Yippee!

Done done done, and it feels so good - I just don't know what to do with myself!

I got through exams with the help of several chocolate bars and lots of kleenexes. You know, I never thought much of those little kleenex packs, but it's really handy to throw a bunch of them into the backpack.

Hard to believe the semester's done!

Now I'd better go before I die of thirst, since I already finished my water bottle, and before I drive everybody here nuts with this beautiful cough.

One down, two to go

Hi everybody!

The first and hardest day of exams is done. I came down with a cold Friday night and spent all day Saturday and Sunday studying reams of notes for today's four culture exams in four hours. The next two days are two exams each for French language courses.

Thank the Lord this cold isn't worse, or I would have been in misery this morning. But I hope you'll excuse me if I leave now, have to study for Tuesday and Wednesday, plus I'm running out of kleenexes.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone in the U.S.! And have fun together today, Ardith and the rest of the family. :) Think of your poor sister who's suffering through exams in France while you're partying during vacation.

Nah, on the other hand, don't feel sorry for me, I'll probably be visiting Paris and London this weekend.

My adventure with the Deutsche Bahn

Yes, I am very happy to announce that the train ticket problem has been completely resolved!

Here's the story:

I was going to visit two friends in Germany, one near Bremen and one in Leipzig. So I bought a bus ticket to Bremen (which I thought at the time was a flight, but enough of that), then hunted around the Deutsche Bahn (German national train) site for a ride between Bremen and Leipzig. What do you know, there was a discount that saved me 30 euros! So I took it, naturally.

It was supposed to come in the mail... which it didn't for a week, a week before I was to leave. This was probably because I simply gave my name for the mailing address and not c/o Jane Smith, which was pretty stupid of me. At my host mom's advice, I sent an email: to leave evidence of my problem, and to ask them to either send another ticket or cancel the first. Then several days before was finally able to get through on the phone (it was Easter weekend, what do you know) to someone in the right place, after trying several different offices. He spoke English decently well and explained to me that if the ticket didn't come, I could buy another one at the Bremen station, then after the trip send this second ticket back for reimbursement.

That sounded good to me. The ticket never came and I bought another, as I was advised to do.

I got back to receive the next day an email from the Deutsche Bahn informing me they had cancelled the first ticket. Oh no. That was perfect timing on their part - right before I had a chance to send back the second ticket! I wasn't sure they would refund the second if they had cancelled the first. But I sent my ticket anyway with an explanation, and copies of everything carefully filed away.

And waited...

...Finally, about a week ago, I was informed by email that the 30 euros had been refunded...

...And finally today it showed up in my account. Yippee! Of course I sent them a thank-you email.

What a victory! What a great way to end the week. :)

Oh, and one more piece of good news: for the flight to Buenos Aires in July, departure from Des Moines is as cheap as Chicago. Not hard to make that decision!

Back to the Sound of Music

Americans in France don't just get to translate the words, they also get to translate the notes.
Chords in French are lots of fun. Intead of plain old C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, you get do, ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do (I think that's how you spell them in French). I guess it's more sophisticated, but improvising on the melody becomes a lot more work. The key of the piece would look like si bémol mineur instead of G flat minor. I had to look bémol up, which is pretty pathetic. Anybody who knows two things about music could have figured that out.

The concert last Friday night finished extremely well: l'Ensemble Baroque de Limoges played la Symphonie no. 40 en sol mineur de Mozart. Your exercise is to translate the italics and find the piece. I'll give you a French 20 if you send me a link for a site with the music file, or a link for the music file itself... but of course that's just if you have nothing better to do. At least that way you would get to hear the music yourself.

Guess what I killed today?

Oops, that was yesterday - but 'today' sounds better in the title. Anyway I was planning to tell you about it yesterday, when it was still today... but I forgot.

It was a little after 6 a.m. and I was about ready to take a shower when what should pop out but a good-sized centipede! It started scampering around the tub and I just watched it for a while, working up the courage to squash something with so many long fluttery little legs and such a nice hard spiny body... ugh. (You can tell this moves me deeply since I'm overusing the italics)

My host mom informed me that it was just a vers de jardin (a garden worm), that they tend to come out in the spring through the bathroom and other strategic parts of the ceiling, as is often the case in old houses, and that it lives in the wood (how it can be a garden worm and live like a termite, I have no idea), which means it's not a dirty animal. Oh, that's such a comfort to know that leggy thing isn't a dirty animal. My reaction is still - ugh.

