random memory from when I was 8

Last night I remembered something very strange... It's so strange that I almost wonder if maybe it was some weird dream but the vividness of the memory suggests that it really happened.

When I was in grade 3 I was asked to be interviewed on TVO for one of their kids TV shows. Only thing was that they wanted me to bring my dog onto the show. So of course this brought up the question of "how would I get the dog to the studio?" I don't think we had a car at the time, my mom didn't drive and the show was being recorded in the middle of the day during the week.

And so of course my teacher suggested that... I bring my dog to school.
And of course my parents... accepted!
What kind of craziness is that?!

So I brought my dog onto the school bus, brought her rug, food, some water and maybe a few toys. She sat next to me all morning during school. I took her outside for a short walk. Then we headed off to TVO - the whole class in tow (they were the audience) - to record the interview. I can vaguely remember the interview - sitting in the bright lights with my dog on my lap talking to the host (whose name also happened to be Monique) about how to take care of her, how old she was, that kind of thing.

It's so strange when I think back to this. I can remember it fairly clearly and it really seems so very surreal. I can remember how my hair was braided, how I was wearing my favourite Baja aqua-coloured jumpsuit with white tights, how my dog sat on the floor next to me at the back of the bus. My dog wasn't anything all that special (other than she was my dog and totally awesome!) - she was just a terrier-poodle mix that we had rescued from the humane society.

I did these kinds of interviews a few times when I was in grade school (radio interview about the Lego exhibit at Ontario Place, this interview, another tv interview in grade 8 about some computer game...) It's so strange when I think back to these interviews. I think I was picked because my school was one of the only French schools in the downtown area. Also, French was my first language (I didn't really speak much English until I was in grade 4) so I was extremely fluent and I read a lot and maybe I talked a lot too? [Maybe I wasn't as shy then as I am now? I don't know...]

I'm not sure what brought this memory back... I think I was thinking about learning languages as a child and how I didn't really think about it much back then. It just seemed to come naturally. Learning Japanese now is kind of hard - I don't really remember learning languages as being difficult. I also don't remember ever learning English grammar - I went to a French school where teachers barely spoke English (if this is any indication: my grade 3 & 4 teacher said the words "Tree" and "Three" the same way - I had the same problem as a child - I couldn't say "th".) By the time I hit high school (also exclusively French aside from English class) they assumed we knew English grammar. I could hardly write a full sentence in English. My sisters helped me a lot and I started reading pretty much exclusively in English which really helped. I guess learning English was harder than French for me, probably because I was older and my brain was already past it's prime language learning period. I actually kind of find it strange being in Japanese class and learning more grammar than I ever did when I learnt English.

That is all for now - I know, how very disappointing. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about soon.... Chicago maybe?