Has it really been that long?

Have I really not posted since February? Has it really been that long? 

Sorry, my lovely readers (no matter how few of you there are).

Anyway, the posts should be coming thick and fast now (you'd hope so anyway) as I'm off to the University of Warwick on the 29th to study French and Italian (how exciting). 

Perhaps, then, I'll start posting Italian culture related stuff as well. Probably including some love for "Cinema Paradiso" because it's such a beautiful film. Also, in a year's time I'll be off to Italy for my 2nd year, so I'll probably have to post Italian stuff or my blog will be neglected even more than it has been recently. 

So what have I been up to recently? I'm 18, finally, and my very good friend Kendra was kind enough to get me some books for my birthday, including "La Belle et la Bête", which I am very excited to read. I did my exams, and got an A in French, which I was very pleased with. This summer has possibly been the best of my life, I've met lots of new people including some of the people I'll go to uni with. I can't wait until I actually go, but I wouldn't expect any posts during freshers week. 

Anyway, here I am, with half my friends already at uni, in my pj's, watching "La Môme" for probably the 100th time with a cup of tea and a ham and cheese toastie. Life's good. 

French Friday #4 coming up!

Hi everyone.


I feel ill this week, so French Friday will be posted tomorrow (French Saturday heehee). Mum's telling me to go and get some sleep, so I had better listen to her! 


See you tomorrow :) 


Caitlin

Congratulations!

Just a short post to say congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni! They now have a baby daughter called Dahlia (well, according to Twitter, so I've heard). The President wasn't actually present at the birth, though, as he was in Germany, attending talks on the eurozone crisis. Apparently the girl is the first child to be born to a serving French president, which I thought was quite interesting. From what I've read, no photos are going to be released, and it's all going to remain quite private. 

Caitlin


P.S. Post on French dialects coming up over the weekend :) 

French Friday #3

UPDATE 21/10/11:

The French Friday #3 video is temporarily unavailable. Dunno what's happened, I'll try and sort this out but if I can't I'll upload a transcript :) 

Random French Phrase of the Week: Le chocolat a une moustache (the chocolate has a moustache).

Yes it makes no sense, but if it did, what would be the fun in that?

Caitlin

French Friday #2

French Friday number 2. It's not in a video this week because I have no energy and if I tried to talk, I wouldn't make any sense.

So, what have I been up to this week?

Obviously, there was the film course on Monday. This week we talked about historical films; we watched Molière, Joyeux Noël and Laissez-Passer, all very good (the bits we watched anyway!). I've see Molière before, but not the other two. Watching the clip made me want to watch the entire film again, although I have two reviews to write up already so I might not watch it just yet. Joyeux Noël was also good; it looked like a very uplifting film, but I think I'll save that one for Christmas, and Laissez-Passer was interesting as well.

Last weekend, I downloaded the Le Monde app onto my phone. It's so useful because it doesn't use the Internet so if I have nothing to do at lunchtime at school, I can just read an article or two. And it sends me notifications when there's a new article, which is great. So far I've read about Greece, Steve Jobs (R.I.P. :( ) and a bit about the presidential elections in France. I've finally got my laptop sorted out too, and because I had to wipe everything off the computer, I decided to make my new home page Le Monde.fr.

I watched La Vie en Rose again last Saturday. I won't write too much about it right now, as I'm just writing a review right now, which should be up this weekend. It's one of my favourite films, so expect it to be hyper (if you can describe a film review as hyper).

I also just watched Priceless (or Hors de Prix in French). That review will hopefully be up this weekend as well, but I'm not 100% sure, depends how long my maths homework takes me on Sunday!

The only other thing I can think of is Fry's Planet Word. It's a TV program, I think it's on BBC1 at 8pm on Sunday, and it's about language. It's not really to do with French culture, or French, but it's really good, and really interesting.