It was a comfort to hear that it won't be barging into my room. Supposedly.

Tomorrow you get a music lesson, French-style.

The countdown begins

To tell the truth, I have been counting down the days ever since I got here - but now it's less than three weeks!

Alistair is a young British guy spending the year doing research work at the University of Bourgogne, and he attends my church. Well, this Sunday two of Alistair's friends (Steve and Edward) were there on a visit, so they and some of the French young people of the church and myself all went out to lunch and spent the afternoon doing things like drinking tea and eating Tiramisu and walking by the lake. I enjoyed speaking English for a change and especially enjoyed British humor... more jolly-ness than the usual French social get-togethers!

This week will be full of studying for exams, which take place on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week - the last three days of May. So there won't be much exciting to report.

J'adore cette langue

Despite going to a concert last night, I did wake up long before noon, so I came back to the university today to enjoy a little tranquil Internet time, and of course to post the answer - it's in the comments of the preceding post.

French is beautiful but it can sometimes be annoying. Here's a paragraph from last night's program, desribing the accomplishments of Christophe Coin, director of l'Ensemble Baroque de Limoges:

Egalement professeur, Christophe Coin est chargé des cours de violoncelle baroque et de viole de gambe au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris et à la Schola Cantorum de Bale. Il participe tous les ans aux Acamédies Internationales de Granada et d'Innsbruck et donne des masterclasses dans différents conservatoires français.

That's nearly English. You can understand it. Here's what I want you to notice:

Egalement professeur, Christophe Coin est chargé des cours de violoncelle baroque et de viole de gambe au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris et à la Schola Cantorum de Bale. Il participe tous les ans aux Acamédies Internationales de Granada et d'Innsbruck et donne des masterclasses dans différents conservatoires français.

You see, they can't just say "Christophe Coin directs baroque violoncello courses..." - they have to say "Christophe Coin has charge of courses of baroque violoncello..." I could have dug up a more extreme example.

Let's face it, French is wordy. It has lots of ofs, and lots of passives: e.g., the above verbal construction est chargé de (has charge of) instead of simply dirige (directs) or enseigne (teaches). Furthermore, a French person will often repeat the same phrase two or three times for no apparent reason... maybe for emphasis, maybe to taste again those words he (or she) so masterfully strung together. Didn't you know it's elegant to speak and write like that?

In English, you're guilty of murder before the WEP (written expression police) if you say something like this:

This girl, whose brother plays on the highschool soccer team with my brother, plays the piano.

But that's how you do it in French.

Culture experts and culture books always told me that conversation is an art for the French. I think maybe they just like words, spoken or written.

No doubt that French is a little wacky, at least to an English speaker. But I'm going to miss it. J'adore cette langue.

Beloved Friday

I was thinking about going to Paris this weekend (doesn't that sound great?.... 'oh, maybe I'll run up to Paris on Saturday'), but changed my mind just a few hours after a friend lent me the metro map. Just too tired. Every evening has been occupied: opera, Bible study, cinema, tonight a baroque concert that I very much want to attend, and I just don't feel like getting to bed around midnight and getting up before 5 a.m. to get ready and take the train.

Important notice: tomorrow Ardith moves to her new house! Everyone should wish her a happy moving day. My family will be heading down to help her out, so she'll have her own personal moving van and her own personal crew of workers to cart all those millions of books and DVDs she's collected.

Oh, my brothers and sisters will never believe this, but just guess what I ran into on television last Saturday night! I'll give you all weekend, unless of course I happen to wake up before noon tomorrow.

Education à la française

A while back Daddy sent me the link for this article (two-page from NYT, you may need to sign up to read) which discusses the state of higher education in France. You might be interested in reading it if you haven't already.

