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ciroccojBecause I've had a crappy day and not much desire to dive back into the whole Death Thing right away, here's something that made my day, from Florence King, courtesy of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mynuet's lj:
When they came for the smokers I kept silent because I don't smoke. When they came for the meat eaters I kept silent because I'm a vegetarian. When they came for the gun owners I kept silent because I'm a pacifist. When they came for the drivers I kept silent because I'm a bicyclist. They never did come for me. I'm still here because there's nobody left in the secret police except sissies with rickets.
***
I so completely could not be unilingual in Ottawa. Especially at Ottawa U, which is officially bilingual. I think there's two people on the Senior Board who don't understand French, and it must be terribly disorienting when the rest of us slip into French, which we do about 20% of the time. Some of that is probably OK for them - when we're discussing the French articles, they don't really need to be part of the conversation since they can't really contribute to it - but when it's admin stuff, it must be a little frustrating. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes when our faculty supervisor (francophone, speaks English with effort) and our Editor in Chief (no accent in either language, but prefers French) and Articles Editor (no accent in either language, but prefers English) and a few of the French editors get into it, we all just sort of slip into French and I don't know what it must be like to miss about half of a discussion that you're supposed to be a part of. I have no idea what a unilingual francophone would do in there.
Thinking of this a fair bit as I talk to Guy's family about the funeral, which will be in Thurso, Quebec. They're all francophone, with varying degrees of proficiency in English. Very thick Quebecois accents, though, so I'm at a bit of a loss sometimes no matter which language they're speaking.
***
Jacob is sitting up. And I swear every time I see him he's cuter. He's so unbelievably cheery, too - one of the smiliest babies I've ever known. I can't believe he's six months old. ::boggling::
***
Slowly wending my way through my bloody edit. Slowly, slowly getting rid of highlights. 128 footnotes, though... ugh.
***
Must. Not. Forget. Pills. I did last night, and had very poor sleep. Not feeling terribly good about it right about now.
***
WTF, weather? After the warmest winter ever in Ottawa, with the World's Longest Skating Rink turned into the World's Longest Piece of Closed Slush for half the season, today we get snow. Whaddup?
***
So, the . The funeral's on Friday. Telling the kids was hell. Daniel was furious and screaming, and Justin howled. And all the things we adults can tell each other to comfort ourselves - Guy was 74, had a good, long life, excellent health almost to the end, died with lots of family and friends and loved ones around, blah blah blah don't make a lot of difference to a six year old and a nine year old who lost their grandmother less than two years ago. There is not a whole hell of a lot that can make that better in any way.
Chris said it best a few weeks ago, when we first had to tell the kids Guy was terminal. You work so hard to make life good for your kids. You worry about what they eat and what they watch on TV and make sure they get a good education and help them with problems with their friends and kiss their booboos and make sure they wear their mitts and try to teach them discipline and teach them about love and joy and you buy them books and toys and do things you know will make them happy... and then something truly horrible happens and you have absolutely no power to stop it or make their pain go away.
I keep finding myself close to tears over this, and thinking about my mom, and wishing so much that I could talk to her. Then I remind myself that if my mom was here, she'd be dealing with losing Guy too.
On that ultra-cheery note, I'm going to read something fluffy. And then weed through a few more footnotes.
mynuet's lj:When they came for the smokers I kept silent because I don't smoke. When they came for the meat eaters I kept silent because I'm a vegetarian. When they came for the gun owners I kept silent because I'm a pacifist. When they came for the drivers I kept silent because I'm a bicyclist. They never did come for me. I'm still here because there's nobody left in the secret police except sissies with rickets.
I so completely could not be unilingual in Ottawa. Especially at Ottawa U, which is officially bilingual. I think there's two people on the Senior Board who don't understand French, and it must be terribly disorienting when the rest of us slip into French, which we do about 20% of the time. Some of that is probably OK for them - when we're discussing the French articles, they don't really need to be part of the conversation since they can't really contribute to it - but when it's admin stuff, it must be a little frustrating. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes when our faculty supervisor (francophone, speaks English with effort) and our Editor in Chief (no accent in either language, but prefers French) and Articles Editor (no accent in either language, but prefers English) and a few of the French editors get into it, we all just sort of slip into French and I don't know what it must be like to miss about half of a discussion that you're supposed to be a part of. I have no idea what a unilingual francophone would do in there.
Thinking of this a fair bit as I talk to Guy's family about the funeral, which will be in Thurso, Quebec. They're all francophone, with varying degrees of proficiency in English. Very thick Quebecois accents, though, so I'm at a bit of a loss sometimes no matter which language they're speaking.
Jacob is sitting up. And I swear every time I see him he's cuter. He's so unbelievably cheery, too - one of the smiliest babies I've ever known. I can't believe he's six months old. ::boggling::
Slowly wending my way through my bloody edit. Slowly, slowly getting rid of highlights. 128 footnotes, though... ugh.
Must. Not. Forget. Pills. I did last night, and had very poor sleep. Not feeling terribly good about it right about now.
WTF, weather? After the warmest winter ever in Ottawa, with the World's Longest Skating Rink turned into the World's Longest Piece of Closed Slush for half the season, today we get snow. Whaddup?
So, the . The funeral's on Friday. Telling the kids was hell. Daniel was furious and screaming, and Justin howled. And all the things we adults can tell each other to comfort ourselves - Guy was 74, had a good, long life, excellent health almost to the end, died with lots of family and friends and loved ones around, blah blah blah don't make a lot of difference to a six year old and a nine year old who lost their grandmother less than two years ago. There is not a whole hell of a lot that can make that better in any way.
Chris said it best a few weeks ago, when we first had to tell the kids Guy was terminal. You work so hard to make life good for your kids. You worry about what they eat and what they watch on TV and make sure they get a good education and help them with problems with their friends and kiss their booboos and make sure they wear their mitts and try to teach them discipline and teach them about love and joy and you buy them books and toys and do things you know will make them happy... and then something truly horrible happens and you have absolutely no power to stop it or make their pain go away.
I keep finding myself close to tears over this, and thinking about my mom, and wishing so much that I could talk to her. Then I remind myself that if my mom was here, she'd be dealing with losing Guy too.
On that ultra-cheery note, I'm going to read something fluffy. And then weed through a few more footnotes.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 03:34 am (UTC)*hugs the plushies of Cirocco's littles*
*hugs all of her plushies*
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Date: 2006-04-06 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-09 03:11 am (UTC)