Long-Awaited Update

So, I'm sitting here on a very pretty Friday afternoon in Caen, and I suppose the middle of October is as good a time as any to update you all on what I've been doing here. Sorry I've been terribly lax about this, but when you're in France, there are so many better things to do than sit in front of a computer and write (although I can't really say my handwritten journal has progressed much further than my electronic one at this point...).

I suppose the first thing is classes. They've been in session for about 4 weeks now, and I love my literature track sooo much. I was placed in C1, which is a level of proficiency approaching fluency, and from there we could follow either an economics/business track or a literature track. For those of you who know me, you would know that that choice was a total no-brainer. On top of the fact that I pretty much came here to study literature because the course offerings at my home university were rather slim, I had the primary literature professor as one of my orientation teachers. Monsieur Rogues is the absolute, quintessential old Frenchman from every movie. He's from Marseille, and comes in every day with his perfectly coiffed hair, even though he rides his motorcycle to work (still don't know he manages that...). Also, he's just a joy to listen to when he talks about the old French literature, and you can tell it really is his love in life--that and music. He once spent a good twenty minutes telling us about the concert schedule for classical music in Caen, y compris an organ concert in St. Pierre, our local gothic church.

I suppose my other favorite professor is Monsieur Laurent Sénoze, for my written expression/comprehension class. He's a bit of a dirty Frenchman, but in the best possible way. I've learned so many, er, nuances about the French language that I would never have understood quite as well without M. Sénoze's vivid imagery. In fact, I would launch into an example of this, but you really need the hand gestures/sounds that he does oh so very well. For instance, the word mâle (you'd think it means male, as in the gender) has a very different connotation in French than in English...it doesn't really refer to people, but rather to animals. Ergo, when used in reference to people, the word has more of an animalistic undertone, if you catch my drift. This is but one of the many tidbits of wisdom which M. Sénoze has imparted upon us.

And I suppose if I'm going to talk about my favorites, I might as well talk about my not-so-favorites as well. Madame Toussaint is a very nice lady, but the very thought of a two and a half hour grammar class is daunting enough, and her method is just maddening. Every single time I'm sitting in that class, I'm sitting there thinking of what I could be doing with the time she wastes all the way up until 6 pm or so. I'll just leave it at that, because she is a very nice lady, I just don't happen to enjoy her class or her teaching methods very much.

And I suppose you might like to know my schedule, which is easier to put in writing than to tell to people, because most of the classes only occur once a week, which means there are a lot of them:

Lundi

10h30-12h00: Littérature et Histoire Littéraire with M. Rogues

13h00-14h30: La France Contemporaine

15h20-14h50: Compréhension et Expression Ecrites with M. Sénoze

Mardi

9h00-10h30: Littérature et Société Française with M. Rogues

10h40-12h10: Compréhension et Expression Orales

Mercredi

9h00-10h30: Rhétorique et Argumentation with M. Rogues

13h00-14h30: Comprehension et Expression Orales

14h40-16h50: Grammaire with Mme Toussaint

Well, I was going to start talking about my travels so far, but since this has already unfolded into a rather lengthy post, I'm afraid you'll just have to wait to hear about that. For now, I bid you à bientôt!

Amicalement,

Gabrielle Sidonie