The first couple of days at school have gone really well! This evening while I was floating around in my family's pool pondering the sunset (ohhhh luxury.....), I was struck by how fascinating it truly is to have students from so many different cultures and backgrounds together learning the same language. In my classes here, unlike in the US, you can't explain what you're failing to say in French by using English, because everyone doesn't speak English! In fact, frequently, the only way to communicate is in French because that's the only language that we share! In my class, we do have a fair number of people who speak English - from England, Canada, Whales, and the US - but we also have people from Japan, China, Cyprus, and Kuwait. This also makes for some interesting moments...Take today for example. In my grammar class, we were learning how to formulate arguments (at least I think that's what the point of the exercise was), and in order to do this, the professor divided us into groups and then gave each group a controversial figure. We were assigned roles as though we were in a courtroom trial that decided whether that controversial figure was allowed into heaven or not (works-based faith much anyone?). And my group got George Bush... I was the only American in my group, and somehow I managed to get assigned the part of Bush himself. The other people in my group absolutely detested him, but the funny thing was that they didn't really know why. I had to essentially coach my lawyer through Bush's domestic and foreign policies so that she could "defend" me at the gates of heaven. Needless to say, I was condemned to l'enfer. However, and oddly, Fidel Castro got to go to heaven??? Since most of the class is not American, they appreciate his healthcare and education policies and somehow manage to ignore all those other things he just occasionally did...you know like repression of basic human rights.
Anyways, best moment of the day, are you ready?? It has to be retold in dialogue form with a little bit of background information.
Scene: Classroom, small group discussion
Actors:
* Older Japanese man in socks with sandals, fanny pack, and fisherman hat who speaks French with some difficulty
* British dude who seems to get worked up about everything
The dialogue (now mind you, this is all in French):
Japanese man: Il y a des terroristes partout en Gros Bretagne, n'est-ce pas?
British dude: Il y a des terroristes partout le monde, pas seulement en Angleterre.
Japanese man: Mais, en Gros Bretagne, il y a beaucoup des bombes!
British dude: C'est pas "Gros Bretagne". C'est "Grand Bretagne".
Japanese man: Beaucoup de bombes partout en Gros Bretagne!
British dude: Non, il n'y a plus de bombes en GRAND Bretagne ou bien pas plus que dans les autres pays du monde.
Japanese man: Gros Bretagne est tres dangereux.
British dude: (suddenly in English with a very thick British accent) WHY WOULD WE CALL OURSELVES FAT BRITAIN??????
Mahahahaha....if you didn't get that, that's alright. I recommend Google's Babelfish to help.
And that about sums up my day at school. I really like my classes; they're quite interesting, and the homework is nill to none, which is fabulous. After school today, the William and Mary kids all went to our W&M professor's apartment to present on our research projects. I'm looking at French child-rearing and how it is a method of establishing the French identity. In order to do this, I have adapted/translated the Parental Authority Questionnaire, a psychological questionnaire that establishes parenting styles as authoritative, authoritarian, or permissive. I hope to give this questionnaire to the host parents in the other W&M homes to see what their opinions are as well as have some of my French parents friends fill it out.
I have to say, I love my French parents more and more every day. This evening, they went out to dinner with friends, and my French mom came back early to put the baby to bed. She came downstairs to my room, offered me ice cream, which I obviously accepted, and then we just sat around and chatted for an hour. THEN she goes into her office and pulls out back issues of a French magazine called PsychoEnfants...that's right she subscribes to a journal on Child Psychology. I now have 6 issues on my desk as well as a book about a well-known French child psychiatrist, AND she has a friend who's a child psychologist that she's inviting to dinner....... I really couldn't ask for better parents.
That's all for now! If you're bored, or perhaps just curious, you should check out my pictures from the beach excursion that we took to the Mediterranean Sea yesterday afternoon, where the water was a perfect temperature and the view was amazing.
