Bragging

Yep, got to admit it, I really am chuffed and so am sharing my exploits.

As an elementary school attendee I found things fairly simple, usually got E (for excellent, I am the generation before numerical grades at least the first few years) with one notable exception: handwriting (and that has not improved, neither with practice nor age, some things just aren’t doable).

In Junior High, the majority were A’s and that continued on throughout High School, again with a couple of exceptions, French was one as I recall (lucky to pull a B- some semesters). French was my worst grade in university as well, so it’s perhaps cosmic

justice that I have spent my entire adult life in a French-speaking area of Switzerland.

Mind you, the two years that I attended school in France, I did manage good grades and got the first two “Alliance Française” certificates (hated those dissertations though). The third one had to attend the Sorbonne in Paris to obtain and I had neither the funds, nor the time for that last one. Never mind, I have managed to work, raise a family and pay my bills without ever having recourse to a translation – although when it came to legal matters I found them as complicated as any in English (usually more comprehensible however – go figure).

Today I was reading the local official newspaper, wherein is recorded any new laws, any changes to former laws, criminal procedures, bankruptcy applications as well as the bankruptcies themselves, notifications of real estate purchases, notifications of any official matter (i.e. street changes, amendments to any budgetary items), tenders for tasks/jobs at the cantonal (state) and city and communal levels, any changes to business statues, deaths, etc.

There was an article on how the requirements have changed for obtaining Swiss nationality. One of the new requirements is that the person applying must be fairly fluent in the language of whichever canton they are living in (or at least one of the four national languages) with exceptions made for illiterates, handicapped or the very aged applicants.  The links led to a quiz: twenty-five questions about Switzerland and the Canton of Geneva.

I got ALL 25 right!

OK so I do read a lot, have played tour guide in the past, I was still very proud that I aced this quiz (that I didn’t have to take when I got my citizenship). Give me some more: learning is such fun!