Out on a day pass!
Today, I had the pleasure of joining my colleagues at an all-day staff meeting. This meant a day pass out of solitary confinement (a.k.a French Language Training).
While I normally don't enjoy meetings, especially all-day meetings, this particular meeting had some positive factors for me.
For one thing... they fed us all. day. long.
But more importantly... I realized I have made progress in French, visible progress that wasn't apparent to me until I sat through a 55 minute presentation, mainly in French by the Assistant Commissioner of my Branch.
A year ago, I sat at the very same meeting and cursed every other word the man said in French, mainly because I didn't get the gist of his message. These all-staff meetings are feel good meetings for employees, to tell us how appreciated we are, and how valued our work is to the branch, the agency, and to all Canadian citizens (toot toot!). Last year, I thinkI missed my horn tooting opportunity because the man delievered his remarks to my division in French (and of course I was too stubborn to use a translating device), and when things wrapped up I was a litte more than bitter about the entire day.
But today ... I spent 6 hours going back and forth between French & English presentations and I GOT the message... ALL of the message, not just the english parts.
12 months ago... I was frustrated and upset that I was forced to listen to 6 horus of bilingual blabbering by high level management. Today, I felt like the meeting was productive, well-organized, and I actually learned a thing or two!
Amazing!
I don't often write posts about how well French is going, and this is definitely not a post that is admitting to that... but today was a small victory for me, perhaps a turning point in the training that I desperately need - a step in the right direction to say the least!
As ER is about to start, I will spend the rest of the night enjoying the fact that I actually might get through the rest of this language training nightmare!
While I normally don't enjoy meetings, especially all-day meetings, this particular meeting had some positive factors for me.
For one thing... they fed us all. day. long.
But more importantly... I realized I have made progress in French, visible progress that wasn't apparent to me until I sat through a 55 minute presentation, mainly in French by the Assistant Commissioner of my Branch.
A year ago, I sat at the very same meeting and cursed every other word the man said in French, mainly because I didn't get the gist of his message. These all-staff meetings are feel good meetings for employees, to tell us how appreciated we are, and how valued our work is to the branch, the agency, and to all Canadian citizens (toot toot!). Last year, I thinkI missed my horn tooting opportunity because the man delievered his remarks to my division in French (and of course I was too stubborn to use a translating device), and when things wrapped up I was a litte more than bitter about the entire day.
But today ... I spent 6 hours going back and forth between French & English presentations and I GOT the message... ALL of the message, not just the english parts.
12 months ago... I was frustrated and upset that I was forced to listen to 6 horus of bilingual blabbering by high level management. Today, I felt like the meeting was productive, well-organized, and I actually learned a thing or two!
Amazing!
I don't often write posts about how well French is going, and this is definitely not a post that is admitting to that... but today was a small victory for me, perhaps a turning point in the training that I desperately need - a step in the right direction to say the least!
As ER is about to start, I will spend the rest of the night enjoying the fact that I actually might get through the rest of this language training nightmare!
Labels: french
posted by SC at 10:00 PM
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