For this weeks blog I think I will encompass everything that has been happening for the past 2 weeks since my vacation with my mom, rather than make two very boring posts you'll have to trudge through I'll save us all and make it one long one.
So once my mother took off to return home to the US I spent the next couple of days trying to catch up on sleep and let my foot heal. I had my first French test in my sociolinguistics test and at the time thought it went pretty well. I had studied a lot for it and felt really prepared. I got a decently average grade, and am chalking it up to being not used to the French academic system. It's just scary to think that there are only 2 or 3 grades taken for each class and that makes up our semester grade. I went to volunteer this week with my friend Augusta. We really weren't in the mood to go, but knew that the school was depending on us to be there for the study period in the middle of the school day. When we got to the school and found the correct classroom, there were no students that needed help with English homework. Great... so we hung out for the required hour and spoke to the principal of the school for a while. He speaks French and Arabic so he taught me so cool word games in Arabic, such as palindromes. After my volunteer session this week I went to my host families apartment for dinner. I got to their apartment 30 minutes late because the bus system was very behind schedule. When I finally arrived to their front door of the building the mom and youngest daughter were leaving for an orthodontists appointment so I did a long review with the twins over their English homework and then they showed me photos from the vacation in Spain. I don't know if I mentioned this in a previous post, but there is a girl I know who has graduated from IU but went on the Aix-en-Provence study abroad program a couple years ago. I first met her because she lived in the same dorm I did freshman year. The year I was a freshman she was in France studying, but she lived in the global village the year before and after my freshman year so through mutual friends in the dorms we met. She was the first host student of my current host family. When my host family was on vacation in Spain they ended up meeting up with her in Madrid, where she is currently living and working as an English teacher. When I first heard that they knew Carmen my world became very small and it was weird to make this connection. When the mom and daughter returned from their appointment they told me the news that the boy and youngest girl will have to get braces in a couple weeks, so that was the topic of the night. They were all shocked to hear I had never worn braces. Sorry guys, it's true. For dinner the mom served mini cheese quiche like tarts and this incredibly disgusting fish pate on little pancakes. I like fish don't get me wrong, but I'm gonna need it to be cooked before I can eat it. Minced up raw fish on little pancakes is one thing I will not continue to eat in the states. We had a green salad as always and for the main course she had a rice and chicken with vegetables type mixture seasoned with middle eastern flavors. It was very good but some of the chicken was questionable to me. For dessert we had fresh strawberries and kiwi with creme and ice cream.
Speaking of food! This week I tried a new recipe. It is called strawberry stuffed french toast and it was sooooo good. This I will continue to eat in the US.
Of course we are continuing to have problems with our methodology professor. This past week we were assigned to write an introduction given the topic of logic of history (ya I'm not really even sure what that means...) I had a couple technical writing questions and just wanted to clarify some parts of the assignment, so as I have been trained to do at IU I emailed my professor with my questions about the assignment. I never got a response back. I told my program director about this situation and she told me to forward the email I sent to M. Santacroce to her to have on record and just my best with what understanding I have of the assignment. Apparently the program directors are planning to recollect all of our papers and regrade them at the end of the semester, more work for you but whateva! I get to class this past Thursday and our professor informs us that he did receive various emails from us students about uncertainty of the requirements of the assignment and told us that our emails are not of importance to him and he sometimes doesn't read them, so we shouldn't email him anymore because he won't be responding. He then tells us that in France the student teacher relation in conducted solely in the classroom and never by email or meetings outside of class. BS I'm meeting with another professor tomorrow to review over my Linguistics test. I think the program directors would like to fire this man, but know that they have already paid him the teaching fee and can't... darn it!
This past week I had a final exam, I know, it seems a little soon, but I already have classes that are ending in about 3 or 4 weeks and then the official final exams and I have a month left to travel and soak it all in and THEN I get to come back to the US. (Finally...)
This week I did not go to my volunteer because the girl i volunteer with had her boyfriend visiting and couldn't go therefore by default I couldn't go. Sweet! This past week during family dinner I finally met the dad of my host family. Apparently he doesn't usually come home till Thursdays to stay for the weekend, but this week he got to come home a little early. He didn't get home till 9pm though so I did my usual English lesson with the kids. I played guess who with the youngest daughter to review colors and basic vocabulary. She beat me... I helped the older two kids write a murder mystery for their English class and we talked for a little while about the differences between American and French high school systems to practice their English. For dinner we ate this ground beef egg roll type thing, not sure what it was but it was deep fried and good. We of course had a green salad again. For the main course we had this rice/pasta dish with a choice of chicken or steak. It was very good and may be my favorite dinner so far. For dessert we had chocolate cake with strawberries and creme. When the dad came home I said hello and the typical French fashion with bisous (kisses on both cheeks) and he went straight to his room to put his pjs on and came back to eat dinner. He wore this dress night gown type garb, which I presume to be very culture for him, but a little uncomfortable for me. He is definitely not French and you can tell. Their household is run as a middle eastern rigid home rather than a French household. The mom offered him some of the deep fried ground beef egg rolls and he proceeded to tell her he will not be eating those and to make him something else, and she did. Ok now if I were the wife here, he would have eaten the whole plate full and learned to like it. He shoveled his food into his mouth rather than eating it in bites from his fork, talked with his mouth full, and didn't give much regard to speak to me in French but rather wanted to practice his English. After dinner I usually sit around the dinner table and chat with the mom and the kids before having to catch my bus, but this time the dad was done eating therefore he would go watch tv and burp offensively. Let's just say it's a good thing he usually has to work in Paris on Wednesday nights.
This past weekend my roommate Cathy and I went to a sports recreation field to play soccer and frisbee with some of our other friends on the program, but went to this carnival that has been going on in Aix for a couple weeks. We met up with some French friends of our friend Alexa. We ate deep fried churros and walked around and watched people play stupid carnival games and considered going on a ride until we saw how expensive it was. 4 euro to go through the fun house: that is not fun. Cathy and Alexa ended up going for a round in the bumper cars and I got to hold everyone's stuff. Our friends never ended up showing up with the sports equipment to play soccer or frisbee so we decided to go home.
I have a couple big trips coming up soon!! This coming weekend I'm going on a prepaid program trip to a couple cities in southern France. In two weeks I take off for Turkey, and am super excited for that trip!!! Finally, Cathy and I are in the finally stages of planning our next big trip to Germany and Austria for a week. We'll start out in Colmar, a fairytale like city Disney used for inspiration in their films. It is located in the northern Alsace Lorrain region and right on Germany's border. From there we will take an over night train to Munich and spend a day or two in Munich and from there we will go to Salzburg, where we plan to take the Sound of Music tour and check out Mozart's home. Next we're going to Vienna, Austria for about 2 and a half days. Next we're spending a day in Dresden, Germany and then about 2 or 3 days in Berlin. It is going to be a very busy trip and we're doing a lot but I have always wanted to visit Germany so I'm glad we're going to make it so action packed. In Europe there are travel companies that offer really great discounts and passes to make travel cheap for students so we are getting a Eurorail pass that allows us unlimited travel on the rail lines for about a week in all three countries for one flat rate. We'll be staying in hostels, which are much cheaper than hotels and meant for student backpackers like us. So all in all it sounds like we're doing a lot and would be very expensive but all things considered it really won't be that bad. Granted I haven't budgeted for food and German beer, but we'll worry about that when the time comes.
I have a busy start to my week with two in class presentations, but the rest of my week is open and free, which will make for a nice change. We are in the process of signing up for fall classes so I can focus on that instead of actual school work.
That's all for now folks! until next Sunday!
