Much has happened this week and I am so excited to share photos and stories detailing my past week. To start off I gave to in class presentations this week (in French). One was for my history of France class on the topic of laicite (separation of church and state in France), and the other one was for my History of the Industrial Revolution. I think both presentations went well and I guess I'll see when I get my grades back at the end of the semester, which by the way is coming up so soon! I have about 3-4 weeks of classes and then a week or two long session of final exams, of which I only have two exams to take, and then I'm done! It's crazy how fast the semester has gone compared to the semester in Indiana, but it has seemed forever long for me. I think I'm to the point where I'd like to say "been there, done that, experienced it, let's move on".
I did not go to volunteering this week at the elementary school because they were having a carnival at the school this Wednesday and canceled the tutoring sessions. I did go to my family dinner and boy what a meal we had. First off I did my english lesson with the kids per usual and played some board games in english with the youngest to work on her elementary level voacb words. The older girl didn't have any english homework to do for this week so we just chatted about traveling and our favorite places we have visited in the world and where we'd like to travel some day. I really like her and we get along very well. The older boy did not want to do an english lesson for the second week in a row. Not sure what that is all about, but o well. I played Pictionary with the kids while we waited for dinner. We were supposed to play in english to finish out the lesson, but they reverted to French, which is natural and helped me to work on my French vocab recall skills.
For dinner we had a very nice green salad with all kinds of vegetables and avocado and olives and... we had some kind of "raw" fish egg and onion appetizer in bread crumbs. The mom asked me to just try it for her and so I let her put some on my plate, but when she went in the kitchen to grab some napkins all the kids dumped theirs back on the serving dish and told me to do the same. So I did. I was not about to eat fish eggs, fish pate is one thing but a no go on the fish eggs. I did try one of the onions and could just taste the fishy smell and was totally grossed out. For the main course she had made a curried rice and pea mixture and then baked an entire fish whole. She tried to offer me the head, eye balls intact, but I politely declined and select a piece from the middle. They put this hot creme on their fish and it was actually pretty good! Scales still intact but pretty good. I asked her what kind of fish this was cause I didn't think I'd ever tried it before and she told me she had no clue. Great. Just great. But it was good! For dessert we had fresh fruit with ice cream. After dinner the youngest girl likes to quiz her brother and sister over the vocab words I teach her from that days lesson. Of course they already know most of the words, but she loves to stump them or when they get one wrong. After dinner she likes to hang around me and whisper about the vocab quiz she gives her siblings, it's really cute. I get to pick the topic for the night and she quizzes them on the words. Every night at 9:30 she goes to bed, but has to have her brother or sister stand in the bathroom with her while she brushes her teeth. Hey, I can remember being freaked out like that before bed time too so I totally get it. I watched tv for a little bit with the brother and we chatted about the tv program we were watching in french. Every night when I leave their house to catch the 10:05 bus home he walks me to the bus stop and waits with me till the bus comes to make sure I'm safe. It's so cute. We chatted about my trip to Turkey (which is in about a week and a half) cause he is currently studying Turkey and parts of the Middle East in his geography class.
Thursday during my methodology course (my favorite class!) we received another graded assignment and I got yet another 6, which in the American grading system a C. Not ok with me and never before in my academic career of studying French or anything have I received grades like this, so I really doubt I'm all of a sudden lower grades worse than I've ever been in one class. I tried to talk with my professor after class to get more specifics of what is wrong with my writing and how I can improve it and if I can meet with him to work one on one. His response was that I should work with a French student to write my papers (to me that's cheating and not worth the risk), and then he told me that he doesn't have time with his busy teaching schedule to meet with me. Great so how do you constitute yourself as an educator? Cause right now you're educating me to be a slacker. Must be the French culture I have to blend into as an uncultured American student. So that night I right our program directors an email voicing my concerns about my grade and the class in general. They asked me to come in the next day to the office to discuss my concerns and comments. So the wonderful program directors I have are willing to meet with me once a week to review the papers I have gotten back, which they both agreed are not C worth papers, and at the end of the semester they are going to recollect our work and personally regrade everything. Seems like a lot of work, but you go for it if it means I can get the grade I deserve. They are pretty fed up with this guy too, and pretty embarrassed because apparently he's never treated a program class like this. I hate to say this but academics is more of a game of strategy then a game of learning from a text book. So I two can play this game: challenge accepted M. Santacroce.
I have found this really great website to watch new release movies online for free outside of the US! So this is my new obsession when I am not doing homework, and sometimes when I should be doing homework (mom and dad don't read that last little bit). I really miss having a tv or a radio to create background noise and having something to visually stimulate me. I am such an american and at first I was ashamed to admit all the silly things about the US I miss, but after being in France for 3 months and taking it all in, I am so PROUD to be an American and so ready to get back to that wonderful country I call home.
