A while ago I started to write an autobiographical account of how Anne-Marie and I met. I have kept postponing this next part, because it has become rather fuzzy in my mind over the years, and I didn’t keep very good journal records back then. Thankfully, Anne-Marie did, and last week I found an electronic backup of all our Instant Messaging conversations and email exchanges. So, using my memory and these resources, I will attempt to retrace these early events.
Archive for December, 2009
A true love story, part 2
Dec 14
Birth
Dec 13
On December 5th, 2009, at 9:36am (GMT +8), Joshua Joel Connault was born in King Edward Memorial Hospital, in Perth. We have been waiting for him for over 8 years, so his birth is especially poignant to us. We have had a long time to prepare ourselves for him. I found, however, that there was no way in the world I could have been prepared for the birth experience.
About 4 months ago we decided to stop watching TV altogether. We evaluated the types of «good» programs that were available on the TV, and realised that we could get equal or better quality programs from our own collection or from the Internet, without being bombarded with the thick treacle of worldliness that oozes from national TV.
A true love story
Dec 3
People often ask me how I met Anne-Marie, my wife since September 2000. They are curious because I am French and she is Australian. They would like to know who was visiting which country when we met. In this rather lengthy blog entry, I hope to elucidate these questions and entertain, surprise and move you. Our story is unique, as all true love stories are.
Peripheral Neuropathy
Dec 3
In this article, which I wrote over a year ago, I describe what had led to my diagnoses of type I diabetes, and, later, of diabetic neuropathy. Things have changed slightly since then, so I added a few paragraphs at the end.
Foreign to English
Dec 3
To me, one of the biggest contrasts in pronunciation between English and French, is that English seems to have its orthography (spelling) much more disconnected from its pronunciation than French does. The contrast is even more pronounced between English and most other European languages such as Spanish, Italian, German etc...
What is the nature of this disconnect, and how can I best describe it? Let’s start with a simple, yet revealing example:
- I want to record this program
- I want a record of this program
Even though it is true that the pronunciation of individual French words can be guessed by how they are spelled, there is a slight complication in the language that tends to drive French learners crazy: the pronunciation of the last character in the word may or may not be silent, depending on which word comes after it in the sentence. Let me give you an example:
* Je vois deux oiseaux et un chat.
* I see two birds and a cat.
