Day 26: Ups and Downs

26 septembre 2009 (Day 26)

Well today has been quite the ride! I slept and checked my email. That was a mistake. I found out that some of my friends broke up which made me really sad, especially since I couldn’t be there for them. I went for a run to vent my emotions (mile repeats). I then took a quick shower and headed off to the market, still in a somber mood. I bought a baguette from my baguette lady. I splurged and got myself a galette (buckwheat crepe) with sugar for breakfast. My favorite fruit vendor made me smile yet again. I bought a whole bunch of pears and then they gave me a strawberry to try. Needless to say, I spent 2,50E getting the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted in my life. They really are just so delicious. One of the guys there really likes me since I am American, so he gave me about 7 plums as a “cadeau” or present. They really are my favorite, they have me hooked. I also bought some carrots and bananas at two other vendors. On the way to the market I looked up from my intensely distracted reading of Harry Potter in French and noticed a giant community yard sale going on along the banks of the river. I stopped there on my way home. It was well worth it. It was fun to see all the things people were selling. I ended up buying four scarves for only 6 euros (quite the deal). One is a dark raspberry color and another is green. One is an “old lady” scarf with flowers (it even smells like an old lady) that I bought for a euro. The last scarf is multicolored that I got along with a new shirt.

I came home and ate one of my leftover hot dog/sausages and some pear cake. They really are such good hot dogs! I cleaned up my room and by this time my throat was hurting a lot. It was bothering me a little when I was out on the town, but I thought that was because I didn’t have my water bottle. I did some homework, but my palentine tonsils were quite red and my throat hurt so I took a quick nap.

I was doing more homework after dinner when Brooke started chatting to me online. She is a friend from Utah State who is also in France studying. We ended up planning our fall break. We are going to meet up in Geneva, Switzerland and then fly off together to Stockholm Sweden with her friend who lives there. We are going to spend about a week in Sweden (possibly hopping over to Norway) and then flying back to Paris (this ticket only cost $33). I am really really really really excited that I will get to go on this big adventure with a good friend and a tour guide! It will be so nice to not have to pay for a hostel and have a local who knows where what is. So this has just been a roller coaster day of ups and downs: sad news from home, friendly people, great deals, feeling sick, and going to Sweden!

