Wednesday

Mercredi/Wednesday

Today was much better than yesterday, I’m happy to say. I met a few more classmates: Julie, Veronique, and David. Over lunch, Veronique, David, and I branched out from the usual conversational topics (for people required to speak French) and discussed computer games, World of Warcraft, Super Smash Bros, gaming consoles, paleontology, and string theory. It was interesting to communicate those ideas in French, but I think we did a pretty good job. We had quite the intelligent group, actually. Veronique is going to med school in the fall to study neuroscience, and David is majoring in paleontology. Shayne sat down to introduce himself and eat with us, too, and it turned out that he’s studying biochemistry. (Drew, you would have had fun at our little nerd table.) Hehe, I think there must be something magnetic about me. I attract nerds. I mean, really. Out of everyone, I ended up with the biochemist, the neuroscientist gamer, and the manga-reading paleontologist. And we’re all learning French together. I love it.

Oh, Veronique and I came to a conclusion while we were out shopping at the mall in the afternoon: it’s not healthy to speak in French all the time, because too many things are left unsaid in your brain when you can’t find the right words to express them. So, we sort of settled on a mixture. When it was absolutely necessary to express something (like, when we were under a time constraint), or when we just couldn’t figure out how to say something, we would use English. Otherwise, French.

When we discovered that we have both played musical instruments for a long time (her, piano; me, violin), she told me that when she first met me, she had actually pegged me as the artistic, intelligent type (?) from my face and the way I carried myself. I thought it was interesting, because I hadn’t really done anything in class except sit and listen, and occasionally answer a question. Anyway, I think she said St. Laurier was the largest mall in Québec, and there were a ton of neat stores. We got fruity-flavored popcorn to munch on while we tried on sunglasses and things. We had actually gone to look for bathing suits for the rafting trip next weekend, but we decided that tanks and shorts would work just as well and started browsing. It was a wonderful time. She gives great opinions – like, “Um, no – those sunglasses cover most of your face…” Yeah, we should have a great time rafting, and going to the Cabane à Sucre. I’m also registered for a hike by the Riviére St. Charles Saturday, which should be lovely because everything is so beautiful here. 

I realized today that all of the Canadian students are attending for free, which makes me slightly jealous. Their government has given them scholarships that cover their tuition, room/board, and $700 to live on. It’s crazy. I know nothing’s free, of course, but still. Oh well. It’s been worth the cost so far just to have this experience.

As far as classes go, I’m happy. There will be a lot of review in these courses, as I’d hoped. Being familiar with the material already frees up a lot of energy, not to mention that it gives me a chance to observe teaching methods more closely. That could come in handy later.

After returning “home” this afternoon, I found Francis and Elizabeth hanging out with their laptops, and talked for a while about Francis’ photo shoot and listened to music on YouTube. Now, every time I hear Celine Dion’s “Tel Est Mon Destin”, I’m going to think of those two rocking out in the living room. They showed me a couple of French rap videos, which are so cool. Seriously, French hip hop is amazing. The Québecois really like our popular music, including country, although they won’t admit it according to Elizabeth. We continued our conversation about music outside over a traditional Québecois supper consisting of a pureed vegetable soup, a layered main dish with creamed corn, seasoned ground beef, and mashed potatoes, salad, bread and butter, and a pear/yogurt dessert. Wow. Before I come home, I’m going to make sure I have her recipes. Anyway, supper with all of them was wonderful. I don’t think I’ve laughed that much in several days – too much stress and culture shock. It felt good.  One of the funniest things was hearing about how they sometimes translate our popular music into French word for word, instead of taking the gist of it.  One example was the song, "Low."  When our version says, "She hit the floor, next thing you know...," theirs says "Quand elle a frappé la planche."  Literally, she hit the floor, like with her hand.  They said they were like, huh?  What?  

Yeah, it was hilarious.

I'm still concerned about a lot of things, and I still have this strong fear of or desire to avoid English, but things are getting better.