Living in French

Its funny how a little linguistic misstep can cause you to reappraise the world you live in.

Its also perhaps funny that it wasn't my own that has forced me to ponder things. Not for lack of opportunities, but call it censorship for reasons of economy . After all, if I were to mention one of my own malapropism's it wouldn't be fair to leave any out... the situation would cascade out of control.

Can't have that.

So, I've been in France for a month. Pretty strange, I still am taken by the oddity, just as often as it feels like home. Occasionally when I wake up, my first thoughts are to remind myself where I'm at. Other times- well- of course I live in France. Gotta live somewhere.

As I have been observing classes, and began to teach, I get asked a lot of questions- which is fun. One question in particular has gotten under my skin lately. One girl asked me how I like "living in French". She quickly corrected herself, "living in France"- but the damage to my fragile psyche had already been done.

Living in France is an incredible experience, like nothing I've ever imagined, and very little drawbacks thus far. Living in French is a different story. Its a tad bit unrelenting. I try not to let it become a problem- however its fun to muse about the good ole days when I could go into a store, restaurant, ect. and be reasonably certain that I could communicate efficiently.

Its funny to think that most of the time, its quite difficult for me to have anything but a passing conversation with the people on the street. Its just a different world, but its a fun challenge. My French is steadily improving, even my English teachers tell me so- but I miss being able to be (intentionally) funny, or at least not have to hurt my brain every time I want to discuss the future- past- or anything involving... ugh... the subjunctive.

See, French has never been more than a passing hobby. Sure, back in school it was fun for a while, but after a good 10-15 minutes of speaking broken French with another American, you would feel sufficiently snobby enough to relapse back into the mother tongue. After all, it was just messing around.

No biggie, just a new paradigm.

So as they say- this is the big leagues now... play times over and this is for real. Uhm... if you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin.

Anyway, out of metaphysics and into the disquisition.

As stated in previous blogs-so far things are amazing, and I haven't been nearly as homesick as I should be. The people at my school have been more than kind to me- they drive me to the supermarket, they have furnished my room, they make sure I get my laundry done. Yeah, it rocks. But, its La Reole- a lovely town, with a shortage of entertainment options.

I spent the last weekend in this minitropolis, and I do think that it will be the only time I do so. Evan came and hung out on Saturday, but we couldn't even find a supermarche to buy some beer to consume during the rugby match... Then sunday, one of the ladies I worked with arranged to have me go with her and her traditional Gascon dance troupe to a fete in a small town in the next department over.

Thanks to my wonderful oral comprehension, I wasn't particularly sure what I was getting into until I got there, which made for an exciting car trip. But it was alot of fun, I got a chance to speak with people in the town that I wouldn't have otherwise, and they were all extremely nice and it was a good experience.

Finally though, I've started "teaching" if you can call what I do in there "teaching". I will refer to it as such, and will even go so far as to remove the "" from the word "teaching" from here onward.

My teaching method thus far is a bit difficult to describe, I think you could call it post avant garde, which is probably a euphemism for crap. It seems like teaching a foreign language, in said language, to teens is definitely walking a razors edge. On one side, if you talk down to them, you lose. On the other side, its over before it starts if you talk above them.

The real fun is when their comprehension is so low you manage to do both at the same time. Welcome to my world.

That isn't to say that its been bad- some of the classes have been marvelous. Just today I had two different classes of three girls each, both of which went great, and we had good conversation, and I day say they seemed interested in speaking most of the time.

Then... I had a class from the vocational side of the school. Yeah. I went over like a lead balloon. I spent the whole hour asking questions that were supposed to lead into interesting discussion, but instead got one word, off topic, and occasionally franglais replies. Can't win em all.

Fortunately, my teachers are extremely sympathetic, and they realize I'm not going to work miricles with everyone. But there are some students who do certainly want to improve, and its best to focus on that.

This weekend, back to Bordeaux- the semi finals of the rugby world cup are here and Saturday its France vs. England!!! Hell yeah. Hope you all are doing well.

Later on.