my
internship here. Through observing mass media here in France – movies,
television, radio, news, I am comparing the effects and agendas, if you will, of
mass communication and Agenda Setting Theory to those of America. It just
happens to be one of the more fun parts of my internship. And although the
majority of the movies here are actually American, it is still very interesting
to analyze the words that are picked up and lost in translation through the
dubbing, which sometimes can give a bit of a different meaning to a scene. I
love this stuff!
So anyways, I did that. This time it was Jupiter Ascending –
it was…okay; I’ll leave it at that. Then, I went youth group again and really
enjoyed myself there. My new friends have been really accepting, and I actually
look forward to seeing them again each Friday night and growing with them. And
as usual, they stuffed food down my throat.
This time though the experience was actually a little bit
different, in a good way. One of the girls (she’s not really a girl, she’s
mid-20’s) who has been there each time sat next to me at the dinner, and
started talking to me. My French is definitely improving every day, but there
are still certain English and American phrases which don’t really have
counter-parts in French, so I still kind of struggle with those. (For example, “adorer”
means “to worship”. My host dad asked me if I wanted more kiwi at dinner, and I
said “Oh oui, j’adore le kiwi.” As in “Oh yeah, I love kiwi.” Yeah, no. No it
doesn’t work like that. Like and love are probably the biggest problem I’ve run
into so far, because for us, especially in the US, love can mean so many
different things based on context. But here, all they have is one word for
everything: “aimer”. That’s what they use for like, wish, love, would like,
everything. It sucks.) So I ran into one of those while I was talking to her,
and I literally couldn’t think of any synonyms or different ways of explaining
what I was trying to say. After a solid 7 seconds, she said “I speak English.”
Nelson Mandela once said, “When you speak to a man in his
second language, you speak to his mind. When you speak to a man in his native
language, you speak to his heart.” That quote has proved true on many occasions
since I’ve been here, and this was certainly one of them. That simple phrase
immediately connected me to her, and although we continued to speak in French,
I know had someone to help we work on finding the counterparts for those
concepts I was struggling with. We actually went on to have a 25 minute
conversation on French manners, where I just unloaded all the questions that had
been building up but that I never asked because I didn’t entirely know how to.
It really help me settle in just that much more. I’m really enjoying myself so
far!
Be Hungry (Fight
for It):
I will be posting my favorite motivational videos every
Friday, so stay tuned!
This video was very effective for me. If you know me, you
know I’m all about the heart – listening with your heart, following your heart,
fighting with your heart, “putting your heart into it”; so the opening
immediately caught my attention. I also really love my mother, so it kept my
attention at the end with a personal story.
What I liked most though were the “phrase reversals” as I
call them – the play on words that Les Brown (the main speaker) used
throughout. These clever quips are what stay with the audience, and what their
minds most readily recall when they do encounter struggle. Obviously they
should not be forced, but used correctly they can have a huge impact. Let these
be motivation for you in the coming week!
-
“If you do what is easy, your life will be hard.
But if you do what is hard, your life will be easy.”
-
“People that are hungry, are willing today to do
the things others won’t do, in order to have the things tomorrow others won’t
have.”
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