en français s'il vous plaît!

it's been 16 years since i've moved to ontario now, and since then i've been slowly losing my french bit by bit. my quebecois accent started to fade, and that nasty anglophone accent started to spread its cancer into my words and sentences to the point now if i spoke french, no one would even know that i grew up in quebec.

language and the mind are crazy things. chinese was my first language and french was my second. so years ago, my mind thought in chinese and french. in fact, i still count in chinese instead of english since the number system in chinese is a lot simpler and faster than english. and because mind thought in chinese and french, my anglophone friends who made it into my dreams would speak in chinese and french. it was the weirdest thing when i woke up. but at the time of the dream it felt totally normal spoke my native tongue.

sadly, nowadays my mind thinks predominantly in english. my brain's language use is partitioned at this ratio: 80% english, 18% chinese, and 2% french. it's weird. there are certain words that i'm used to that i still say in french instead of english like dépanneur and valise.

i've realized that a language gets lost 10x faster than it gets learned. and as you get older, you get busier. i mean, who has time to learn another language when you got loans and taxes to pay off? and even if you had the time, with technology and media these days, you'd probably rather spend that time on youtube or blogger anyways right?

so with the realization that my french has gone downhill, it's made me want to relearn it, since i've got a pretty good base already. and since i spend so much time on the computer and i don't get much of a chance to speak french, it made me think of a great idea and exercise for myself.

once a week, one of my posts will be in french. i realize that only a couple of you will understand my french posts, but hey, maybe it'll motivate you to learn some french too. who wouldn't want to learn french anyway? c'est la langue d'amour, non? <3



transformers in quebec that i used to watch. i was so crazy about this show.




ninja turtles intro in french. woke up every saturday morning just to catch "les tortues ninjas" en français.

change.

change is hard. not every day gets better.

saumon très bon, hon hon.

anyone who knows me knows i'm not the healthiest when it comes to eating. we used to eat out at monaghan's a lot. so much so that i knew all their specials every day of the week and the servers knew me by name. on top of that we used to make trips to pho ba ca in mississauga for pho at 3am. i gained about 15 pounds during college from all this madness. my diet hasn't changed much from my college days, but i started skipping breakfast so i could get that extra bit of sleeping time before work.

after getting my bicycle and feeling a bit more healthy getting some exercise, it made me want to start living a healthier lifestyle. and what better time to start than in spring when you're not bogged down by the brutal winter weather? so friday i decided to take a day off and hang out with erin, make her some lunch. the theme of the day was healthy eating. i hear salads are a good start to healthy eating, so salmon steak and side of salad will do. i've never made either, except for salads that consisted of lettuce and choice of fatty dressings.

with nataly's help and advice via phone, the salmon was close to being a success. as for the salad, not so much... i took a few pictures of the salmon, but forgot to take pictures of the meal itself with the salad. the salad photo is whatever was left over from this morning.

with the salmon, i buttered a pan, seared both sides of the fillet and then took it off the pan, onto a baking sheet. i then squeezed some lemon juices on top of the salmon and topped it with a wedge of lemon and some tablespoon of butter. i sprinkled some chopped green onions and garlic and threw it into the oven at 350°C and left it in for 20 minutes uncovered. nataly had told me to cover the salmon with tin foil so that the fish would be juicy. but i forgot... instead it came out a little bit dry. it was still a success though. because of the searing beforehand, the skin became really crispy instead of soggy.


with the salad, i bought some pre-mixed field greens from the grocery store and added tomatoes and red onions to it. i tossed it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. it was really bland, so i had to ask erin to pick me up her favourite dressing. she came back with a bottle of rasberry and white balsamic dressing. after adding that, the taste was still too subtle. later, nataly told me she had some of the leftover salad and said it actually tastes good, i just needed a lot more balsamic vinegar.

i realized today how much willpower it took to eat healthy, because our healthy eating day didn't last long. we went to see leatherheads at the movie theatres and ordered a nacho grande, and had a quesadilla after the movie. and as if that wasn't bad enough, nataly and i had mcdonald's last night.

going to need quite a few hip hop classes to burn that mcchicken off...