My personal observation and discussions with French people agree with this article. I'll run the risk of sounding like a typical American and French-basher to say that French education would scare me away from living in France - especially with a family. From the age of five or six on, French children have to make school their career if they want to succeed. Problem: there is no guarantee they will succeed, if success equals obtaining a job (notice the lack of modifiers for this last noun, such as 'rewarding', 'well-paying', 'interesting', etc.)

But what else do you expect when you have free university education? Apparently, some people expect a lot, such as this fine fellow: At Nanterre, Alexandre Frydlender, 19, a second-year student in law and history, complained about the lack of courses in English for students of international law. But asked whether he would be willing to pay a higher fee for better services, he replied: "The university is a public service. The state must pay."

I'm sure he meant to say, "The university is a public service. The citizens must pay. Let's raise the taxes!" Which will include him too... unless he prolongs his nearly-free education indefinitely. There's a French expression that hits the nail on the head: vouloir le beurre et l'argent du beurre = to want the butter and the butter money - that is, wanting to have at the same time the butter and the money one would receive for selling it. Except, obviously, you can't have both. I'm thinking that free education and quality education may be another such case.

To study is a right, not a privilege. What do you think of that? (I'm especially anticipating the comments of my brothers and sisters - especially my younger brothers and sisters - okay, so all my brothers are younger than me anyway...)

A night at the opera

Yesterday after spending most of the day in class, I rushed home (well... walked at a good clip) and ate supper and got all dandied up in about three minutes for the opera. I had bought the ticket the day before with the special culture card for students that lets us get in anywhere for no more than 5,5 euros - provided there are places left. The opera was playing in le Théatre Vaillant, which is three minutes' walking distance. Extremely convenient!

My seat was in the third balcony. Maybe that explains why it got a little warm near the end. The only other problem was that, if I sit correctly in the seat, I'm just a little too short for my feet to rest on the 'floor', so near the end of two-and-a-half hours my knees were starting to tell me about it.

The opera was Eugene Oneguine, by Tchaichovsky, here's a little description in Wikipedia.fr. Sorry, my Google page is automaticcaly google.fr. I will leave it to you to translate or find the English or do what you like. The story was a little stupid, like all operas, but then that's just my personal opinion; and then it was a lot simpler than the storyline of Carmen, so it will stick in the memory better. The music was quite beautiful, but then what else would you expect - it's Tchaichovsky.

What I did this weekend

Not too much, actually. Saturday I slept in a little and discovered that 10:00 a.m. on Saturday is a bad time for the post office, not to mention FNAC (where they sell all kinds of technology and DVDs and tickets for concerts). So instead I took the bus to Carrefour to stock up on dark chocolate (aren't I just like my mother?) and other cheap and handy snacks for those days - like today, what do you know - when we get theoretically 30 minutes break but between one class going late and walking between buildings and chatting, maybe 5 to 10 minutes to pause and munch something, and that's all the lunch break before 5 hours of class (if you're ridiculous like me and choose to follow all the courses).

Saturday afternoon I happily walked to the university for some free time on the Internet. It was still sunny. When I arrived, all the critical buildings (read: all the buildings providing WiFi access) were closed. It started raining. Fortunately I have learned by now to always carry an umbrella. I made up for it later that evening by going to see a Korean film which would have been good except it disappointed me excessively by forcing me to close my eyes during two scenes. I think I just don't trust movies anymore. I'll take a little break till the DaVinci code, which a friend and I are going to see sometime next week. She's read the book and I haven't.

Sunday I went to church as usual, and afterwards out to Flunch with three other friends from church. Then, because I've already been in France three months and haven't been proposed to by any dashing French guys yet, I decided to come along with them to the singles group. (Okay, that isn't all true - you can delete the middle part). It was a little conference on communication aimed at singles at least 30 years old, but there were some couples as well. But I think I was the youngest one there. Mostly it was two-and-a-half hours of discussion, so I'm glad I went because it was good practice for our controle de compréhension orale on Wednesday.

That evening a Swiss student arrived to stay for two weeks, so I had supper with her and we spoke mostly French and some German and English, and she tried to talk to me in Swiss German but I couldn't follow it very well... it really is different.

