*Words to live by from the wise and worldly Peter Pan.*
I hope everyone is having a fantastic Monday! I know I am!So, it's time, once again, for our weekly dose of French adventures! My adventures in the classrooms are getting more and more intense! I found out this past week that I will soon have to give not one, but TWO oral presentations! Ahhh! Thankfully, one is with a group -- although, that's the one where I don't know when we're actually presenting haha. The rest of my classes are interesting, though! We're really starting to get into the swing of things and I'm learning a ton of new vocab, if nothing else. I think, now that I've had a couple of weeks with these professors, that I am allowed to pass preliminary judgements on them ;P
My Lit prof., M. Rogues, is my only male teacher and he's pretty cool. He's a little obsessed with French/Chinese authors so far but, hey, expanding my horizons is good! He also focuses a lot less on the actual literature and more on the words and their origins, which I think is kind of cool, but a lot of the other American students aren't liking it so much...
My Civilization prof, Mme Prunet, is a pretty good deal thus far, too! She's SUPER tiny and talks really fast but if you listen closely she says really interesting things. Right now, we're working on stuff about the second world war and how it affected Caen's architecture and daily life. Today, we took a tour of downtown and looked at the differences between the buildings that were rebuilt exactly as they were, buildings that were completely modernized, and all the stuff in between. It was really cool to see, but - lemme tell ya - today was not a good day to wear heels....Oy.
My writing prof asked us at the very beginning to call her by her first name - Marie - which I thought meant that she was going to be a little more relaxed and open with us in class, but it turns out that I don't like her very much. She's not clear in a lot of what she wants and she's kind of dry when she talks... It's hard to stay focused in her class...
I missed out on the first week of Sociology and Media class, because I was so turned around by the 5 different schedules they emailed us, so I can't properly comment on my two profs just yet, but don't worry, I'll let you know what I think when I have more information ;D
Next up on the list: Global Simulation with Mme Geslot! She is BY FAR my favorite prof!! She's excited about what she's doing, which makes us all excited and she's just the right mix of cracking-jokes and correcting-grammar. Plus, it helps that the class itself is fun, too. We have all created a French character for ourselves - I am a 56-year-old French woman named Charlotte Raineau - and we build on our characters every class period. Right now, we're working on creating the town that we all live in between Cannes and Nice in southern France. This stuff is definitely right up my alley as a writer!! =D
My next prof, Mme Levittoux, actually teaches two of my classes - Oral and Structures of the French Language (but then I have two profs for Structures, too...I know, confusing, right?). Right now, she is my solid second favorite prof. She's a lot calmer than Geslot, but you can still tell that she really cares about what she's doing. She's very patient and sweet with us, while at the same time pushing us to always do better. I really like that in a teacher. I do think she does a little better job in Structures than in oral, but I think that's because Oral isn't very....structured....haha ironic, no?
My other - and last - Structures prof is Mme Ozouf. We have 2 and a half hours every week with Mme Levittoux, then immediately after that, our little class of twenty joins the rest of level 2 to create a superclass of about 80-100 students for an hour with Mme Ozouf, in which she repeats what Levittoux already said for about half an hour, then moves on to rapid fire structures that none of us understand for the rest... I liked her at the beginning, but I'm liking her less and less because I always leave her class so confused!!
So, that's my little spiel on professors, for now =] On to other things!
I have been busy learning outside of class, too! The first week I was here, I saw (in passing only, sadly) a French signer!! It got me really interested in FSL and this past week, I taught myself a little French sign language! I now know the alphabet, the 5 W's, some random food words, and some basic hey-I-just-met-you conversation! I also learned that ASL and FSL are very similar. I watched an FSL video and, though I couldn't understand all of it, I got a pretty good gist! I really want to keep learning FSL and maybe run into that signer again (and this time stop him and say hi!!) so I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more opportunities!
On Thursday night, I went out with Mira. This time, we didn't go out with the rest of the group or even to O'Donnell's, which is the usual University haunt, we decided to check out some of the smaller bars around town. We hung out in her room for a while before we left and finished off about half a bottle of wine between us while we talked and listened to music, then we went out and found this lovely little hole-in-the-wall off the main drag. We found a comfy corner and sat down with a bottle of cider to talk some more. While we were talking, we found out that we both like to sing and decided that, at some point, we would have to see if Caen had any karaoke bars that we could hit. When the bar closed at about 1230, neither of us was very tired, so we thought we'd see who was at O'Donnell's. On the way there, however, we passed one of the guys in our group who told us that it was crazy there... so, we asked if he knew any smaller bars that were close. Can you guess what kind of bar he said was just a block past O'Donnell's? That's right. Karaoke. =DDD Of course, we had to go!! We both sang a song each and we definitely want to go back again but we had to leave early that night because there were a couple of creepy guys who would NOT leave us alone... We talked on the way home, however, about how we can avoid people like that later... Learning to be more direct with our "no"s is step one of the process for both of us haha.. While we were talking, we found out that we've both had a couple of creepers around... thankfully, they've all been pretty harmless so far, just acting like they've known us forever and asking us to coffee or drinks about 2 minutes after they've met us... We've both been smart enough to decline the offers and decline to give out our numbers, though! That's a start, right? Other than that, the night was fantastic, though. I can't wait to go back and try out the karaoke bar again! Maybe with a couple extra people this time...haha.
