What the French?!

If I add it all up, I've taken around 6 1/2 years of French classes. I never thought I'd use my French. I did though - for 5 days in Paris.

You hear all the time how easy it is to pick up other languages once you learn a second. And it's true. I've always been good with languages; I can understand most of what I hear when people are speaking Spanish to me, I understood a fair amount of the German Bryce would write to me, I remember all of the Latin my teachers have taught me, Italian is easy to get the hang of. You get the idea...

I honestly didn't think I'd ever use my French again.

Until today.

I have this Humanities project (which is kicking my butt, by the way...) and I chose to make an art tour itinerary of "The Best Vanitas Paintings You've Never Seen." I have to make a brochure detailing 5 artists, their work, and where the trip would take me. Easy: I found my 5 favorite Baroque Vanitas works, and where they're housed. Now I have to write a page for each painting providing 1) the reason why it was painted, 2) a provenance of where the painting has been housed and, 3) a critical description of the work. It doesn't sound all that hard, does it?

Well, it is. There's a reason you've never seen these 5 Baroque Vanitas paintings - because NO ONE knows anything about them! I can't find the provenance for 3 of the 5, and I can't find why 4 of them were commissioned. The critical description I can totally handle on my own.

(This is a vanitas painting, by the way. Check the winged death; he rocks. It's called L'Umana Fragilita by Harmen Steenwijck).

So, with all of that given, here is how I used my French: I went to the library and conned some poor girl into helping me find information. We headed to the art section of the reference books and would you believe that of my 5 artists, I could only find 2 artists' information in English?! However, I found an encyclopedia series in FRENCH that had every scrap of information I could ever want about all 5 artists and paintings.

What did I do? I sat down at a computer and translated all of the information (without using a translating website, cause those suck) into a word document in English.

I'm tired.

Things that induce laughter/smiles/happy feelings in me today:
1. Going to see Mom and Grannie. I will be gone half of Friday, all of Saturday, Sunday, Monday and half of Tuesday. *sigh*
2. Buying new books on Friday. Yay.
3. Ticking off the projects I've completed for the semester.
4. External hard drive should be arriving on Thursday. *crosses fingers*