I mentioned it a while ago, but this Monday I was one of 75 young people from across the UK who went down to London to an awards ceremony to receive a Diana Award. The awards themselves were set up in memory of Princess Diana, and there were five categories (Anti-Bullying Champion, Champion Fundraiser, Courageous Citizen, Active Campaigner and Champion Volunteer). I won one of the Anti-Bullying Champion awards for my work with SOS at college and all in all it was a pretty exciting day. There were so many different stories told and it was truly inspirational learning about the achievements of so many people who all thoroughly deserved their awards.
I went down on the train with my dad and when we weren't at Barclays HQ for the ceremony (yeah, that was a strange experience), we were either at London Bridge, on the tube, or at Covent Garden. A few photos from the day...
Oh, and I also found my new favourite phone box (not that I already had a favourite phone box, but you know...)
And while we're on the topic of languages (smooth link right there...), I've really been getting back into giving myself Swedish lessons and I'm finding that it's actually quite fun. Of course, you're probably not going to find it fun unless you also study a foreign language, and even then only if you study it by choice, but I find it fun anyway.
I'm following the Byki Swedish app on my phone but instead of using the app I'm creating my own activities. I find that I learn best when I actually write things out, so that's what I'm doing. It's also interesting being able to track what I know and what I'm not so good at. I've been learning Spanish for five years now, and I studied French for two years before that, yet I have no recollection of how the first stages of learning a language go. At the moment, I can greet people and say goodbye, I can introduce myself, I can talk about languages that I can speak/read/write, count to twenty, say the days of the week, ask what time 'you' open and close and give brief/vague directions. I can also say 'jag behöver hjälp eftersom det gör ont här på min arm och jag var rånad' - I need help because it hurts here on my arm and I was robbed. Yeah, I'm totally covered in case I ever get mugged in Sweden. I can even swap 'min arm' for 'mitt ben' or 'mitt huvud' in case it's my leg or my head that hurts instead. It also greatly amuses me that 'ett sjukhus' (hospital) sounds/looks a bit like 'sick house' (and indeed translates into it too).
I need to do an update on my seven things for seven days (more like a month). Soon...
SOTD is Stockholm i mitt hjärta because it's Allsång på Skansen season and I'm very excited (and because I know there's going to come a point this summer where I will know all of the words to it) (and because nobody suits a bow tie more than Måns)...
R x
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