If anyone out there has used my fourth French book, Intermediate French for Dummies, I’d sure love some more reviews on Amazon.
And if you didn’t already know about it, the book includes intermediate-level grammar lessons, writing tips, and practice exercises, and is the most extensive (and, all modesty aside, the best) book I’ve written. Check it out at Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore:
Usually I get an idea for an art project and let it simmer for a while. I have a few ideas that I’ve been kicking around for years - they may never get done. But My Fishbowl was different: I thought of it while lying in bed, spent the morning working on it, and it was up on the wall shortly after lunch.
I’ve had a Hotmail email address forever, and for nostalgia if nothing else, I don’t want to get rid of it. However, I hate having to log into it to check for new mail - I’ve been wanting to be able to read my Hotmail in Gmail for years. And now I finally found a way to do it - here are detailed but simple instructions for enabling your Hotmail to be forwarded to another email account: Hack to Enable Hotmail POP3 and SMTP Support Many thanks to the person(s) who figured this out!
So you’ve probably seen the Sound of Music Train Station Dance video - if you haven’t, you should. Nevermind that it’s a publicity stunt - it’s touching and funny. Even though it’s planned out, there are obviously some random people who jumped in to join the fun.
It reminds me of the IMAX movie theater at Six Flags Great America (Gurnee, IL). I grew up near there and used to go all the time, and before the movie started there was always this long ad for Chevy. In fact, I’m not sure if it was actually a commercial or just the logo up on the screen, but there was this song, “The Heartbeat of America,” that played for a while - 3-5 minutes, maybe? - and it had an intoxicating effect on the audience. After a minute or two, men, women, young, and old would all start swaying, and then clapping hands to the beat, and sometimes even sing. It was great. I don’t remember any of the movies I saw there, but I sure remember those audiences that spontaneously joined in with the music.
When I was at MIIS, a friend of mine taking a linguistics class asked how often I replace “going to” with “gonna,” and I said always. But then he brought up the difference between “I’m going to drive to the store” and “I’m going to the store” and taught me something that of course I knew instinctively: “gonna” can only replace “going to” + verb. When “going to” is followed by a noun, you can’t say “gonna” - you can only abbreviate it to “goin’ to” (which I do). Stuff like this fascinates me.
I’m sharing this now because I just read a pretty good article comparing Obama’s and McCain’s use of “g dropping”:
Nice Carnaval is the largest winter event on the French Riviera. In 2009, Carnaval de Nice took place from 13 February to 1 March, and the theme was Roi des Mascarades (King of Masquerades). With 20 tall floats (up to 14 meters / 46 feet high); 20 flower floats; 200 “big heads”; and countless dancers, musicians, and other participants - not to mention tens of thousands of spectators, it was a fun and crazy celebration. To join the fun, check out my photo gallery: Nice Carnaval
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started receiving tons of Facebook friend requests from people I don’t know and with whom I have no friends in common. I can only guess that my profile is showing up somewhere on theirs because we have something (most likely French) in common. Since it doesn’t seem right to “friend” someone I don’t know, I created a couple of other pages:
Learn French at About fan site, for people who love my free French site.
Laura K. Lawless fan site, if you love me for more than just my French site. 
Here are some links to help you celebrate with your beloved.
French love language
French terms of endearment
Spanish love language
Vegetarian aphrodisiacs
And a handy little tip about buying flowers in France.
Forget standing out in the cold waiting to see if a groundhog is afraid of his shadow - let’s celebrate Crêpe Day instead. The French traditionally flip crêpes while wishing for prosperity while Americans celebrate Groundhog Day - which one sounds more fun to you?
I had a flash of inspiration this morning. While looking at my never-ending list of books I have to have, I realized that there are probably tens, even hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people out there just dying to buy me presents. So I put them all into my Amazon wishlist to make it easy for you:
Seriously, though, I made this to organize my thoughts. But if anyone out there does want to buy me a book, please note that I prefer paperbacks. Kindle is good too, except for cookbooks and grammar books.