Day 25: A Little "Gout"of Everything

25 septembre 2009 (Day 25)
Before I forget, I need to recount my favorite part of yesterday. There is a boy from Vietnam in my classes and yesterday before our class he told me (in French) that “La vie est belle” or “life is beautiful” and that it is always like that for me because I am just always so cheerful and happy. I really appreciated that. He is a nice kid and actually speaks French very well.
And back to today…
I woke up long before the sun showed its majestic red self (it is always reddish/orange when the sun rises here). I scurried off to my oral class. We have been practicing argumentation. Mme Sanson said I did a good job on my paper (I was the only one she didn’t have something negative about it to say) and we continued to practice finding themes and questions in statements. There was one regarding marriage. I asked about PACS which is kind of like a marriage, but “more equal” and can be a hetero- or homo- sexual couple. Anywho, that opened a huge pack of worms. Karen, who is a very fierce married Catholic latina was up in arms about the idea of marriage not being a big deal. She then continued to try and argue with Mme Sanson who claims no religion and is in a PACS. Karen kept on repeated the same ideas over and over and none of us could figure out her point. Our teacher tried to point out that it is a cultural difference, but Karen still continued to tell us about how everyone is baptized and Catholic in Colombia(?). This seems to be a frequent thing, arguing with the professors. We have truly embrassed the adage that “The French have a lot to say about nothing.” (Or something thereabouts).
We had some of our other classmates join us in theatre today (You choose 6 credits that are from a variety of classes that aren’t obligatory). We worked on memorized and pronouncing. Boy am I bad at memorizing! It was a fun class though. I had lunch again with Anana, a girl from Ghana. She is super nice, but very articulate in her critiques of things. She likes making interesting comments. None have been as interesting as the one’s I have heard about my big 1L stainless steel water bottle. One woman asked me if it was coffee, and my History teacher joked today that it was whisky. But Anana and I had a delicious lunch of chicken cordon bleu.
History was awesome again as usual, because, “Historians propose interpretations, nothing more” as does Monsieur Touvron. He just knows so much! We talked a lot about the Tiers Etat. I learned that monsieur comes from mon sieur- which is “my lord”. I also found out that if you meet someone with a du/de in front of their last name that means there ancestors were most likely noble and kept that du/de which signals that one is noble. I also learned about the triangular commerce that occurred between Nantes, Africa, and the Americas.
I went to a “welcome tea party” for foreign students before the relief society barbecue. I talked to some Frenchies and found the equivalent to an E.L.F.udge cookie in France. This of course took me 2 cookies and 27 minutes later to realize, but that is okay because I adore ELFudge cookies.
After the welcome party (that didn’t have any tea I might add) I hopped on the tram to go to the Relief Society Activity. We had a little lesson and then we ate. But before we ate, I got to talk/mostly listen to missionary work! Isabel brought a friend from her work who is interested in the church. I got to see Isabel’s hostess mom at work being a real missionary! She answered her questions and told about her own conversion and why she believes. I even got to help answer some of her questions, and oh I did badly. I didn’t know how to respond to “Why is Christ going to come again” to someone who knows nothing about the church, let alone in French! I have a long way to go before being a great missionary, but I am really excited because this woman is interested in learning more and is going to meet with the missionaries! It is so exciting! I am also thinking of bringing Anana to church sometime. She said she was a member of some Baptist-protestant-something else church, but she doesn’t smoke or drink, she believes in Christ, marriage, and a little bit of the spirit too I think. I hadn’t even thought of asking her, but we started talking about religion during oral French when Karen was on her tangent about religion. I am also thinking I could maybe introduce M. Touvron to the church a little. I don’t know how well that would boil over, because he is very analytical and I’m guessing atheist. But he is super into genealogy, so I think that could be an “in” with him to at least introduce the church a little although I don’t think he is quite ready for it yet.
I ate so much food! I had a little “gouter” or taste of everything. There was couscous, rice with tomatoes and corn, tomatoes, some sea food salad, something that I don’t know what it was, and “real” sausages/hot dogs. They were really good! I actually enjoyed them a lot a lot. And following tradition, we had cheese after because that is “what you do” after having saucissons in France. It was all really good cheese as well. They had this word game that they played. It was so rowdy and lively, it was a lot of fun to watch. Afterwards we had dessert…yummy. I had LOTS. But I had to try everything! I had something that reminds me of german pancakes with fruit in it, an apple tart, pear cake (I need to learn how to make it!), chocolate cake, and so on. Isabel brought cookies which everyone were raving over (they were so so). You see, there is this tragic flaw about the French, the do not know real cookies. There was a young woman who asked me if I knew how to make cookies and if I could show her. I just laughed. If she only knew how often I make cookies. I could do it without the recipe or measuring utinsels, but it will be interesting trying to make cookies here because the brown sugar is different, as well as the ovens and the altitude. After all our delicious desserts we played murder in the dark. It was so amusing, because when they turned off the lights everyone was screaming with fright like little school girls; and it was the Relief Society! Everyone is so nice here; they gave me four “hot dogs” to take home, as well as a ride most of the way home. It was much appreciated since I don’t like being on the tram by myself at night. Now I am completely stuffed, tired, yet content, hoping that my stomach won’t rebel against having eaten so much today, especially all that sausage.
French word of the day: vilain (adj) no, this is not an evil person. Vilain is another way to say “ugly” in French.

