At the Beginning with "A"

While I was in France last year, making my way as a teaching assistant in Auxerre, I kept a few journals to chronical my time. In opening the first I am flooded with the memories of when I first started writing in it. I didn't date it, but it must have been a Saturday or Wednesday as it was afternoon, I wasn't in school and the cafe was open; cafes and boulongeries in France usually aren't open on Sundays (along with practically everything else) past noon, unless you're in a big cities like Paris, Lyon, Marseille. etc and in my town, primary school wasn't in session on Wednesdays - an enjoyed, consistent mid-week break. Sitting outside under the October sun at the corner of Place de Cordeliers and Rue Dampierre, I ordered a café crème, as I was too timid to attempt the stronger café, and opened the fresh notebook. Taking a deep breath, I connect the pen with the page and start it...I start to copy my Larousse dictionary. Its a funny thought now as thats book holds over 200,000 translations. There wasn't any way in hell I'd actually ever copy it all so I just rewrote words I would use more often along with some I already had in my vernacular. In total for the "A's"...270. Not bad! Now, if I were to only able to commit them all to memory! The ones that I was able to retain include: abracadabrant(e) (preprosterous), acariatre (bad-tempered or cantankerous) and ânerie or dire/faire une ânerire (stupidity or to say/do something stupid). To be fair, I think I learned these as their translations made me laugh.

The copying of dictionary text didn't last long. I ended with azur.

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