The Internet. En francais. (Anne’s May Challenge)

Aujourd’hui begins my version of the Pink of Perfection media detox. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to give up–blogs, facebook, the little tv I actually watch–before coming to my conclusion. I just bought my return ticket to the United States (I’ll be in Seattle July 10th in case anyone wants to welcome me back with a much missed chai latte), and my remaining time in France is starting to tick away. There’s still so much I want to see here, and still plenty of room for my French to improve. Instead of wasting time mindlessly clicking through blogs, I’ve decided to make the most of my stay and use only French media for the week.

It shouldn’t be such a strange proposal for someone living in Toulon, but somehow I get sucked into reading The New York Times online instead of Le Monde, watching BBC instead of France 3, and even occasionally browsing shops on Etsy when I know I’ll never order something and foot the international shipping bill. It’s not that I don’t like reading and listening in French, (and in fact, when I lived in the US, I paid good money to see French movies and even occasionally splurged on an outragelousy priced imported magazine) it’s just that after a trying day of Simon Says with French kids and arguing my way through bus pass problems, sometimes a little English is comforting. But not this week! I’m actually excited about the challenge. It was something of a relief to put up an “away” message on facebook and I’m eagerly anticipating picking up a local newspaper for my morning commute.

The rules:

Only French websites, newspapers, magazines, etc.

Exceptions:

My email and this blog.

I’ll let you know how it goes!