Random Hobbies

One of Jube's favorite pastimes is to do everything he can to bug me and then enjoy my reaction. Sometimes I get really riled up, and sometimes I just laugh it off. (I guess that's the attraction--it's hard to predict what I'll do.) Anyway, this weekend he has been grading Bacs blancs, or practice copies of the national proficiency exam, le Baccalauréat. The practice copies are actual exams that have already been given in earlier years, and boy do I feel sorry for the kids who got this one! My post isn't about the Bac blanc, though, it's about Jube's practice of his annoying hobby while he's grading.

Jube's grading routine: While I'm at the computer, he monopolizes the rest of the apartment. He connects his mp3 player to the home cinema and listens to 20-minute-long progressive rock songs. He mutes the television and switches channels. Every five minutes or so he interrupts my surfing to ask me a grammar or vocabulary question. Then, just to break up the monotony a bit, he decides to get up to do something and lose his pen, his mp3 player, the copy of the test he was grading, or the remote control. Afterwards he asks me where I put the pen, the mp3 player, etc etc. How should I know where it is?

AND THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!

"Oh Gem, what did you do with the remote control now?" he'll ask, after I tell him I haven't touched it for about 3 hours. Of course that really gets me riled up! And then he'll come over and kiss me to make sure I know he's kidding. He just did that, and then couldn't find his pen, so we had another mini-argument about it--and then he remembered that he had it in his mouth last time we kissed-and-made-up... and there it was right in my lap!

Now I'll digress on the word "hobby" for you. As you may know, in French, the sound "h" does not exist. (That's why the word "hors d'oeuvres" is pronounced ordERVES.) Also, the stress always falls on the last syllable (see above example). So lots of French kids pronounce "hobbies" as though they were saying "obese." Be aware.