Day 24: Grammar

24 septembre 2009 (Day 24)
Ah, there is nothing like waking up early for an appointment…with the laundry room. Before the sun had risen I had stuffed a significant amount of laundry into the itty bitty washing machine. My morning continued to be leisurely as I was on my computer, read, did yoga, and ate. Eating was quite the adventure, as the kitchen was locked. There was a sign that said why it was locked. I thought this sign said, “Closed due to water fight” (I only found out later when I had a dictionary that it was a water leak). Alas! How does one make oatmeal without a kitchen? With bowl and measuring cup in hand I peered up and down. I then made my sneaky descent into the kitchen on floor three.
We didn’t get anything done today in writing. Our teacher kept on digressing and then someone went on a soap box about wanting to learn more grammar which led to (at least) an hour long discussion about it. Needless to say, the grammar that we were doing didn’t get done (we corrected about 10/40 exercises). Oh the joys of level 5! The philosophy with level five is that you know everything and you just need a little push out the window to get you speaking and writing like a pro. Thus the conventional workbook and “today we are talking about this grammar principle” are thrown out the window, which gets the water to a full boil.
So once upon a yesterday Mari figured out that there was a track behind her building. The next day she threw on her running gear and went to the track. The track made her happy, it was home. There was even a fast runner running with his shorts safety pinned because the slit went so high. This made her smile, as did the sight of hurdles. And man, were they ghetto hurdles, but Mari was still content to have a track in her backyard. She had a great workout plan 2x100 meters of hurdles followed by 1x300m sprinting. Yet by the 7th repetition, while hurdling, her calf would spasm each time her foot made contact with the ground. This was quite painful, so Mari had to stop running. This made her sad. Her legs hurt a lot so Mari walked to the store and bought some bananas and chocolate chocolate chip cookies. She also bought a baguette for the man who was begging that she would pass for the fourth time that day. Mari tried the cookies. They tasted deliciously like America, and 12 whole cookies for only 60 centime (cents)! That night, Mari ended up eating 1/4 of the cookie box, but it made her feel better. The end.
I have somehow done absolutely no homework today. I seem to have gotten sidetracked looking up grammar. My problem with grammar is Mme Cherafoui uses the grammatical terms to describe things which I do not know. Thus I started making a handy dandy chart for us Anglophones so that I will never again wake up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat, smack my forehead and exclaim that I don’t know grammar...because it will all be there, on that single page on my computer.

Day 23: Asterix and the Queen of the Theatre

23 septembre 2009 (Day 23)
Well, I woke up and did yoga this morning, got ready for the day, and then went and got frustrated at the library. I had some assignments to print off, and needless to say, the French aren’t very organized. I kept on getting sent back upstairs and then downstairs. Luckily, a nice student helped me since the lady at the desk wouldn’t help me. Long story short, you have to go to the library to get a bar code on your student card (ghetto I know- the student card you stick your own little photo on). You have to have a separate card for copies (which is more advanced than the student card- sad). They are in the stone age here. I also went to the Pole Etudiant (student center) to have my student password changed. I am so glad that Utah State has technology and common sense, as well as a library that is open. The university library is open from 9am-7:30pm on weekdays. I guess the French aren’t too into studying.
In French culture we talked about a popular comic in France, Asterix. Asterix la bede (or bande dessinee or comic strip) began in 1959 by Gosscinny and Reservo. Asterix is a comic about the Gauls and has been translated into over 100 languages. Mme Rialland spent a lot of time explaining the “second level” comprehension of the comic. There is a lot of adult humor, that is to say lots of francophone jokes in regards to people and history that only people who know will get. We also got into a raving argument about the French and bathing. The Latinos are completely flummoxed that the French take warm showers, and only one per day. They think that showers should be giant, long, and cold. My teacher called them gaspillers (wasters) but I don’t think they caught it. I found it amusing though.
Mme Rialland also informed me of a terrible rumor. Well, it isn’t really terrible, but when she was calling roll she said (in French of course), “Ah, Mari. The Queen of the Theatre from what I hear.” I was really embarrassed. I have no idea where she heard that from.
I had some really good raspberry and lemon mousse at the Rubis today. I also had chicken…ahh, so nice to have normal meat. They don’t seem to have lots of pasta at the RU, I’m surprised. The chocolate soy milk is REALLY sugary here and they don’t add calcium to it. I had a lovely break on the grass under the shade of an oak tree, reading the great works of J.K. Rowling, trying to mute the sound of me laughing at the French girls studying English (“No, it is a fat boy!”). The weather here right now is perfect, high 70s, sunny, slight breeze.
We didn’t get much done in writing class today. Mme Cherafoui ended up going on lots of tangents about the difficulties of studying a foreign language and such. When we were on task, we went over what a “compte rendu” is. For all you Anglophones, a compte rendu is a report/review/write-up of something that you have read.
Sam just came and stole my pots. Borrowed would be a better term. He was going through pot withdrawals he said.