That's all this week, I'll try and have those two reviews up asap! :)

(this post has been so picture-less, so I'm finishing with a happy picture)

Have a happy weekend :)

Caitlin

French Friday #1

Finally, the first of many French Fridays! Hope you enjoy :)

Here is the photo of the light. I thought it was really cool :)

Caitlin

French Friday Delay

Bad news

I decided that French Friday would be in a casual video format, so I recorded it on my webcam and decided that I would put it up today.

However, my computer has gone a bit weird and basically, it's deleted all the stuff I recorded. Hopefully, I'll have this fixed by next week and French Friday will begin properly.

Anyway, I've just watched Amélie, so I'm going to write a film review in a second. Come back in about half an hour and it should be finished :)

Caitlin

Friday, Friday

I've made an important decision. Year 13 is manic, and I'm struggling to find time to update my blog. So, as I do nothing on Friday evenings, Friday is going to be my update day. I'm trying to think of a cool name for it, but so far have no ideas. Maybe "French Friday"? Sounds a bit like French fries, really.

So I'm going to be saving up everything I have done French-wise each week for Friday (unless maybe film reviews) when I'll write about them all.

So that was just a quick little update. I'll see you tonight for French Friday number 1! ;)

Caitlin

French Essay Blues

As much as I love French, essays will always be a bit of a drag. Especially when you have no idea what to write. I do have an unopened packet of Percy Pigs sitting next to me, so that's lifting my spirits a little.

The essay's about how Meursault changes throughout the course of L'étranger, and to tell you the truth, I can't think of much. I'm trying to think outside the box (that always seems to help with "unobvious" essays).

Anyway, that's all I really have to say. The video camera is still confusing me so the video may still be a while. And I also wanted to say that I probably won't be doing a book review for L'étranger seeing as I'm studying it next year, so I'll probably be posting a lot about it anyway (if I do, it'll be quite a short one). If I have an epiphany with my essay, I might post again today. If not, it'll probably be Sunday when you'll hear from me again.

It seems like I haven't been doing very much recently, but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to post anything!

Caitlin

P.S. For some reason, I'm not allowed an apostrophe in my post labels. So, I've had to write "L étranger". This is not some horrendous grammatical error, simply blogger being silly.

Back!!

I'm back home from a wonderful week in the Dordogne! I had such a great time, although unfortunately, mum and dad wanted to rest so we didn't do much (I abandoned the daily videos about half way through the week). However, the holiday has still given me loads of ideas for here, and I have lots of photos to put up! I'm also going to put all the video I've taken into one longer holiday video and upload it.

Anyway, the place we stayed was lovely, and we were very lucky to be sharing a pool with teenagers of a similar age to me and my brother, which is always nice. We had two very enjoyable meals out and a very... err... interesting kayaking experience. I'll post about these in more detail next week (it was my birthday yesterday and my family are coming round today).

I also finished "L'étranger" which is great, now I'm focusing on "Jean de Florette", and still reading bits of Arthur Rimbaud's poetry. However, next week I'm going to be working loads- trying to finish off bits of holiday work before I go back to school.

A few of the best photos from the holiday (more to come!):

Me in Bergerac

My brother, George, jumping into the pool where we were staying at Montcaret.

Me in the pool on a lilo :)

Me on the banks of the Dordogne- stopping for lunch during a bike ride.

Kayaking down the Dordogne with my dad.

An "epic" photo, according to my brother.

Me at Harvey's (a restaurant in Montcaret)- the day before we came home.

Bye for now!
Caitlin

Film Review #5- Beautiful Lies

This review will be a quick one- it's 9:45pm and I'm going on holiday tomorrow morning (having said that, I want to do it now rather than in a week's time when I will have forgotten everything).

'Beautiful Lies' is a rom-com about a young woman, Emilie (played by Audrey Tautou) who recieves an anonymous love letter from the electrician who works at her hair and beauty salon, Jean. She decides to copy this letter and send it to her mother, who is still trying to recover from separating with her husband four years ago, to "bring her back to life". However, as is to be expected in any romantic comedy, all does not go as Emilie planned.

