Les etudes a l'etranger

I don't want to seem like a whiner, so I'm going to start this post with happy things and then gradually ease into less happy things. I am going to see the French National Orchestra tomorrow night in Montpellier, and the ticket only cost me 6 euros!!! EEK! Annnnnnd, the fireworks last night for the French national holiday, Bastille Day, were amazing. A couple of my friends and I went out to see the ones put on by the town of Montpellier, and I was quite impressed. There were several kinds of fireworks that I'd never seen before including heart-shaped ones and purple ones!! Also, today, I had the most hilarious conversation with my 5-year-old French sister. She and I were drawing together in her room, and I was drawing pictures of my kitties for her. I was trying to tell her that one of the cats, Pearl, is very fluffy...but that's not exactly a vocab word you learn in French class, so I had to ask her how to say it. Impressively, she figured out what I was trying to say. Gabrielle has actually gotten quite good at being able to help me figure out how to say things in French that I don't know how to say, and it's become a bit of a game. This time, though, I tried to explain to her why I didn't know what the word for fluffy was. I told her that I learned French in school the way that she learns English, and that at my house I speak English, not French. She seemed to get that. However, when I told her that my mommy doesn't speak any French at all, her eyes got huge.

Gabrielle: "Your mommy doesn't speak French? Not at all??"
Me: "No, she only speaks English."
Gabrielle: "She only speaks English? She doesn't understand any French????"
Me: "No, not really."
Gabrielle: "Oh! So that's why you only speak English at your house? Because your mommy doesn't speak French?"
Me: "Mmmm, no. No one speaks French where I live. Everyone speaks English - the teachers, the doctors, the salespeople, everyone."

:stunned silence:

In fact, she found this occasion so momentous that she bounced into the kitchen to tell her dad a few minutes later. Hilarious.

However, much less hilarious is the amount of work that I seem to have mounting up. I have a test on Friday, 60 lines due on Saturday, a 2 page paper due Saturday, and a 15-minute oral presentation due Tuesday. While I appreciate that I am getting 9 credits for a summer study abroad program...I am really struggling with how hard it is to earn those credits. My research project is driving me nuts and is taking away from my actual experience in France. I spent hours yesterday, Bastille Day, working in my room on my computer instead of hanging out with my French family. I also feel guilty about constantly hounding people to fill out my surveys so that I can do the project.

And, aside from the research project, my classes at the University make me want to rip my hair out sometimes!!! I guess I expected to take classes similar to those that I take at William and Mary in the French department - essentially classes in history, culture, or literature of France and the Francophone world that are conducted in French. Much to my dismay, though, I seem to be taking high school French all over again, only at a much more nit-picky level. Today, it was all I could do not to cover my head and scream. In my first class, we did listening comprehension. That's right listening comprehension on a CD...like I used to do in French 3. While I will admit that it was much more challenging than French 3, I felt like it was a pointless activity. I do listening comprehension daily at home with my French family!! Why are you making me listen to a newscast and answer questions??? I do that after dinner every night!! Teach me about history or something!! Then, in the next class, with my favorite mean mean mean professor, we did something I detest even in English - creative writing. Ummmm.... EWWW! I have no desire to write a pretend story about a woman whose body was discovered in a metro station. Don't care. Don't even want to pretend to care. Bahhhhhhhhh. Talk about study abroad with an emphasis on the study part....