Au revoir Montpellier

My last few days in Montpellier were an absolute blur. I still stand my ground about my mean professor being mean mean really mean. On Wednesday in class I knew that we were having a test on oral comprehension, and it’s not exactly like you can prepare for that because you have no idea what specifically you’re going to be listening to. I actually joked with my French dad at dinner on Tuesday night that I was practicing my listening comprehension just by being with him at dinner and chatting. Anyway, we get into class, and the professor passes out a paper with questions on it – multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, etc. We then watch a short news clip, fill out the paper, rewatch the clip, and then fill in whatever we didn’t get the first time. I was so determined to get a better grade on this test than on the last one that I was taking notes in pencil during the clip and then going over them in pen. However, as soon as he calls time, he tells us that we are going to go over the answers. Wait, what?? We’re correcting our own tests?? Nope. He gave us a practice test without telling us it was practice…Who does that???!? I didn’t want to practice! You can’t practice listening comprehension!!! ARGH. So, clearly I was quite ticked when he passed out the actual test, and then a girl in the class raises her hand to say that she has actually already taken this exact same test. His response? “Oh well! Guess you’ll just get everything right this time!” Ummm, unfair. Ridiculously unfair. Bah. And the actual test was way harder than the practice one, of course, so practicing was completely useless.

Wednesday after classes I used up my final ticket for the Resto U and then two of my friends came home with me so that we could play in my pool! I had hoped that my baby French sister Raphaelle would be there so that they could meet her, especially since I had talked so much about her and Gabrielle during my presentation on Tuesday. Alas, she went to the crèche on Wednesday because her dad went in to work. For a couple of hours, we lounged around in the pool on the kiddie floats, which resulted in a few mishaps…I may have gotten stuck in a Barbie float…and one of my friends may have epically crashed off of the large pink float…But we had tons of fun! Sadly, neither of them had given their presentations yet, so they both had to go home to finish working on them fairly early.

Wednesday night, my French dad gained even more brownie points, if that’s possible. First of all, I have to tell this adorable story about Raphaelle, though. She now speaks “American” as her dad calls it. There is apparently no French equivalent to “uh-oh,” and I say it frequently without thinking when I am talking to her. If she drops something, I tend to say “uh-oh” and then hand it back to her. Well, after dinner on Wednesday, she dropped her pacifier, and I said uh-oh and handed it back. Then she says back to me, “uh-oh!” in her tiny cute French accent. Eeeeeek! And apparently she figured out when it was appropriate to use it because the next morning at breakfast, she dropped her bread on the floor, and without prompting says, “uh-oh!” Her dad whips his head around and looks at her. It was hilarious. I laughed and apologized for teaching her English. He laughed too and said it was fine – at least it wasn’t a curse word! Anywho, back to Wednesday evening - I was hanging out downstairs in my room after dinner (lasagna!!!), and he comes downstairs with a gifty…A full season of Grey’s Anatomy on DVD! YES! I watched like 5 episodes in a row before I went to bed. Love my French parents.

On Thursday, classes were alright. We watched a cool historical fiction movie that sort of reminded me of PBS or BBC versions of Jane Austen. After school, we had the final project presentations at Fauvel’s apartment. I have to say that most people’s projects were really interesting. I was particularly impressed by one girl who is studying to be a doctor and did her presentation on medicine in Montpellier. Montpellier is known for its herb garden, school of medicine, and biological research. Pretty cool.

After the presentations, we all agreed to meet at the fountain in the center of town, our favorite meeting place, for dinner together as a last hurrah, and we invited our W&M professor to come with us. We ended up at a cute little Italian place where I had spaghetti and this amazing mint chocolate ice cream and hot fudge dessert. Our waiter was really sweet, especially considering he was being relentlessly hit on by a slightly tipsy member of our group.

Several of us then went to an English pub called the Shakespeare to toast our time in Montpellier. I had a yummy apple cider before heading home fairly early since we had classes the next morning.

Friday was…interesting…we got our grades from our IEFE classes, and apparently my mean professor disliked me more than I disliked him. I had told Fauvel when I first spoke with her about how I was struggling with his teaching style that it wasn’t the grade that mattered to me but rather how I was perceived and the fact that I was having trouble learning because I was always so ticked off at him. Well….here is what he handwrote under my grade (which was an A- thank you very much):

« Peu de participation spontanée. Se situe dans la moyenne du groupe. Peu de progrès. Potentiel important, dommage qu’une attitude négative constante ait perturbé son travail, le mien, et surtout celui du groupe. »

Didn’t get that ? Here it is in English for you :

“Very little spontaneous participation. Situated in the middle of the group as far as level. Very little progress. Had great potential – too bad that a constantly negative attitude disturbed her work, my work, and especially the work of the rest of the group.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS??!?!?!!??! I was beyond ticked off for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him. I had even spoken to him about how his teaching style was a challenge for me, and I thought we sort of had an understanding. Clearly not. And he made similar comments for other W&M students in my class. And when we showed our comments to other non-W&M students in our class, they were floored. All of them agreed that we were nothing like that, couldn’t figure out where he had gotten that from, and told me specifically that I was one of the most active participants in the class! I had said all along that it wasn’t the grade that matter, and I was right. Even though I got a fine grade, I was beyond mad about what he had written. I am not that kind of student. It literally took me the rest of the afternoon and a good portion of the evening to get over that comment.

Moving on….Lunch on Friday was quite tasty. My friends and I ate a café that sort of reminded me of a Panera. Their prix-fixe menu was only 7,10 euros and it came with a big sandwich (I got ham, cheese, lettuce, and pickles with some sort of sauce), a dessert (chocolate cake!), a drink, and tea or coffee (I had tea). Yum!!

I was quite eager to get home because my French mom and Gabrielle had come back from Paris. I packed up most of my stuff and took a short nap before heading outside to hang out with them. Gabrielle had popped into my room requesting me, teehee so cute. She also convinced me to dig out my bathing suit from my suitcase and jump in the pool with her. I wished it could have lasted forever. My French dad was pushing Raphaelle around in her little floatie; Gabrielle and I were horsing around in the shallow end while my French mom watched. It was too fun. For dinner, my French dad had told my French mom that I really enjoyed the lasagna from when she was gone, so she got some more! Mmmmm. After dinner, we took lots of family pictures outside in the garden before I went into town to the Estivales to tell all of my new friends from the IEFE goodbye.

Unfortunately for me, most of them shared the idea of drinking to celebrate their departure…and I wasn’t interested in participating in that portion of the goodbye. However, I did find a really cute pair of earrings in one of the boutiques and hung out with some of my W&M friends who also weren’t drinking. Somehow, we managed to miss the tram back home by literally 30 seconds, so my friend and I walked all the way back home. Sigh. Oh the tram…who decided that it was good plan for it to only come every 30 minutes after 10:00 p.m.?