Friday and Saturday were pretty quiet. Lots of skyping! I finally got to talk with Martha!!! We've both been so busy that it was hard to catch each other (especially with the wonky time difference...) but I've missed her face and I finally got to see it! =D We'll get the hang of this whole "weekly skype date" thing sooner or later haha.
Sunday was very interesting! Mira and I went to a Catholic mass at St. Pierre in the morning and I didn't burst into flame walking through the door! Who'da thunk? ;P It was very interesting and pretty, even if I didn't understand a whole lot of it, both because of the language and the very different rituals... Like I told one of the girls here, though - beauty should be viewed with the light that it was created in - and if that means going to mass, I'm ok with that. I'd love to go back when it's quiet and snoop through all the nooks and crannies! I think that might become a thing for me - going to a different cathedral every Sunday for mass. It would be interesting to see all the differences and similarities. After mass, we went to the market and I got a chance to explore a lot more than I did last week. I didn't even realize how big it was!! We even found places that were selling rugs and mattresses!! There is also a much larger Arabic culture here than I was expecting. Probably a quarter of the shops were Arabic - spices, teas, clothing, etc... It made the market even more exciting than I thought last week =] I also bought two new books! I know, I know, most of you are either groaning or grinning right now... but they're both in French! It will help me with my language abilities! And no, I am not rationalizing! Haha... The first one I found is the novel behind an EXTREMELY famous French movie called Jean de Florette. We watched the movie in high school French class (remember, Martha? The second part Manon de la Source had the crazy guy that sewed a ribbon to his chest?) and it felt like the book was waiting there just for me. The second is one that will make Dougie smile =] I bought the French version of King's Dark Tower! I'm excited to finally read it!! Hopefully I'll understand it all haha... I may be asking you fairly often if my assumptions are correct ;P <3 After all that, Sunday slowed down quickly (that's a little oxymoronic, but ...oh well!) and slid into Monday.
Today has been awesome, though I'm still not sure I can stand without wincing.... I'm not exaggerating when I say I walked probably about 5 miles today...in heels!! Not my most brilliant moment... As I mentioned earlier, we walked down to- and through- the castle and Centre Ville with my Civilization class to see how the buildings have changed since WWII. After class was done, I went downtown again, this time to run errands (I left straight from class and so did not change my shoes..). My first stop was Hotel de Ville. I had never been there before but Mira said to get off the tram at St. Pierre then just walk all the way to the end of the road and it's right there. Well, I walked for about 20 minutes and didn't find it, so I gave up and went back. My next stop was the phone store (again) because Mum and I have been having trouble calling each other, and what did I see across the street but a sign for Hotel de Ville! So, I followed it. Another 20 minutes later and I arrive at the Hotel de Ville only to realize that if I had gone a block further on Rue St. Pierre, I would have found it......*sigh* Oh well! I found my way inside and to the office I needed which was called "Bienvenue a Caen!" For those of you who don't speak French that means "Welcome to Caen!" In this office, I had about a 15 minute conversation with the man who runs it, filled out some paper work, and am now in the process of being assigned to a French family!! They will call or email me soon and I will get to meet them for dinner or lunch or something like that and talk with them about French life! The program was set up for international students like me so we can get a real taste of French culture and life and brush up on our conversational French! I'm so excited to meet the family! This will be such a great experience!! After that, I made my way back to the phone store and worked out that I had neglected to add a + sign before the phone number.... Why do the French have to be so difficult?? The lack of a silly little + sign renders my phone useless.. once again, I say *sigh.* Along with a working phone and a French family to interact with, I also gained a lot of confidence today! The past couple of weeks, whenever I had gone out to run errands that involved talking to people, I had stumbled over my tongue and used some horrible kind of franglish that made even me cringe... but today, I spoke fluidly and coherently and all in French!! I can't wait to see my speaking skills at the end of the semester!!! I finished the day off with a glass of wine with dinner and some more wine and chocolate to wash it down haha. It was pretty much the perfect end to a lovely day.
Alright, so now that it's 130am here and you all are caught up on my recent adventures, I should really stop typing and go to sleep... I hope you all are doing wonderfully!! Shoot me an email and tell me what's new! I love you all!! _\m/
À bientôt, mes amis!!
Bisous!!
Morgan
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