Day 22: Le Debit de Boissons

22 septembre 2009
The first day of autumn in Nantes was nice and warm. I wore my shorts to school so that I wasn’t too toasty. Writing class was really frustrating today. Mme Cherafoui returned some of our homework and went over some of the mistakes from the homework. She chose a lot of mine, which was okay. What was frustrating was that I was getting docked for rules and things that I have never even heard of. With one rule I told her that I’d never heard that rule before. She proceeded to ask the rest of the class if they had seen it and they all had, so she then told me that it was a special presentation just for me. Ugh. Some days I wish I was in level 4 where they actually review grammar and their phonetics class is more studious of phonetics.
We did talk about something interesting in class though. We read an article about how “le debit de boissons” aka any type of place that sells drinks has changed over the years in France. This information can come in handy, such as the following:
Le bar- the current term for a place where you get alcohol, normally nocturnal
Le bistrot- a familiar term for a bar
La brasserie- like a modern tavern; a café where you can eat at any hour
Le cabaret- drinking & a spectacle (generally naked women, but could be a singer or dancer as well)
Le café- a more general term for a place where one can buy drinks (alcoholic or not)
Un salon de the- a more elegant café which does not have alcohol available
La tavern- an old term for where you go to eat quickly
Le troquet- the familiar term for a small café or bar
At the beginning of the twentieth century, France had a plethora of cafes. They were very popular for diverting one’s attention (no TV back then), specifically males. It began to be associated with alcoholism as well. In the 30s the number of bars (I am using this loosely to term le debit de boissons) began to decrease. In the 60s the domestic revolution shifted the world to one of radio, television, and the comfort of home. This is when cafes began to be refugees for younger persons. Today 50% of young French persons go to a café at least once a week, at least 15% go at least once a day. Many bistrots turned into bars (signaling Americanization and modernization). These bars attract 20-30 year old urban middle class anglophiles. There is now music and other forms of entertainment. This concludes your summary of the drinking history of France and an explanation of why I’ll be going out to bars and such.
I had lunch at the RU with a girl from IRFLEE. I had mashed cauliflower, veggies, and a possible chunk of pork (as always, I am not sure), and some mixed berries (cranberries, raspberries, who knows what else berries) for dessert.
Theatre went a little bit better than writing. A French boy came in and did some of the acting exercises with us for a while. We then practiced a scene and preformed it at the end of class (there are only about ten of us in theatre). Mme Cherafoui (my writing and theatre teacher) told us a little about the show we’ll be performing for our final (in front of people- zoinks!). We should be getting the script next week!
We spent a whole hour and thirty minutes talking about one song in oral French today, and by “we” I mean my teacher Mme Sanson. For an oral class, we don’t do much talking. We actually had to turn in a written paper today (which makes no sense- writing homework for an oral class). At this point in time I had a headache and we were talking about eating odd parts of animals, which made me want to throw up. The song we listened to was about the differences between Quebecois and French.
I went to the store and got some brown sugar. The brown sugar here isn’t refined so it has a different taste and has really large crystals. I got some brioche (sweet bread) which isn’t very sweet and which I don’t like very much. I also bought a Vienneta which is like a Swiss ice cream log of sorts. Having a freezer is definitely going to be my vice, but now I will get to try the pear ice cream (that worries me!) that is at the store. I’ll be glad when my bourse (stipend) comes in, I would like to have a wider food variety. It is really hard to know how healthy you are eating here since the vitamins and mineral amounts aren’t listed on packaging. I need to try to find something with more calcium (how I don’t know) because I am getting some pretty bad calf cramps at night.