Ever since I watched 'Amelie' for the first time, I have been a fan of Audrey Tautou, so I was really looking forward to seeing this film. I have to say, it did live up to my expectations. It was incredibly funny, and the plot was good as well- it wasn't too obvious what was going to happen (well, you always know the ending in these sort of films, but what was going to happen in the middle wasn't obvious from the start).

The characters were very well played-  I especially liked Jean, who at first is very quiet and polite, but becomes annoying and rude throughout the film. Another character I liked was Paulette, who worked with Emilie. Even though she was quite a minor character, I thought that her awkwardness and her facial expressions were hilarious.

I wish I could write more, but I don't have any more time- I might add to this review when I get back from holiday (if I can remember anything!).

Anyway, overall, it was a good, lighthearted comedy, which I would recommend to anyone who loves to laugh and doesn't like to look too far into the 'meaning' of a film. Basically, it's good fun, and if you expect any more than that, you'll be disappointed.

I'll give this film another
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Caitlin

P.S. Going to the Dordogne tomorrow! I'll be making a daily vlog, but I won't be able to post them until I get back so I'll be gone for a week.
Also, I have more exciting news- I'm going to a course of French cinema with my mum in September, which is at the Phoenix in Leicester. I'm so excited!

A New Background

The old background was annoying me. So, I had a look through my photos of my school's trip to Paris this February. I now (as you can see) have a background of a rather miserable (weather-wise) looking Paris. It seems I haven't got any other photos of France on my laptop, OR on Facebook, but hopefully when I get back from the Dordogne on the 27th (my birthday teehee) I'll have some more colourful pictures to improve the background.

In other news...
I've started 'Jean de Florette' (as you might have seen) and I'm hoping to finish by the end of the week (hoping being the key word there, no promises!). I also really want to finish 'L'étranger' this week. So, two more book reviews coming up!

I also forgot to put something vital in my last review... I'll probably add it in this week but my mum's now reading 'La Peste' so she has it.

Ta ta for now
Caitlin

Just A Little Update...

Summer is (finally) here so expect a lot more posts from me in the next few months. There's so much I want to blog about, I'm sure I won't write about it all but I'll try to do as much as I can! I thought I'd just write a short(ish) update about what's going to be happening with this blog over the summer.

Firstly, I have some exciting news! My family and I have booked a holiday to the Dordogne this August (from the 20th to the 27th- my birthday)! I'm planning on doing a daily vlog (video blog) about what I do, see, eat, discover, etc. each day. I'll make a Youtube account at some point which I'll use to upload all the videos, then I'll put links on here.This will be easier than doing a writing post as I won't have my laptop, so I won't be able to remember everything when I get home.

I'm also gonna do some reading up on this départment so I know a bit more about the culture before I go. So, expect some Dordogne-related posts very soon!

Speaking of vlogs, I'm also planning on trying out some French recipes, and filming it, as well as my family's reactions to the food.

I've also notice that my blog lacks something: book reviews. There are so many novels I want to read this summer, so they will start to appear very soon. I'm currently reading 'La Peste' by Camus, and I'll review it as soon as I finish.

Finally, I read a very interesting article in the 'Review' section of the Guardian this morning (it wasn't from the latest one, it was in the one from 2nd July), about the poet Arthur Rimbaud. It sold me; I have persuaded my mum to buy the book for me ('Illuminations'). Two quotations from the article really stood out for me: "The swarm of golden leaves buzzes around the general's house", and "I gaze for a long time at the melancholy gold laundry of the setting sun". It's so magical; it's like a fairytale. According to the article, it's also Gothic-style, which is a huge plus as I'm studying Gothic novels next year in English. Anyway, I think I'll write something about Rimbaud soon, maybe once I've read the book.

Watch this space!
Caitlin