Caution

When walking on a French sidewalk, watch out for:

Gifts the dogs have left
Cigarrette smoke

When walking under trees, watch out for:

Gifts the birds leave (yep, one got me in Paris)

Crossing streets used to scare me. Now it's an adventure - let's see how soon I can cross and how often I can do it on a red no-walking sign. No, don't worry, I don't run (much of) any risks, but then it doesn't take anyone long to figure out that if you follow the signals for pedestrians, you are going to have to wait twice as much. The key is learning how the traffic lights and the pedestrian lights don't synchronize, and more importantly, how much of a time lapse you have at each intersection - because no two are alike.

I hear it's much worse in Greece. Some girls from my class who traveled there during spring break informed us that Greek drivers drive as if pedestrians don't exist - even if they're right in plain sight. I just thought you might like to know in case you're planning on visiting Greece soon.

[Intermission: if I am forced to cut this post short soon, it is the fault of some sharp continuous ringing sound that is about ready to puncture a very fine hole in my eardrums]

... Believe it or not, I was going to post this yesterday. The first ringing stopped, then one minute later an alarm went off for the fire drill. So we all had to exit, but fortunately I saved the post first. Then after ten minutes of waiting and chatting, I came back into the building only to discover that my Internet connection didn't work, as it occasionally has the quirky habit of doing if I disconnect and then attempt to reconnect soon after. Tant pis. Too bad.

Germany

Oh, I bet you thought I was finally going to tell about spring break, didn't you? Actually the title is just to inform you that Friday about 25 minutes before class isn't the time to tell you about a week's worth of vacation, and I won't be here Saturday or Sunday. However, good news: I just realized how I can paste from an editor into here. In Edit HTML mode, not Compose mode. I guess that's the most obvious thing in the world, but hey - still a victory. Now if I want to post something extremely long or complicated, I can type it at home and post it whenever. How great is that!

Bon week-end, tout le monde!

Exam training and other Thursday joys

This morning we spent our two hours of Written Expression doing just that - writing a dissertation, to practice for the final (and to get a grade). It was only five paragraphs: introduction, thesis, antithesis, synthesis, conclusion; so not too difficult. If the final exam is similar, it'll be a breeze. I even had five minutes to re-read and add a missing 'r' and fix a few words.

Afterwards, when I tried to boot up my laptop (wow - I almost forgot the word! - almost said ordinateur or portable), it seemed that my keyboard and 'mouse' had decided to take a vacation. That was pretty scary! But it was just being quirky. A nice refreshing little plunge into the darkness of computer unconsciousness fixed everything.

There is a lot of noise coming from the front of the building, the other end... I think they're having some reception, saw a lot of wine glasses set out earlier.

Well, I really don't know what to do with myself now that I have a whole afternoon and no homework to do for tomorrow. Maybe I will start studying for finals, after some other lightly pressing business. Of course, we do have those three controles next week in Oral Comprehension, Stylistics, and Grammar. And then the week after is the last week before finals. Incidentally, there will be another holiday that Thursday. I should find out what it is.

It is finally sunny and blue skies today! It was like that this morning starting before 6 a.m. when we were still in bed, then changed its mind during class, then finally improved again during lunch. Do you think we have finally turned the corner? Do you think I can finally mail my winter coat home? (well, I haven't worn it for over a week, guess it's safe)

This has been Thursday's pre-2:00 p.m. report. Y'all have a lovely day now! (And don't tell anyone I'm an American northerner saying that in France.)

The day after (the big project)

I've decided to not organize all my photos till I get back. It's fun to do, especially adding commentary, but not when I have exams in two and a half weeks. That said, most of the semester's work is done, feels good to have a little loose time! Now, if it would just quit raining, I could happily spend hours and hours outside studying. They say we need the rain. I say it has been a very long winter and a very cold and rainy spring and we need some sun.

Today we would normally have three hours of class: two hours of Oral Comprehension and one hour of Stylistics; however, last week these courses were cut short due to our professor's doctor appointment. In fact, we didn't do any O. C., so we should get plenty of that in today's four or so hours. As long as it's not a controle day, the class is fun and interesting, especially since I just realized that I understand a lot more now than at the beginning of February.