We are in the process of scheduling fall classes, which is one of my favorite points in the semester, my other is the first day of a class each semester to see who all is in your class and read through the syllabus. Then I just muddle through from there and count down the days till the first break, typical. I am currently going to enroll in a full load of classes to round out my two majors and minor and will have just a couple required classes to take in the spring, but should be able to make a pretty easy spring semester class line up. Right now I'm looking at taking a French literature class, a French history class, a European Immigration class, and a conversational Arabic class. I'm still waiting for the international studies department to post their courses for the fall to pick out one more class.
This weekend I went on two trips around southern France. Saturday I went to St. Paul de Vence and Antibes with the program students and directors, this is a prepaid trip through my program fee. We left at 8 am, which made for an early wake up call. The bus ride was about two and a half hours to get to Vence, but it was so worth it. Might be my favorite little village in France. We first went to a modern art museum. I love art, but modern art isn't my forte, and we couldn't take pictures so we didn't stay too long. Next we walked down the hill to enter the main city and I fell in love with this little city and it's winding cobble stone "streets" which were more like sidewalks. I had packed a lunch for the day knowing it would just be cheaper and I could eat whenever I got hungry. Cathy and I ate lunch on a rock ledge overlooking the valley below the city. It was a perfect day with gorgeous weather and lots of sun. St. Paul is also where Chagall, the artist, was buried but we couldn't find his grave. We bought gelato at a small ice cream shop and browsed through the shops till we had to head back to the bus to go to Antibes.
Antibes is a small city right on the coast of the Mediterranean Ocean. It was about an hour bus ride to get from St. Paul de Vence to Antibes. We were given the option upon arrival to either visit a Picasso museum or just go to the beach and stroll the city. I picked the beach. I went with a friend of mine, Josh. He luckily had a blanket with him so we sat in the sand and made a castle fort out of rocks and used chess pieces from his chess set he carries EVERYWHERE with him to be the king and queen and knights of the castle. Ya we let our imaginations go. Once we were done with the castle we walked down to the water to skip rocks. I had learned how to before but was never very good at it. I get two rocks to skip three times, I was pretty proud, and then I threw a rock down the length of the beach and completely missed the water. Josh gave me a hard time over that one. Cathy and our other friend Bri went to the museum first and then met up with us at the beach so we played around for a little bit longer and then went to explore the city. We didn't find too much to do but we were also limited on time. So with about 5 minutes to spare Josh bought a sandwich and we made our way back to the bus, late because of Josh and his sandwich. I was so tired on the trip back I slept most of the way.
Today I went with George, a tour guide that takes travel groups on trips to different cities in southern France for only 25 euro. We went to St. Marie, a little cliff city that might rival St. Paul for my favorite little village and Les Gorges, the grand canyon of Europe, but with water. We left Aix around 8:30 and it was yet another 2 and a half hour bus ride to St. Marie. France had their daylight savings time change this morning at 2 am so I lost an hour of sleep and was already pretty worn out from the day before. Our first stop wasn't on the itinerary but George knew there wouldn't be many places to get lunch in St. Marie so we stopped in a small town that had a Sunday produce market to buy lunch. I had packed my own lunch and snacks and was covered, but did not plan ahead enough to bring an umbrella. Luckily I could buy one at the market for 5 euro. I went to a small cafe with my friends Josh and Kevin to get a coffee to help wake us up for the day. We also found this really need creek/river that was a kayak training course and there were people practicing. St. Marie is a very very old mountain city in Souther France situated towards the southern base of the alps and is built into the cliffs and mountains. It was a windy road to get up to the city on very narrow streets. Unfortunately it rained most of the day but the view was so pretty at times it didn't matter that everything was cold and wet. I went with my two friends Lindsey and Kevin to explore the waterfalls while the rest of the group climbed part of the mountain to check out an old church. I did see a couple picnicing in a gratto to get away from the rain and they even brought wine glasses with them. In all the souvenir shops were chine with finely painted images and names. Apparently it's a special type of china that has been a tradition and icon for this small cliff village who started painting this china for Kind Francois I of France way back when. There wasn't a whole lot to do in the actual town just a couple cafes and souvenir shops, but the view could consume hours of time just taking it all inWe then got back on the bus to head to Les Gorges.
By the time we got to Les Gorges it was pouring down rain and very cold. George told us we could get off the bus if we wanted to in order to take photos, but we could stay on the bus if we wanted. I of course got off, didn't come all this way for nothing! The gorge and calanques (streams of water) were gorgeous my photos don't do the color of the water justice. It was breath taking to see it winding through the mountains in such a bright aqua blue color. We did not stay long indeed and ended up returning to Aix about 2 hours ahead of schedule, but no one really wanted to be in the rain. On the way back from Les Gorges to Aix we passed through the lavender fields of Provence. They most unfortunately are not in bloom nor will they be till mid June, so that one thing I will not get to see.
Well everyone, I have had one heck of a weekend and have another busy week ahead of me so I am going to cut this entry short without any observations on French society and culture, but will be sure to have plenty to say next week. Th-th-that's all folks!
