Movember looming

Well it's nearly Movember.

This year it's especially poignant, as just after last Movember drew to a glorious close, my papa was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He's now finished his treatment and we wait to see if it's been successful. It;s been a tough year, filled with not knowing how he was doing, conflicting reports from too many doctors and side effects that I won't go into today. Those of us around him have had to pull together and I think he's doing ok. We'll see.

For now, I know this: if there was the time and money devoted to man-cancer that there is to breast-cancer, this may well have been spotted earlier and treated more swiftly, with fewer side effects and a better prognosis. I don't want to take a single penny away from other any other cancer research; breast-cancer too has claimed friends of mine. I do simply want to raise awareness and cash to help the plight of men everywhere. Too many of us will eventually be glad that we helped.

This is my face on the last day of October. There will be regular updates. Keep the cash coming in by sponsoring any man you know growing a Mo. Why not show support by sporting a stick on one yourself, if you're too young or have the wrong chromosomes to grow one yourself.

Watch this space!!

My head hurts!

Well, eight weeks in and I am developing a new relationship with pain!

It's not because Mrs D is beating me regularly, or at least, no more severely than usual! No, it's the French language. I seem to bee making fairly good progress and have even begun the dreaded subjunctive, and the more I speak and listen the easier it gets. The biggest barrier to progress is a lack of practice; I just need more francophones in my life. What with tutoring happening in English and Victoria and I largely communicating in English, it's hard to get the French in. 

We have joined two churches, on in English in the evening and one in French on Sunday morning. I suspect Victoria, given a choice, would go exclusively francophone at home and church, but I'm just not ready for that. As much as it's satisfying to be making progress, and I can now largely make myself understood and keep up with the rigors of shopping etc, it's too frustrating to operate at a language level where I can't express complex ideas or, for that matter,  simple ones with the option of a more elegant turn of phrase. 

Anyway, my point is this. I find, regularly, that after a while submersed in French, my brain hurts. It's always the same pain, a kind of fizzing across the middle, very much akin the stress buzz I used to get at the thought of Ofsted visiting. The exact same feeling I called 'impending doom' whenever the headmaster called to me to his office, and which never went away however long I taught or high I wandered in the rankings of my profession, surely a sad indictment on my self-confidence.  It is a decidedly odd experience to have come to view this feeling as my friend. Whenever my brain starts ticking like that these days, I ascribe it (with no neurobiology to speak of, you understand) to neurons connecting, to synapses linking, to LEARNING HAPPENING! It's a delight! I seek it out, some of the time, when I am strong enough. At time's when I'm not it's proved a remarkable opportunity to lean on God, remembering that I believe He called us here, that there's something special for us to do here and that learning French is somehow adding to the kingdom. Standing in His grace helps me daily over here. If I get really stuck, I even pray in French! 

I'm off now to read an article on Michael Schumaker's retirement in French! A bientôt!

BTW: should you actually have some neurobiology, don't disabuse me of the notion that I can feel the learning happening. It's too motivational to lose.