Monday:
A very "fun" day: in French, we started work on Le Rouge et le Noir, which, as I found out in the first five minutes, we were supposed to have finished during the break. I hadn't understood that: when she said, "we'll pick up with Le Rouge et le Noir after the break," I thought that meant that we would start it then. So this has been interesting, trying to catch up on the reading amidst the analysis of the text. Luckily, we're still doing at least every other class analysing poetry since it's the subject of the Bacs blancs (the practice for the end-of-year exams), so I'm not completely lost. The reading is going very slowly, however. I started Wednesday and I'm on chapter nine. Roughly one-seventh of the book. Not exactly what you'd call 'swimmingly,' but for my second language and for such a difficult text I'm trying to take it as a victory rather than a failure.
...I also quit Italian. There's no meaningful way I can participate in the course when the rest of the class is learning the subjunctive and I don't even know the indicative.
That's about it for Monday.
Tuesday:
The last rehearsal before Portes Ouvertes, which was Saturday (more in a bit). After practicing my bit opening the show, there was general agreement that it would be great when I opened the show because I have such a cute accent. Compliment? I still haven't decided. And then at the end of class, Julie happened to ask me how I was getting to the theater that evening. Theater? I asked.
"Yes, we're going to see a play. You didn't know about it?"
But luckily there was another student who couldn't attend, so I used her ticket. It was a monologue by Wallace Shawn called 'Fièvre' (original title/translation: The Fever), which was interesting in that I think I almost could have written it, a couple of months ago. Not in terms of style, of course, but in terms of subject. It was interesting; it either gives you a lot to think about, a lot to feel guilty about, or is insufferably annoying for trying to make you do so, depending on how you want to approach it. You can read it online if you search the title/author on Google; I did because I was curious how the French translation differed from the original. But it works better listening to it being performed. Very impressive: one actress speaking for an hour and a half without pause, barely moving from one spot on the stage. She wrung her hands a bit, and that was more or less it for movement.
Strange thing: I happened to see Fanny at the theater. She was there with her host family, her dad who's currently in Paris improving his French, and one of her dad's friends. Evidently the latter had helped with the translation of the piece, so she was able to get them all tickets. It was just such a strange coincidence to see her there. I guess it's a stranger coincidence that she's in France, in the same city and at the same time as I am, but even still, what are the chances of running into her like that? Small world.
Wednesday:
Honestly, not a whole lot. I embarrassed myself in History by not knowing who the commanding general of the US army was during WWI, but I made up for it by being able to explain isolationism and the Monroe Doctrine. So, not entirely bad. And I failed to mention this in the Monday paragraph-- I got back my first test in French, and the grade was 13. The French system runs from 0-20. The highest grade in my class was a 17, and the lowest was a 10. One of the English teachers later told me that on the French system, you will only rarely see grades higher than 17, and anything from 13 up translates more or less to an A on the US system. So not bad, for the first try. I'm pretty pleased with myself.
Thursday:
The schedule changed to include an extra hour of math every week, which I was thrilled about, as you can imagine. And my brain completely broke during Spanish. The class had gotten back projects that they'd handed in before my arrival, and I was supposed to be helping one of my friends correct hers. Her problem was that she had translated the French too literally, so the expressions she used didn't make any sense in Spanish. The trouble was, I didn't know some of the expressions she was using, even when she told me in French what she was trying to say. So, burnt out from the three-way translation, the language-processing center decided to mutiny and I ended up saying, in English, "So, I think I know what you did wrong," before I caught myself. This bodes ill.
Friday:
After school, I met Fanny in town in order to spend the night at her house. We went more or less straight to her house after dawdling a few minutes in a fabulous REI-like store in order to waste time before the bus arrived. Her host mother Catherine had another guest over who brought a bottle of ratafia with her, which I think is now my favorite alcoholic drink. Unfortunately, according to her, it's not something you can buy-- you have to know someone who knows how to make it, so chances are I'll probably never see it again. It's made from champagne, and it's sweet in a very pleasant way, not overpowering at all. It's also quite strong, but the taste isn't... I'll clearly need better vocabulary if I ever hope to be a sommelier. There was also leek tart as a main course, and Fanny's host brother made cigarillo cookies for dessert (the tubular kind you stick in ice cream).
Catherine has a cat named Kalinka, who is the polar opposite of my cat in temperament. She fell asleep on my bed and stayed there almost the entire night. It made me miss Roxie a bit (because while Roxie is a canine, she would actually do that. Puddy shuns my bed when I'm sleeping in it. In the afternoons while I'm at school, evidently, it's acceptable).
Saturday:
In the morning, Fanny and I took a walk around the neighborhood, which is very pretty and will be even more so in a few weeks after all the plants have come fully into flower. After that, I caught the bus to get to Vaucanson for Portes Ouvertes, where I completely screwed up my lines during the extremely abbreviated rehearsal, but managed to deliver them correctly for the actual performance. Evidently I was understandable, and I didn't stumble over the pronunciation, so I'm overall happy with how I did. The scenes themselves went really well, especially considering we had to replace one of the actors at the last second. Overall, a sucessful afternoon.
I went home for about an hour and then left again in order to make it to Fanny's house again in time to go to a concert. Her host father is a professional flutist, and he got us free tickets to a concert his orchestra was giving that evening. It was a beautiful performance: they did pieces by Mendelssohn, Chopin and Magnard. I hadn't been to an orchestra accompanied by a piano before; the effect is beautiful. I need better musical vocabulary too, evidently.
We got back to the house around ten and had dinner, and by the time that was finished, it was nearly midnight, so I ended up spending the night there. Fanny and I stayed up talking until two in the morning, and Kalinka slept on my bed again.
Sunday:
Catherine picked me up at ten from Fanny's house, and we went home briefly so that I could shower and change before we went out to Florian and Cristelle's for lunch. It was nice to finally meet them, after hearing so much about them, as well as their daughter Thaïs, who is impeccably behaved for being two years old. Their house is in deep wine-and-chateau country and the area around is simply gorgeous. We stayed out for the afternoon working in their garden and came home after sunset. When we got in, Catherine and Léa went to McDonald's, since Catherine didn't really feel like cooking, and I made myself sautéed potatoes and put curry powder on top, just because. She also offered me sardines since she had some in the house, so I tasted those for the first time, and they're actually quite good. I went to bed early since I hadn't slept much the night before and, on top of that, I had school today; thus I forgot to update the blog.
Monday:
Not a whole lot. We watched a presentation in the morning by Action contre la faim; evidently they're holding an event just before Easter break in order to raise money to fight hunger in Afghanistan. It's a pledge run, so now I need to find a sponsor...as well as sell tickets to raise money for the trip to London in May. The trouble is that not only do I not have any idea who I should try to sell them to (they suggested grandparents if we were stuck for ideas, but unfortunately my grandparents are on another continent), I don't have any idea what the tickets are for. So at the moment, I'd be trying to pawn off numbered slips of paper at two euros apiece. I'll ask the theater teacher tomorrow.
And in the afternoon during the two hours of free time between English and Theater, I took crazy pictures with Rachel, Lucille, and Coralie, which are probably going to end up on Facebook in the near future, but oh well. I was also forced to sing the first few lines of 'Angie,' because I was the only one that knew the lyrics (or the band that originally played it), as well as read the first paragraph of 'Hard Times' (I had to translate the word 'fact'). It was an interesting afternoon.
And that's about it for the week. 'Til the next!
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