First Week of Classes

Monday, January12 - Wednesday, January 14

This first week of classes has been ROUGH. It's very very stressful. The first class I had on Monday was "History of the French Language." Before the class started, I was standing in the hallway and there was a group of French students hanging out. Well to make a long story short they were pointing and laughing at me and whispering. I shouldn't have let it bother me but it totally did. I was so self-conscious while I waited and of course that same group was in my class (and in about 3 other classes I have too). Anyways, the class was a continuation class from last semester - which means that all of the kids in the class had that class before and this class was basically the same thing...but they were building on things from before. So the teacher came in and jumped right into a subject that they had been talking about at the end of last semester and I had no idea what she was talking about...not to mention it was all in French which didn't help at all. Then I went to Narratology and Stylistics. I felt a little better when I walked in and saw a bunch of my friends in the class. The teacher was very nice; he addressed the international students and said that if he was moving too fast we should just ask him to slow down his speech and he would be happy to. I didn't understand everything he said, but it was a little better than the previous class. On Tuesday, I had a comparitive lit class and the teacher basically told me and the other American that we pretty much weren't going to make it. I didn't understand a WORD she said in the whole class. Ok, that's an exageration. But I didn't understand much. I didn't completely waste that hour and a half though - I spent my time making a count down to when Hadley comes and visits me here in May (120 more days!!).

Today, I had a French to English translation course at 8 a.m. The teacher is the British lady that runs the international office - the same one who gave me attitude the first day. Just as a side note, she's much better now. I've been in her office a lot changing my courses around and stuff and I kinda got used to her personality...she's not so bad. Anyhow, that class wasn't too bad. Of course it was in English, BUT atleast I wasn't completley lost and I actually felt capable of doing the activities. Most of the students were French...there were only 3 Americans and one British girl. The next class I had was French Linguistics. I was pretty worried that this was gonna be rough, but it turned out ok. It was all in French, but I could understand the teacher because she spoke slowly so that all the students can write down pretty much everything she says. Plus I really really like linguistics and stuff like that. I did awesome in my linguistics classes (one in English, one in Spanish) at Clarion. Like I was head of the class in them and I enjoy it too! So I decided that class won't be so bad. After that, I tried out another translation course...but this time it was Spanish to French. I didn't know how I would do to be honest. I was in WAY over my head though. The one good thing was that the group of girls I sat with were so nice to me. They took me in and tried to help me as much as possible - they even tried talking me into staying for the second hour with them but I was trying to get out of there as quick as possible haha. My last class today was better...all of my West Point friends and Lauren were in it. It was translation from English to French. It's something I will have to get used to because I haven't done much word for word translating but I think I will be fine.

Tomorrow is a big day - 7.5 hours of class. UGH. I just hope all goes well...or just better than some of my other classes were this week. I'll keep you guys posted!

And oh yeah, I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been commenting on my stuff and e-mailing. When I'm having a bad day and missing home it's so so nice to hear from all of you. So just so you know, I really appreciate it and I'm trying to get back to you as soon as I can. :o)