Evaluating the program

Well, as some of you may have guessed, my comprehensive plan has been slightly modified by the vagaries of life. Being sick with the swine flu changed things; so did going down to Vancouver for the weekend and just plain old busyness.
The good news is that I have been doing better in some categories. For example, while not exactly meeting any of my goals, I have improved upon some of them. I am praying more. I can now do 3 chinups in a row. My French has improved.
I suppose that too is debatable, though. I had a new French student last week, and I was going over some spelling words for him. I pronounced the word 'parenthèse' and he turned and looked at me with a puzzled look.
"What do you mean?"
I tried valiantly to pronounce it again. His quizzical look vanished and he said, "Oh, you mean parenthèse!"
Yes, of course that's what I meant; that's what I said. But I think the difference was in my emphasis of syllables. Yvette corrected me on it the other day. One of the down sides of learning a language by yourself is not being able to predict the irregularities to rules. Take emphasis, for example. In English, different words have the stress in different places. 'wonderful', for example, has the stress on the first syllable. To say it 'wonDERful' would sound funny. 'Hallelujah' is pronounced 'HalleLUJah. 'Produce' can be pronounced two different ways- and the emphasis completely changes the meaning of the word.
So it is in French, I have learned. Unlike Italian, which has a predictable rule that (usually) the second-to-last syllable is stressed (think spaGHEtti), English and French change at will.
Sometimes I've had to choke back laughter listening to my ESL friends read out loud, now I have become one of them.
Years ago I read an inspirational quote: "Reach for the moon: even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".
I thought about it for awhile and then decided it was a pretty stupid quote. Anybody who had been through grade 2 knows that the stars are farther from earth than the moon. If you reach for the moon and fall short, there's no way you'll even be close to the stars. Not only that, but the chances of actually hitting another intrastellar body while aiming for something else that is lightyears away is pretty darn slim. I modified the quote to make more sense:
"Reach for the stars: even if you miss you might be the same distance from the earth that the moon is."
I suppose I've reached for the stars with my comprehensive plan. You may think I'm hanging around the moon's orbit. Actually, as we all know, there are near stars and far stars. I aimed for some pretty far stars, so hanging around Alpha Centauri suits me just fine.
Excuse me, I've got some chinups to do.