Today was the day to end all days and yet, here we are. The french gods must have been satisfied by the struggles I endured during my 2 hour "TD" ( discussion group basically... ) and concurrently, "Intro to the French Education System: All the glories and Maybe some failures ( in France!? Never!?! )". Let's see what kind of an account this turns into...
So I suppose I should've gotten a feel for things by the way my adventure at the Sorbonne started - the frantic emails and website scouring should've been a sign of the confusion and unpreparedness that was to follow. But no, I just showed up 45 min. early give or take 15 min. ( but put your money on giving ) in order to find the building, closest metro, classroom, general layout. Apparently showing up that early for TD's, while maybe not so much for the lecture classes, is absolutely insane. At least that's what I could gather from the frighten french girl I tried to talk to waiting for the class before us to get done. Apparently the only reason she was there so early was to talk to the professor beforehand. Or maybe it was just my strange french that was making her scared...Not as scared as me though. Especially after I tried to sit down in the empty classroom and was promptly shooed out of the room by a woman who needed to satisfy her baguette and cafe fix. Actually that was my professor ( for now ). So with still an hour to kill I walked around the floor - which took me all of 2 min. When I returned though, lo and behold, I heard english being spoken. I was toren though - the whole point of taking an outside class was to improve my french, learn about the education system, and make real french friends. Going instantly to the group of Americans probably wasn't the way to do any of those things. I was scared of the class though and so I went - and thank god I did.
I'm pretty much going to need all the help in that class I can get. Not necessarily because of assignments or anything ( we aren't required to do anything - it's basically going to be independent study ) but instead for just understanding what's going on. I've been surprised at how easily you can tune out here. I mean - I've gotten good at switching into "thinking in french" mode but that just drains me even quicker. And one can definitely still daydream in french - even if it's in broken sentences and strange grammer. Anyway, not helping the fact is the professor I ended up with ( classroom changes sent me the american girls and so I stuck with their plan ) is considerably random and never writes anything on the boards. At least she talks slowly. It's just honestly, realllllly daunting. At least when I tune out at IES there is constantly somebody asking the prof. to repeat the main point. Here they actually turn their phones off in class, take notes ( consistently ), and never leave the prof waiting for an answer.
While I get to skip out on the work that the real students have to do I still have to do something although...I have no idea what that something is yet. I think that we american students are just a big burden and waist of space because I have to figure out some sort of project/paper to do for a grade. Apparently this involves direct contact with my lecture professor. Lecture professors in France, to learn you a little bit about the system I suppose, don't have offices. Or office hours. Or apparently, a plan.
Hopefully my friends at IES can clear this all up for me. I'm too scared to wander up to what's bound to be a scary, blundery, eccentric, french man that will be teaching my Iconographie class and tell him that " I'm american, I'm taking your course, I'm probably too lazy and too undereducated to do an "exposee" on the facade of the Cathedral in Amiens, will you please give me something to do so I can increase the stress in my life. " Apparently it's supposed to be something along the lines of a 5-7 page paper on some sort of topic....in french. Eeek!
Well Dominique is in Germany until Thursday so I spent the rest of my day drowning myself in mindless french television. Said mindless television is of course none other than reprocessed versions of classics like "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grade?", "1 vs. 100", "SupperNanny" ( which was actually....awesome ), and "Idol" ( Well it's called "Popstars" and it's basically "Idol" ). More importantly ( Mom this is for you ) - I watched the french version of the BBC wondershow.... "How Clean is your House?".
Mmmm. I should probably get going on the homework for my other school where I have no idea what's going on. :)
Ah, la france.
Oh and hey - If anyone is looking for a perfect account of true French cultue ... I just finished reading it : A Year in the Merde by Stpehen Clarke.
"Bonne Nuit" from Paris!
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