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SMALL SIDE STORY - A CONTINUATION FROM THE PREVIOUS POST
So, I'm sitting in French class on Monday and we're going over some new vocabulary which is wholly comprised of items you would find in a typical classroom.
These things are pretty normal at first: pencil is le crayon; pen is le stylo, map is la carte, book is le livre, etc., etc., etc. Then I learned some NEW words - words I didn't learn the first time through French class in the early to mid-90's - words for things like CD player and DVD player and computer. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Oh, because they didn't yet exist or because not enough people owned them that warranted inclusion in beginning French vocabulary!!!!
At that moment, on Monday, January 26, 2009, at approximately 830pm, is the first time I ever said, with grave seriousness, "Oh my God, I'm getting old."
*Heavy sigh* If anyone needs me, I'll be busy trying to pull my one foot from out of the grave.
UPDATE (30 Jan 09):
It's official, I am, in fact, the OLDEST student in the class. As part of learning about how to express one's age, we did an exercise where we had to say our age in a complete sentence. Yep, I am definitely the oldest in the class. The next oldest is 27.
Also, in even better news, the professor told us her husband is 29 years old, which means that she stands a good chance of being younger than me, too.
Just call me "la grand-mere de la classe francaise." Ugh.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Parlez-vous français ? Comment dit on “what am I doing here?”
The holidays are over (even for the Simmons family!), and thus begins a new semester at George Mason University. I expect this semester will be fairly laid back, with not too much to stress about, even though I’ve committed myself to 13 credits. 13 credits from only three classes, if you can believe it. But I don’t think it will be as bad as it sounds. For once, I’m pretty optimistic about the school vs. work balance.
The elementary French class I’m taking is a whopping 6 credits as they have combined two basic classes into one that meets 6 hours per week. Why am I even taking French, you ask? Because it’s a requirement for a Liberal Arts (Pa-tooey! Pa-tooey!) degree program. Ugh. It’s Political Science…Science!…couldn’t I please have a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, puh-lease?? *Sigh,* but I digress. Another class is some Political Science Research Methods class that will officially be my FOURTH statistics-based class. It appears as though each degree program has its own statistics class and every time I change majors, I have to take yet another damn statistics class. At this point I’m pretty sure I could teach statistics. If I ever change my major again, I’m changing it to statistics because…well, what do you want to know about statistics? I got it all upstairs (*taps my noggin). T-man has already taken this class with this professor and assures that I’ll do fine. You bet your sweet bum I will. The last class is some 100-level Comparative Politics class that T-man and I have together. After the first class last Thursday, it appears as though this class is going to rock like AC/DC. Right out of the gate, the professor was dropping f-bombs and GD-bombs like it was going out of style. He’s former military and leans waaaaaaaaay conservative. This should be an interesting dynamic in a college setting (predominantly very liberal views amongst professors and students alike). Ha! Plus he’s funny, so the time won’t drag, which will be quite nice. And the hardest assignment in the class will be a book report. A book report! Come on…I thought I was in the big leagues now.
By the title of this posting, I’m sure you have all guessed which class I want to talk about. We’ve had one meeting so far and I’m already ready to start yanking out my hair. Why? It’s not because I don’t like the French language or French classes, but because I am apparently the only American in the class room. I’ll explain.
As is the usual custom for the first day of a new class, the professor wants everyone to introduce themselves and give a little background on their experience with the topic at hand. I don’t hold that much regard for that particular practice, but at least, for once, I actually have some experience with French from high school and my family, so I wouldn’t have to give the stock answer this time – “I’m here because my degree program is forcing me to take this class and Rate My Professors* said that you didn’t suck, so there you go.” Though I hate this part of the class, I'm feelin' pretty good.
I had a little time to really craft my answer since the professor started at the opposite side of the room. Now, let me say that I’m already feeling a bit awkward because it is plainly obvious, not even by a little bit, that I am the oldest student in the room. The professor also looked to be my age, so that made me feel SO much better, of course (note the sarcasm). Gone are the good ol’ community college days where there are tons of 20- or 30-something schmucks in the classes. No, no…now I’m stuck in Romper Room hell.
But it gets worse. As I’m sitting there trying to figure out how to make my three years of high school French sound absolutely fascinating to my peers, I realize that, as I’m listening to their introductions, my efforts will be futile at best. I mean, who would have thought nearly 15 years ago when I took my last French class that this would be woefully insufficient later in life?
Well, someone very smart in the Department of Education (*rolling my eyes) must have thought that the level of education provided by the average two years of a foreign language (of which I had three – I was such an overachiever!) was just NOT good enough. Oh, no. As I’m listening, all of these little kiddie-poos have 4+ years of French, they lived in France, they had French immersion classes in elementary school, they were fed nothing but French bread, escargots, and fois gras as little kids, had French nannies, rode French school busses and wiped their little French-immersed hinies with French toilet paper (I’m sorry… papier de toilette)! Oh, and to make matters worse, these little freaks are also somehow fluent in English, Portugese, and Mandarin, too. WTF!!!! These rugrats were probably wearing diapers, watching the Teletubbies, and alternately sucking their thumbs and freezy pops while I was last suffering the throes of passé composé, conjugating millions of French verbs, and hacking up “-tre”-induced hairballs. This is SO not fair. I swear, if they start throwing up white flags and running out of the room, I'll just loose my damn mind.
So my introduction went something like this: “Hi, I’m Erica. My grandmother and great-grandmother spoke Canadian French, none of it I ever understood because they spoke too fast and too Canadian. I took three years of high school French, but my last class was in 1995. So…….yeeeaaahhh…” as my voice trails off. Well, at least they laughed. I fully maintain that they were laughing with me rather than at me. Hey, it’s my story.
