5 janvier 2010 (Day 127)
We had another fun day working on the farm. Brooke and I helped with the labeling until lunchtime. After watching a drole argument about grated carrots, celery and mayo, we had said grated veggies and some fish. We went with Jean Claude and helped feed the sheep and then move the hay bales. It was a lot of fun trying not to fall in the holes and heaving the bales up. I am not quite sure that Brooke is quite cut out for farm work. The highlight of this definitely happened when Brooke and I were feeding the sheep later in the day. We keep the younger ewes from the older sheep so they don’t get trampled. Sheep are really dumb and fidgety so they run all over like chickens with their heads cut off when you are walking amongst them. This scared one ewe so much that he hopped the fence. Brooke ensues, searching for the ewe while it is practically dark, screaming her head off that sheep are dirty and smelly. She also hates the sound they make, lol.
We had dinner around 9pm: soup and creamy cauliflower. I’m now correcting my articles that I am writing for the newspaper. They emailed me yesterday and want me to write an article for the paper on Monday. It should be fun! I’ve written two so far because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.
Here is what I have so far:
The French Fifteen
By Mari Lindstrom
I really thought I avoided the whole “freshman experience.” I skipped participating in SOAR, I found an apartment off campus so I could avoid the freshman dorm experience, and I came to the university with enough credits to rate me as a sophomore so I was sure that I had avoided the freshman experience which of course includes the freshman fifteen.
But no one can avoid the freshman experience. When I got to France it was all like being reincarnated into a freshman. I left all my family and friends, had 2 bags full of stuff and a million questions. How big is the campus? Where is the library? Where can you eat for cheap? Where do I buy toilet paper? I don’t know anyone, who will be my friend?! What classes should I take? Where is the bookstore?
It was easy enough at USU, getting down all the abbreviations and other “code words” at the school like TSC, SigAp, True Aggie, the ‘A’, and Old Main. But in French, I can’t even understand when you slowly repeat for the fifth time what is for lunch, let alone understand when you tell me that the R.U. Terte is by the T.U. This in French sounds a lot like the street Terte is by you, but actually means that the school cafeteria is by the theatre. But where are they? School maps don’t exist, nor do those over-friendly ambassadors who will gladly hold your hand and walk you to where you need to go.
I’ve also had to relearn all the social codes. At Utah State, it was easy. Be who you want, go ahead and wear your pajamas to class because no one cares (except maybe the business kids), just act like the football team doesn’t exist when people ask about USU sports and talk about the basketball team. In France, it was not so easy. A water bottle? You can’t have one; people think that stainless steel bottle is filled with whisky. Raw carrots? You don’t eat them unless they are shredded. Urinals in the same bathroom I (a girl) use? You betcha that is normal. Being on time for class? You will make the teacher laugh, because they won’t even be there for at least another five minutes. Appropriate to be a girl wearing shorts? No way unless they are accompanied by boots and tights, and I don’t mean Merrells and long johns.
To make my “freshman” experience even more awkward, I have been reincarnated into a baby in an adult’s body and nothing is more annoying. I am perfectly capable of driving, cooking, thinking, or even writing a 10-page paper the night before it is due, but I can’t speak. I may be an adult in every other way, but a four-year-old French child knows more vocabulary then I do. I may be the age of an adult, but I am scared to speak, always question myself, and sometimes have no idea what language people are speaking. Should I tu-toi that person or you the formal ‘you’ form? Did I just say cul instead of cou [neck] (hint: the English equivalent of cul rhymes with mass)? You buy books at a librarie?
The freshman fifteen is also slowly rounding my middle more each day. I don’t regret it too much though (considering I have a New Year’s Resolution to try a new pastry each week). I think about it each time I bite into a flaky pain au chocolat or an artesian I can’t believe they got this much flavor into such a small macaroon or snack on the Ramen Noodle equivalent for college students in France: some bread and cheese. I am thoroughly convinced that if you try something that you don’t like in France, you bought the wrong brand or need to go to a different bakery. The freshman fifteen, I bypassed, but the French fifteen is worth every bite.
I may have to live the inevitable freshman experience, but it isn’t half bad in France. My freshman fifteen isn’t from eating day-old donuts and cold pizza. I’m enjoying firsthand the adventures of university housing: stolen microwaves, evil cleaning ladies, and the entertainment of having my toilet placed halfway in the shower stall every time I shower (I bet you’ve always wanted to sit and shower at the same time…well I can!). Not only do I avoid having my friends and people I know (and will see again) see my freshman blunders: walking into the wrong class, getting lost in the town I’ve been living in for the past 4 months, tripping after that cute boy winked at me, I have an excuse: I’m foreign!
Proud to be an Aggie in Nantes
By Mari Lindstrom
I know that many of you, my fellow Aggies, are not looking forward to the dreary, dark, cold, icy, windy, “When will it be spring?” spring semester, which I more appropriately refer to as winter semester because it only ends with “spring” when we all should be studying for finals but are instead sun bathing on the quad. But really, Utah State isn’t that bad. I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t all gung-ho Aggie spirited before I left to study abroad in France for a year, but after spending a semester at a French University, there are some things that I now appreciate more about USU.
First off, you have to understand that I love studying abroad and have never regretted it, but seeing how a socialized basically-free university education is, I will gladly empty my savings account when I return to go to be an Aggie because I really love…
THE BATHROOMS. I didn’t know how much I love the bathrooms at USU... They always have toilet paper and they don’t smell of acidic kidney waste. There are also many of them and they get cleaned regularly. They even have mirrors so you can see if you have saved some leftover pizza in your front teeth for later. This doesn’t happen in France. You also live your worst childhood nightmare every time you go to the loo…thinking that you walked into the wrong restroom. But no, you are just in France where it is socially acceptable for you go to a bathroom, while the boys relieve themselves around the corner because you are in a non-gender specified W.C.
