Day 37, Cruel Ironies

Here are a few cruel ironies:

• I've made sandwiches for lunch for most of my life and then this morning my host mom made fun of me running late and not having enough time to make a sandwich and told me how to make a sandwich as though it were a new concept.  As if I didn't know.  As if I were a coddled American used to cafeteria food.  Thank you, Mom for teaching me how to make a sandwich years ago.
• I am a linguist but I still have a hard time pronouncing [u] versus [y].
• I just bought a white shirt, wore it a few times, and thought today, "Wow, this has stayed surprisingly white and clean."  That was promptly resolved when I got some tomato sauce on it during dinner.
• I ate pasta and gelatto for dinner--Italian-type food while in Paris, France.  And I ordered the Italian Amorino gelatto in French.
• I can feel safe and protected in the LDS church property even though it is sandwiched between a homeless center, bars, and gay joints.
• I talked to a new friend today about the raised showers here, thought of Ben's having wished me good luck with it and how I haven't gotten hurt yet, and then I went and fell coming out of the shower tonight.  Go figure.

Hmm, in my phonetics class this afternoon, we went over several trouble sounds and contrasts for French language learners.  When the Spaniard next to me couldn't hear the difference between the hissed [s] and the buzzed [z], I was excited to see what I've learned in action, in real life!  When the teacher couldn't get through to him, she asked if I wanted to try to explain it.  Mais oui!  I tried explaining that both sounds do in fact exist in Spanish, and he flat out rejected it.  "I speak Spanish, and there are only two sounds: [s] and [θ]...Maybe in Mexico it's different, but not in Spain."  I tried showing him otherwise by asking him to read "misma" because I know that regressive assimilation causes the speaker to voice the /s/ in anticipation of the voicing of the [m].  "[mis ma mizma]" is what he ended up saying, adamantly refusing my explanation.  I'm just some lowly L2 learned of Spanish in his eyes, I suppose.  Ah, there's so much native speakers don't know about their own language, myself included!  The man had just proved me right and didn't realize.   He was probably confusing orthography with phonology and phonetics, associating the written {z} with the sound [θ] and not understanding the phonetic symbol [z].  Haha, now I can tell Dr. Fails that I met a man like the student he told us about in class.  Real, firsthand experience!


Firsthand linguistics experience aside, I was altogether ready to be done with class for the day.  I did my time.  And when class went over time this afternoon, I skedaddled to meet up with my new Canadian friend Erin.  There wasn't institute today and there won't be for the rest of the time I'm here in Paris, so I had free time this evening, and so did Erin.  So, she invited me to her apartment, where we enjoyed a nice noodle, sauce, and mushroom dinner and chatted on and on.  She grew up largely without religion but believing in God because it's more optimistic than being an Atheist and she likes the idea of God, angels, a heaven, and seeing loved ones after death.  Well, I mention the LDS church (the Mormons) quite often because I have been so involved here and it has been my mainstay.  Plus, I kind of stick out when people find out I don't drink beer or coffee.  I'd wanted to talk to her about the Church, and I did a bit at lunch with her friends, but she actually asked me some questions tonight while we were together.  Although we don't see completely eye to eye on some topics, I think she appreciates that we are very family- and community-centered.  Also, we showed each other pictures on Facebook, and she commented more than once about how happy my friends and I looked and that we must have a lot of fun at our church activities, that a lot of people our age would have a bit of a hard time socially without alcohol to loosen them up a bit and give them the guts to make a move.  I don't know how well I explained my beliefs and I don't know if I pushed it a bit too much, but I am glad that she asked me and that we were even able to talk about it in the first place.  We'll have to see what happens.  She did mention that, hindsight being 20/20, she wishes that she'd gone to church more for the community feel or just to learn by going with friends a couple of times.  I told her she's free to come with me on Sunday!  "Oh, church in French!"  I don't know if that's a drawback or an asset in her view.


After dinner, she took me to a gelatto place she knew "nearby."  As we approached it, I realized I knew the place--it was the same Amorino place I went to last week with Bonnie, Betsy, and Kristal, only a couple of blocks away from the institute building!  I told Erin as much, and it was she who suggested I lead the way there so she could see where the church is.


I have said this over and over, and I will say it yet again: I am thankful for the Church, that it is world-wide, and that it is for EVERYONE!  Thank you, Mom and Dad, for raising me with it in our lives.  Thank you, ancestors, siblings, and leaders for helping me have the blessing in my life and for being an example to me and to my friend, and thank you, Heavenly Father, for restoring it on earth to a rather uneducated teenage farm-boy who translated a book (the Book of Mormon) written in a dead language, which has now been translated into tens of living languages to help make all of us imperfect mortals become perfect immortals.  

Yes indeed, life is full of ironies, some cruel and others cool, nay, awe-inspiring.  How so?  They are interesting, thought-provoking, and--best of all--REAL!