I was, however, pleased to see that my years of hacking hairballs paid off since my accent still almost sounded tolerably French, so I won't sound like a complete dumbass in class.
Oh well. I'm just going to sit and wait for the perfect moment to moment to exclaim, "fechez la vache! I fart in your general direction!" No one will be old enough to catch the reference, but it will be funny to me and, really, that's all that matters.
*Rate My Professors – http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ is a website for college students who want to shop for the best professors in any given subject before actually signing up for next semester’s classes, thus improving your odds that your class won’t suck and you might get a good grade. I will fully admit to abusing the hell out of this web site and give full credit to this web site for my still pristine 4.0 GPA.
The elementary French class I’m taking is a whopping 6 credits as they have combined two basic classes into one that meets 6 hours per week. Why am I even taking French, you ask? Because it’s a requirement for a Liberal Arts (Pa-tooey! Pa-tooey!) degree program. Ugh. It’s Political Science…Science!…couldn’t I please have a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, puh-lease?? *Sigh,* but I digress. Another class is some Political Science Research Methods class that will officially be my FOURTH statistics-based class. It appears as though each degree program has its own statistics class and every time I change majors, I have to take yet another damn statistics class. At this point I’m pretty sure I could teach statistics. If I ever change my major again, I’m changing it to statistics because…well, what do you want to know about statistics? I got it all upstairs (*taps my noggin). T-man has already taken this class with this professor and assures that I’ll do fine. You bet your sweet bum I will. The last class is some 100-level Comparative Politics class that T-man and I have together. After the first class last Thursday, it appears as though this class is going to rock like AC/DC. Right out of the gate, the professor was dropping f-bombs and GD-bombs like it was going out of style. He’s former military and leans waaaaaaaaay conservative. This should be an interesting dynamic in a college setting (predominantly very liberal views amongst professors and students alike). Ha! Plus he’s funny, so the time won’t drag, which will be quite nice. And the hardest assignment in the class will be a book report. A book report! Come on…I thought I was in the big leagues now.
By the title of this posting, I’m sure you have all guessed which class I want to talk about. We’ve had one meeting so far and I’m already ready to start yanking out my hair. Why? It’s not because I don’t like the French language or French classes, but because I am apparently the only American in the class room. I’ll explain.
As is the usual custom for the first day of a new class, the professor wants everyone to introduce themselves and give a little background on their experience with the topic at hand. I don’t hold that much regard for that particular practice, but at least, for once, I actually have some experience with French from high school and my family, so I wouldn’t have to give the stock answer this time – “I’m here because my degree program is forcing me to take this class and Rate My Professors* said that you didn’t suck, so there you go.” Though I hate this part of the class, I'm feelin' pretty good.
I had a little time to really craft my answer since the professor started at the opposite side of the room. Now, let me say that I’m already feeling a bit awkward because it is plainly obvious, not even by a little bit, that I am the oldest student in the room. The professor also looked to be my age, so that made me feel SO much better, of course (note the sarcasm). Gone are the good ol’ community college days where there are tons of 20- or 30-something schmucks in the classes. No, no…now I’m stuck in Romper Room hell.
But it gets worse. As I’m sitting there trying to figure out how to make my three years of high school French sound absolutely fascinating to my peers, I realize that, as I’m listening to their introductions, my efforts will be futile at best. I mean, who would have thought nearly 15 years ago when I took my last French class that this would be woefully insufficient later in life?
Well, someone very smart in the Department of Education (*rolling my eyes) must have thought that the level of education provided by the average two years of a foreign language (of which I had three – I was such an overachiever!) was just NOT good enough. Oh, no. As I’m listening, all of these little kiddie-poos have 4+ years of French, they lived in France, they had French immersion classes in elementary school, they were fed nothing but French bread, escargots, and fois gras as little kids, had French nannies, rode French school busses and wiped their little French-immersed hinies with French toilet paper (I’m sorry… papier de toilette)! Oh, and to make matters worse, these little freaks are also somehow fluent in English, Portugese, and Mandarin, too. WTF!!!! These rugrats were probably wearing diapers, watching the Teletubbies, and alternately sucking their thumbs and freezy pops while I was last suffering the throes of passé composé, conjugating millions of French verbs, and hacking up “-tre”-induced hairballs. This is SO not fair. I swear, if they start throwing up white flags and running out of the room, I'll just loose my damn mind.
So my introduction went something like this: “Hi, I’m Erica. My grandmother and great-grandmother spoke Canadian French, none of it I ever understood because they spoke too fast and too Canadian. I took three years of high school French, but my last class was in 1995. So…….yeeeaaahhh…” as my voice trails off. Well, at least they laughed. I fully maintain that they were laughing with me rather than at me. Hey, it’s my story.
I was, however, pleased to see that my years of hacking hairballs paid off since my accent still almost sounded tolerably French, so I won't sound like a complete dumbass in class.
Oh well. I'm just going to sit and wait for the perfect moment to moment to exclaim, "fechez la vache! I fart in your general direction!" No one will be old enough to catch the reference, but it will be funny to me and, really, that's all that matters.
*Rate My Professors – http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ is a website for college students who want to shop for the best professors in any given subject before actually signing up for next semester’s classes, thus improving your odds that your class won’t suck and you might get a good grade. I will fully admit to abusing the hell out of this web site and give full credit to this web site for my still pristine 4.0 GPA.
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