THE LIBRARY. Not only does the Merrill-Cazier Library have the awesome BARN (if you haven’t seen it in action you should check it out) it is actually open at convenient hours for the strange variation of homo sapiens that we call college students. I used to complain that the library was only open until 6 or 7pm on the weekend. At the University of Nantes it is open from 8:30am to 7pm weekdays and only until 1pm on Saturdays. It makes it quite the adventure to try to find 20 minutes between classes to study at the library and you can just forget midnight cram jams with pizza at the library with your friends.
Three words: AGGIE ICE CREAM.
TECHNOLOGY. Do you know how we all complain that there aren’t lots of computers on campus and that online registration is a nightmare? It isn’t. There are maybe twenty in the library here and you have to go to a separate computer to print papers and online registration… It doesn’t exist. Try finding each professor and seeing if you can be in their class, said class being offered only one time during the week which naturally coincides with two other classes that you want to take, and said professor never answering emails and having office hours once a week when you are working. I definitely won’t ever complain again about online registration, thinking the internet is slow (you praise the technology gods if the internet is working at all here), or having to wait in line for 3 minutes to use a computer at the TSC (hint: try the AgSci computer lab). Even our student cards are more advanced. Although it was an adventure to stick the sticker with my info on the card (all the first letters cut off), glue on the minuscule photo of my head that I had to go to town to print off, go to the library to get a barcode for which you must give your: name, nationality, address, and phone number, I prefer our nifty cards all ready to go and not from the stone age.
THE PROFESSORS. Not only do we have the infamous Andy Anderson at Utah State University (I have never been so proud of a B+ in my life) we have other teachers at Utah State who actually care if you learn what they are teaching. I concede that my teachers here have cared more or less about me in France, but they aren’t as willing to be at the mercy (I mean that in a good way) of the students. Here I am lucky if I get an email back from a professor in a week, but at USU I can have entire email conversations back and forth with professors at midnight about my paper that is due the next week. Aggie professors are willing to work with students, stay after class, and do whatever they can to help you succeed. In France, you thank them endlessly if they give you a 14/20 on the last paper you wrote.
HEATING. I used to think that it was sometimes chilly in the Merrill-Cazier Library when it was winter near the giant glass windows, yet that is nothing compared to sitting in a bare classroom (no computer, no projector, often no garbage can) with the ambient temperature being 12 degrees Celsius. For those of you not accustomed Celsius that is a balmy 53.6F which, with humidity requires one to be fully equipped in a snow coat, long johns, a beanie, and mittens to be able to even fathom the idea to take out your pen and take notes.
CHOICES. Choosing a major in France is like chaining yourself to a brick wall, never being able to move again without causing lots of pain and inconvenience for everyone. Once you pick a major, you stick to it. You don’t even get to dabble your toes in other classes like: group guitar, live animal and carcass evaluation, or fluvial geomorphology just for kicks and giggles. In France if you are in a science major, you can say ‘au revoir’ to an English or art class, and you don’t have the ‘right’ to take some other science classes. At USU we have so many choices: don’t like the professor, change the class. Don’t like the hour the class is held, change the class. Don’t like your major, well change it! No one will look at you funny until you change it for the fourth or fifth time. In France you don’t have these options.
THE PAPER. The paper here is long and I don’t know why, but I don’t like it. Since the paper isn’t the standard letter-size we have in the states, it makes a one page paper that much longer. And never mind lined paper for taking notes, they are all about the blocks here.
THE SECRETARIES. Send them flowers on Secretary Appreciation Day (April 21st this year), because they deserve it. Not only do they speak the same language as you (figuratively and literally speaking), have email, computers, and other forms of technology, they also know what they are doing. All the French paperwork which one must constantly do is confusing enough, but when you have to visit 7 different secretaries, each telling you to visit a different secretary, get a fifth form of picture id, along with 3 photos of you.
SCHOOL SPIRIT. Team go? Go team? The French don’t even know what to cheer because organized collegiate sports aren’t the thing here, nor is loving your school. I have yet to see a single student wear a t-shirt, hoodie, beanie, pants, socks, or other article of clothing bearing their school name (possibly because said articles don’t exist in France). We don’t even have a school mascot.
THE A. How else am I going to get some random stranger to kiss me?
AGGIE BLUE BIKES. Although the rentable bikes at Nantes are definitely cooler (orange AND green) you pay for that cost. Not only do you have to put down a 170 euro guarantee, you have to put down 40 more euros to use it for the year. Aggie Blue Bikes? Free. ‘Nough said.
SOCIAL LIFE. No sports games, dances, painted faces, no hanging out in the university housing, late night movies, and dressing up your roommates. French students are boring, no offense to them, but they are. I can easily spend 2 hours sitting outside in my hallway and see no one. You get looked at strangely for saying, “Bonjour” to people you don’t know and you can just keep your Chacos, shorts, and hi-tech backpack in your closet because you will get death glares if you are not silent, on the verge of anorexia, and have a solid Jansport backpack for boys and a big purse for girls for class. And dating? That doesn’t exist. You don’t have the cute guy in the next room over ask you out, getting a significant happens only through the law of physical attraction. If you find someone ‘fit’ as they say in England, you give a go at holding their hand. They accept? You’re a couple. They reject? Get out and move on, you don’t get a chance to show them that beyond your clammy hands is your great personality.
So Aggies, although it may be cold out, at least you have the Aggie Spirit to keep you warm.
