And So It Begins...

How will it end? In fire...

And if you've never watched the TV series Babylon 5, don't feel confused for not recognizing this quote. What this refers to is my current dedication to improving my French.

At about ten minutes a day, granted, but at least it's something, and something I make sure to do every day.

Over the past few years, I've had too many distractions and not enough free time to make anything more than disjointed, cursory stabs at learning français, and a repeating cycle had quickly become apparent: I would begin to feel settled and OK, and turn a bit of energy towards actually trying to learn some more of the language, and then some new disaster would hit and throw us month's behind on our income, forcing out all other concerns. Worse still, many of the major problems we've had have been very "French" in nature - delays of months getting parts or work done, instead of a few days... Startling bills for otherwise inexpensive supplies... Minor problems becoming huge hassles due to the overcomplicated paperwork mess here... Etc etc. Each time, I'd be left with a seething resentment of French administration or French attitudes, which would quickly translate into an absolute total disinterest in learning the language, and it would take months or a year before my disgust had settled down enough to begin to take an active interest in learning again.

Which, thus far, has been a universally reliable predictor of near-future disasters. !!

But, I'm daring the fires again. No lessons this time, though, at least not yet... Going to a lesson a week didn't help much, as I'd forget everything I learned one week by the time the next lesson rolled around. This time I'm focusing on learning to read first, a little at a time, and a little every day - coupled with consistent writing in French every day. My personal notebook is now filled with several weeks' worth of scrawlings like, "Tirez le chat!" and "Je peut lire en français, unpeu" and "Emily a beaucoup des petits oiseaux, et ils sont tout mort".

I've timed myself, and I have a consistent lesson burnout after between ten and thirty minutes - I very quickly reach the point where too much new input all begins to get jumbled up and the brain cache has a buffer overflow, dumping big chunks of the new knowledge. This, no doubt, stems from my genetic predisposition towards being monolingual - unlike Emily, I've never had a shred of interest in learning other languages, and even now, my focus and energy is entirely predicated on using the language as a tool, and the fun stuff I'll be able to do with it, rather than on any enjoyment of learning the language itself. Kind of like how everyone else in the world feels about being forced to learn English...!

What I don't get is why human language should be so difficult, and computer language so easy. I've also begun to set aside about twenty or thirty minutes a day for "personal fun time", and have started playing with the Adventure Game Studio package with the vague potential idea of writing my own PC adventure game. Or not, it really doesn't matter... I am having a fun time just learning the building blocks of the software's scripting. And I'm positively flying along - In little time I have already begun designing and importing my own backgrounds, creating hand-drawn animations, and learning cutscene animation. C'est façile!

Which really sounds unutterably geeky.................