On the downside: I’m in Paris, it’s a quarter to 5 in the morning, I just ate a bag of low-fat popcorn and a stroopwafel that I squirreled away on the San Francisco to Roissy flight because there is no other food in my apartment, and I still can’t go to sleep because I still haven’t even started to write something for my Friday morning French lesson.
On the upside: I’m in Paris, it’s a quarter to 5 in the morning, I just ate a bag of low-fat popcorn and a stroopwafel that I squirreled away on the San Francisco to Roissy flight because there is no other food in my apartment, and I still can’t go to sleep because I still haven’t even started to write something for my Friday morning French lesson. This is something that no human has ever experienced before. I am LIVING, damn it!
(Downside and upside explained in the English notes below.) What I have done since midnight instead of writing something for my Friday morning French lesson:
- Investigated the verbs of which the French noun le chapitre can be the subject
- Investigated the polysemous nature of the French noun le chapitre–did you know that it can mean something like “one’s say”? I certainly didn’t…
- Learned some new vocabulary items–we all know that the consequence of Zipf’s Law, from the perspective of a second language learner, is that you will be running into new words every single day for the rest of your life… (barbu, biniou, goujon, sentinelle, avitaillé, dessaler, cheville (petite tige qui sert à fixer), pointu)
- Started a blog post about the verbs of which le chapitre can be the subject–didn’t finish it
- Watched a video of a Patachou song about “la chose” (http://m.ina.fr/video/I07072974), felt guilty for laughing about something so juvenile, laughed anyway
- Made a video about what the American English word gonna means (check it out–feedback appreciated)
- Started a blog post about reviewing the Methods section of a research paper–didn’t finish it
- Watched a lot of French-language cat videos
- Wrote a blog post about frame semantics–finished it
- Watched way too many Têtes à claques videos (thanks, Courtney of Learn French Avec Moi–those little guys have brought so much happiness into my life!)
- Learned some more vocabulary (chronophage, de suite, détrompez-vous, mauvaises langues, encercler, ressasser, en étais resté là, partiels, relâchement, se ressaisir, se la péter, ça tombe bien, invocatrice, quête, case)
5:23 AM… Time to write something for my French lesson… I wonder what verbs le chapitre can be the subject of…
On the downside/on the upside… The negative aspects of something (Merriam-Webster)/the positive aspects of something
- On the downside I lost my Healthcare. On the upside, if I get sick, AR14s are still legal and I now have a roll call of where to use them (Twitter–for context, the Republicans in the House of Representatives just voted to do away with Obamacare today)
- On the downside, i didn’t eat today. On the upside, i made a list of everything i need to do to get myself out of this fucked up situation. (Twitter)
- on the upside all my finals are on monday and then i’m done…on the downside ALL MY FINALS ARE ON MONDAY WTF (Twitter)
- Downside:
@HouseGOP just voted for#TrumpCare. Upside: We know whose political bones to grind to powder in #2018#TheResistance#indivisible (Twitter) - Downside to being an insomniac: No sleep Upside: I get to see a beautiful sunrise from my roof as the birds sing (Twitter)
Zipf's Law 
Madonna reputedly lived on nothing but low fat popcorn before she was famous. I know of no-one who ate only Stroopwafels.
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You are pretty active man . I didn’t know that “gonna” could become “onna” at the first person . Thank you for this, and you even taught me a French word ! I never heard of “avitailler”, I thought only “ravitailler” did exist . But I’m sure you won’t find many occurrences of “avitailler” with your magic machine .
I only know 3 meanings of chapitre . A chapter of a book, some religious assembly, both “chapter” in English too, and when it means a theme or subject of a discussion among others . I don’t see where your “one’s say” come from, unless from the precise expression “avoir voix au chapitre”. But this only means “to be entitled to speak”, entitled to give one’s opinion in a group, a board, an assembly, a couple, etc… Do you know the verb “chapitrer”, an educated verb that means to lecture, to reprimand ?
In your impressive list of new words I noticed a common annoying mistake : “de suite” is improper French . We hear it often and it makes me cringe, because it is not slang, it is just uneducated French . The only correct form is “tout de suite” .
How do you manage to know Patachou ? This amazes me (but after all on your video I realized you’re not so hairy for a Barbarian, that must be an explanation) . But what amazes me more is the fact that you like les Têtes à claques . How on earth can you understand their French ? I adore them but it’s not always obvious for me to understand their Quebec language . Are you a kind of genius, or what is the name of your drug ?
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