Day 21: Shrinking Fridges

21 septembre 2009 (Day 21)
Today was the three week mark- wow! We had quite the exciting phonetics class today. A lady in our class (students here vary from around 18-50) started slamming all her books shut and proceeded to tell the teacher that she was upset that there were so many people in the phonetics class and that there should be less, even though it isn’t the teacher’s fault. It was quite the scene, but our professor handled it quite well. Today we went over lots of poems and our teacher taught us some nursery rhymes
Today at fencing there were four girls and our teacher, David. Short and shaven David has us warm up and do some drills. I learned the proper way to advance today, as well as appropriate body positioning and how to hold “le fleuret” or foil in English (aka the lightest sword) in the French style. We have a girl from Italy who has fenced a little bit and apparently they have a different fighting style, as do the Americans. The other girl who wasn’t there last week was this snooty girl who took fencing last semester and who I didn’t like very much.
Art History was again disappointing. I guess I really shouldn’t have expected amazing Mr. Oram style lectures. It is really frustrating studying art history in French because even the artists’ names are pronounced (and sometimes even spelled) differently.
For those of you who wonder, my class schedule looks like this:
Monday
2h phonetics
1h30 fencing
2h art history
Tuesday
2h30 writing
2h theatre
1h30 oral
Wednesday
2h French culture
2h writing
1h30 gym douce (which I heard was really weird)
Thursday
2h writing
1h30 ultimate Frisbee
Friday
1h30 oral
2h theatre
2h history of France
I think I may or may not have had duck today for dinner at Rubis. I do know that I had some amazing cucumbers and dessert. My fridge broke so I got a new one today. It is nice to have a fridge that works (no more moldy jam!) but it is significantly smaller than my last fridge (not that it was overwhelmingly large anyway). Looking on the bright side I have a freezer compartment now, so I can wallow away the sadness of losing a good fridge in ice cream (if it will even fit in the freezer compartment- I have my doubts). Thank goodness I just eat yogurt and museli, because my fridge has very little in it and is practically full! Another tragedy happened today. I went to turn in my form for surfing this weekend and the secretary said that it was all full. I am quite disappointed, but am now contemplating a weekend surf trip to Olonne sur Mer in October. I just need to find the courage to sign myself up and go on the weekend adventure.

Day 20: Another Day at Church

20 septembre 2009 (Day 20)

Church was really good today. I ended up meeting up with several other members and all four missionaries on the tram, so we were quite the parade this morning all dressed up. I got fantastic French kisses like always when I got to church. My mind was wandering a little in Relief Society, but I understood pretty much all of the other lessons. In Relief Society I was thinking a lot about how differently they view the church here. It is really interesting. I don’t really know how to explain it; they are a lot more liberal in a sense and don’t always give the “Sunday School” answers. We talked about the Salt Lake Temple today in Sunday School. To them, the pioneers, the Salt Lake Temple, it is all such a distant event and place, almost like a dream. For them it was superb if they have even been to the temple once. It made me realize how much more we do really need to take advantage of being so close to the temple. A cute young man gave a talk on the ‘Strength For Youth’ packet and one of the Elders spoke. It made me feel better than his French accent stunk like smelly cheese.

After church I talked with the Elders, my friend Isabel from England (who is Spanish and proud of it), and a man named Phillip. He is friends with a member and Phillip has a friend who wants English lessons, so I am probably going to do that! It should be an exciting, worthwhile adventure. I am starting to think that I am going to need to get a phone while here in France.

I went back to the church for a rebroadcast of Sister Elaine S. Dalton’s talk. I was late because I missed the tram and then the next tram was late. But what I did catch of her talk was superb. I got to listen to it in English which was nice and afterwards I got a ride home (partway at least) with a member. They are all so nice here. Some of them are quite hilarious as well. I talked to a girl who got back pretty recently from her mission and this is her crazy story: her now husband proposed to her BEFORE he went on his mission. He waited to go so they went out about the same time and then they got married FOURTEEN days after she got back. Zoinks!