Yesterday Sarah also gave her oral presentation - on elderly people in France. She visited a home for retired people where they had an 'American' day, and she discovered that the stereotype for Americans there was cowboys. Only the French say it very differently, in fact, I can't even recall it exactly to try sounding it out for you.

Then Bo (an American student in our class, William) became un Western for the rest of the day because he tried using 'Western' as an adjective to describe Western (versus Eastern/Asian) customs. But of course, a Western is a cowboy film - the adjective he wanted was occidental. Our professor had fun with that one, especially since he had us for the next class as well!

Bonne journée!

Happy Tuesday!

I gave my exposé today and it went WELL! Praise the Lord! 70% of the semester stress vanished around 11:45 a.m. today. Not to mention my professor thought it would be worth about a 16 (on the 20-French-perfection-scale).

It's late, so I hope you'll excuse me for skimping on this post and going home for supper, especially if I leave you with two pictures from vacation.

At Mareika's in Sandburg

With Doreen in Leipzig

Five minutes on Friday

Well, as usual, by the time I've gotten to the university and taken care of my other business online - which today was mostly reading the family's blogs, reading my emails, downloading everything too long to read, trying to track down a mailing address for the Deutsche Bahn in order to resolve this ticket story which I'll be delighted to recount to you once it's done - there isn't much time left to post.

No problem, there isn't too much to tell. This morning I finished copying the 4th dissertation that we have to hand in for Written Expression. Our professor moved the date from yesterday to today - today is actually Grammar. Grammar is just about my favorite class, maybe because it's the easiest and most varied.

This morning I also tried some 99% chocolate. Mmm! Lindt really makes it too smooth, not very strong in my opinion.

Tomorrow Anja (a student from the Netherlands) and I are taking the 15-euro Saturday train to Paris to see Montmartre and whatever else we have time for.

Monday is a holiday, so I may not post before Tuesday.

Bon week-end!

(yep, that's really truly French. If you say <<Bonne fin de semaine>>, "end of the week" literally, it means Thursday and Friday, not Saturday and Sunday.)

Five minutes on Friday

Well, as usual, by the time I've gotten to the university and taken care of my other business online - which today was mostly reading the family's blogs, reading my emails, downloading everything too long to read, trying to track down a mailing address for the Deutsche Bahn in order to resolve this ticket story which I'll be delighted to recount to you once it's done - there isn't much time left to post.

No problem, there isn't too much to tell. This morning I finished copying the 4th dissertation that we have to hand in for Written Expression. Our professor moved the date from yesterday to today - today is actually Grammar. Grammar is just about my favorite class, maybe because it's the easiest and most varied.

This morning I also tried some 99% chocolate. Mmm! Lindt really makes it too smooth, not very strong in my opinion.

Tomorrow Anja (a student from the Netherlands) and I are taking the 15-euro Saturday train to Paris to see Montmartre and whatever else we have time for.

Monday is a holiday, so I may not post before Tuesday.

Bon week-end!

(yep, that's really truly French. If you say <<Bonne fin de semaine>>, "end of the week" literally, it means Thursday and Friday, not Saturday and Sunday.)

Herzlichen Gluckwunsch zum Gerburtstag!

Happy 15th birthday, Derek! (yesterday) I hope you don't mind that I thought you were 16 when I wrote the card?

La rentrée

In other words, back to class after two weeks of vacation and one Monday of Labor Day. Next Monday is another holiday - Memorial Day, I believe. A lady from my church told me that last year, both of these holidays fell on Sundays (always the 1st and 8th of May), so there were no extra days off. Personally, I prefer our system - spread out in the year and always on Monday - we are always guaranteed time to celebrate the holiday and reflect on the reason behind it. (of course, in the case of Labor Day, it's just a day of rejoicing in not working!)

I'm working on organizing my pictures from Germany... when that's done, I hope to bring you some vacation stories. However, till then and till next Tuesday there is plenty of work waiting for me... and tonight there's supper, so I'm sure you'll excuse me if I tell you that it's 6:45 p.m. and I still have a half-hour walk home and have not eaten much since breakfast around 7 a.m. and am getting pretty hungry...

Happy May!