Friday, September 16, 2011

Lost in Translation

WORD OF THE DAY
les betteraves: beets

I'm beat.

Classes started this week. This would be why I’ve been a neglectful blog-mother.

Let me break it down for you:

Classes taught in French = Constant language-ninja awareness required
Constant language-ninja awareness required = Complete physical and mental exhaustion
Complete physical and mental exhaustion = Sleepy Molly
Sleepy Molly = Little incentive to find internet access
Little incentive to find internet access = Extended lag time between blog posts

Thus, due to the transitive property of equality (if A=B and B=C then A=C), you can clearly see that “Classes taught in French” = "Extended lag time between blog posts.”

Factor in:
     -The energy lost through stressed temperature equilibrium (ie. sweating)
     -The health detriments incurred by smoky French people
     -and-
     -The number of brain cells killed because of university administration incompetency

Aaaaand you’re left with one slice of “my brain hurts” and a large order of “I slept for 11 hours last night.”

Q.E.D.

See this is why I’m not a math major. And probably why you’re also not a math major.

So let’s get down to brass tacks (tax?):

1. And where better to start than with these carnivorous classes that have consumed my whole week. So the way the system here works is that French students pick their majors and then all three years of undergrad are pre-planned. And that’s it. For international students, you just go to as many classes as you want in whatever department you want for however long you want. You don’t even have to officially enroll in the courses until November. It doesn’t even matter! It’s French. It’s whatever.
It’s super frustrating.

So that's what I did.

CLASSES I'VE ATTENDED SO FAR

1. Les langues du monde (Languages of the world)
-don't need it. not going back.

2. Portugais (Portuguese)
-met a girl from England. also I'm pretty sure one of the teachers made a joke about how rare it is to find anglophones interested in languages. yeah, whatever, teach.

3. Initiation à la phonétique (Introduction to phonetics)
-kinda boring. but I need it for schooling.

4. Analyse des spectacle (Play analysis)
-not fun enough to take for fun.

5. Dramaturgie des textes (Theatrical literature)
-maybs. also theatre students are clique-y (clicky?)

6. Grammaire française (French grammar)
-this teacher was a god-send. she actually emailed us a copy of the class notes.

7. Traduction-anglais (Translation-English)
-pretty easy. but still really helpful. class=1/2 canadian.

8. Littérature française XXè siècle (20th century French literature)
-what are you saying. I hate this class.

9. Techniques d'expression (Techniques of expression?)
-another literature class? seriously, who named this?

10. Archéologie: Théorie et Pratique (Introduction to Archeology)
-very tiny class. lots of handouts. happy Molly.

11. Pratiques de l'acteur (Acting)
-so apparently there was a black shirt/black pants memo that I didn't get. seriously. I could not have been more out of place with my pink skirt and bright blue cardigan.


Also I got to class early, saw the class before mine, and thought it had already started. So I ended up joining some voice class and sang "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, something something t'oublierai."

Then (in the real class) we all had to perform monologues from our repertoire (obviously mine was in English). One girl did her monologue, and the professor made the rest of us stand around her and say her lines back to her. I had no idea what I was saying. Probably nothing. Somehow we all ended up rolling on the floor whispering something about being old. I have no idea.

2. Enough about classes. So the other night we also went to some festival thing at the Nice port. I went for the fireworks which we missed by 30 minutes, but there were a few concerts going on so it was still pretty fun.

This statue is called "The Butt of Nice" because
you can see it from the beach on the other side.

Because I know how much people like to look at pictures of concerts.

Chimene, Alice, and myself in front of something big.

We happened upon these guys singing Simon & Garfunkel and
the Beatles. It was great.

3. I've killed 3. Helen and I have started luring them out in the hallway with light. They are terrifying and fly as if they're intoxicated. Don't know if they sting. Don't want to find out.
bee + wasp = WHAT ARE YOU

This was the first one we killed. It was on Helen's floor for the night. This is post-shrivel. Seriously, they're huge.

On that note . . .

Amitiés :)

2 comments:

  1. that was hysterical. I actually laughed out loud -- not in a symbolic way -- like out loud. you are so awesome. Skype sometime? I will have to do the math and think of a good time.

    Love the blog! Daddy says that you will love having this to look back on (the blog I mean) and it is so true. Write it all down while you can still remember it!

    Love you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also remember my favorite street music from Florence (Mercer and Peres) who sang Simon and Garfunkel and the Beetles? Well they seem less cool -- and if not less cool then at least less original now.

    ReplyDelete

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