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Just thought I’d write a little something here today, hopefully it’ll make me feel a better.
Many years ago (11 in fact, jeez), I took French class for my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school. As a freshman, I took Spanish class and wasn’t really impressed or interested in it, despite the fact that I could pass it no problem. But I wanted to take French because I wanted to be in touch with my Louisiana roots. I had such a deep love for the class that I was reading the textbook for the second level during my first level class. Even after leaving high school, I still kept up with French. One of my favorite singers of all time, Celine Dion, is from Quebec and started her singing career in French, and she’s the one I credit for helping me keep up with it. I enjoyed French music and started watching Youtube videos in French. Of course, my listening skills were always not that great, but I could always read lyrics or put automated subtitles so I could understand what they were saying. I loved the French language so much that I intially planned to move to Quebec someday, however I kept seeing things about how Canada, Australia and New Zealand had trouble accepting immigrants with disabilities (I have autism and ADHD, btw), so I had to switch gears and try to move to France. Recently, I was planning to go visit Paris with my sister for my 30th birthday. But *dramatic pause* tragedy struck…
Of course, this is going to sound ridiculous, but bear with me. So… I had known there was racism in France. Yes, no country in the world is perfect, but France in particular always had this reputation for being really egregious with its brand of racism. I was very aware of this though, and I still persisted with my desire with visiting and living in the country. That was until I decided to search videos in French about racism… almost every single is overrun with racism in the comments. Almost EVERY single video. Like Jesus fucking Christ dude, it’s insane. This put me into a state of mental anguish that last about week or two. I would search videos over and over again, and read the comments, trying to look for something good, not to no abail. And it even worse because I’m no longer my anxiety med for health reasons. Ultimately, after the last time, it just hit a point where I couldn’t take it more.
So, now I’m officially done with the French language and I’m not planning to move to France. It was hard decision to come to, but it had to be done. I’m just done.
Currently, I’m shopping for other languages to learn and other countries to move to. At the time of writing, I’m not moving to Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Switzerland, and I’m pretty iffy on Portugal as well. Other considerations include Australia and… ugh the UK (it’s only a last resort though). The Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) look interesting and I’m looking into Mandarin Chinese as well. Heh, looks like even when I’m down in the dumps, I still find ways to be interested in stuff.
If there’s any life lesson to be gleaned from this, I guess it’s “giving up your passions is hard, but that doesn’t mean giving up in general.” Yeah, let’s go with that. Okay, I’ve run out of steam, so I’m going to go now. Okay byeeeee~
Many years ago (11 in fact, jeez), I took French class for my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school. As a freshman, I took Spanish class and wasn’t really impressed or interested in it, despite the fact that I could pass it no problem. But I wanted to take French because I wanted to be in touch with my Louisiana roots. I had such a deep love for the class that I was reading the textbook for the second level during my first level class. Even after leaving high school, I still kept up with French. One of my favorite singers of all time, Celine Dion, is from Quebec and started her singing career in French, and she’s the one I credit for helping me keep up with it. I enjoyed French music and started watching Youtube videos in French. Of course, my listening skills were always not that great, but I could always read lyrics or put automated subtitles so I could understand what they were saying. I loved the French language so much that I intially planned to move to Quebec someday, however I kept seeing things about how Canada, Australia and New Zealand had trouble accepting immigrants with disabilities (I have autism and ADHD, btw), so I had to switch gears and try to move to France. Recently, I was planning to go visit Paris with my sister for my 30th birthday. But *dramatic pause* tragedy struck…
Of course, this is going to sound ridiculous, but bear with me. So… I had known there was racism in France. Yes, no country in the world is perfect, but France in particular always had this reputation for being really egregious with its brand of racism. I was very aware of this though, and I still persisted with my desire with visiting and living in the country. That was until I decided to search videos in French about racism… almost every single is overrun with racism in the comments. Almost EVERY single video. Like Jesus fucking Christ dude, it’s insane. This put me into a state of mental anguish that last about week or two. I would search videos over and over again, and read the comments, trying to look for something good, not to no abail. And it even worse because I’m no longer my anxiety med for health reasons. Ultimately, after the last time, it just hit a point where I couldn’t take it more.
So, now I’m officially done with the French language and I’m not planning to move to France. It was hard decision to come to, but it had to be done. I’m just done.
Currently, I’m shopping for other languages to learn and other countries to move to. At the time of writing, I’m not moving to Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Switzerland, and I’m pretty iffy on Portugal as well. Other considerations include Australia and… ugh the UK (it’s only a last resort though). The Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) look interesting and I’m looking into Mandarin Chinese as well. Heh, looks like even when I’m down in the dumps, I still find ways to be interested in stuff.
If there’s any life lesson to be gleaned from this, I guess it’s “giving up your passions is hard, but that doesn’t mean giving up in general.” Yeah, let’s go with that. Okay, I’ve run out of steam, so I’m going to go now. Okay byeeeee~
