I have now been in Rennes for ten days. I'm still adjusting and working on establishing a sort of day-to-day rhythm.
Here is a typical week-day for me in Rennes (so far at least):
07h00 Wake up, get ready, eat breakfast (bread with jam, apple juice)
07h30 Start 10-minute walk to the metro, take metro from one end of the line (La Pôterie) to almost the other (Villejean Université)
08h10 Arrive Rennes 2 campus, class, hang out in lounge between classes, grab lunch from the sandwich line or brave the chaos of the Restaurant Universitaire (scary biscuits!)
16h00-18h00 Head home on the metro (crowded!) after class ends/ I finish chatting with people
18h00 Homework, chat with Charlotte and Maxime, play Mario if there's time
20h00-21h30 Eat dinner with host family
21h30 Family heads to bed (perhaps after watching the news for a bit); I stay up and check e-mail, facebook, skype, etc. and do some reading before bed (usually around 23h00)
At this point I have done the complete rotation of all eleven of my classes. My classes in the international school all function about the same; the profs are pretty nice, as are the students who come from all over the world: Brazil, China, Russia, Germany, Japan, Cuba, Mexico, South Korea, Iran, and, of course, the United States. It's fascinating to be in a French class with students whose first language is not English. Each nationality struggles with different aspects of the French language, and we spend time in class defining words like "chronologie" and "cathédrale" whose meanings are obvious to English speakers but less so to someone whose native tongue is Chinese. The course work has been pretty easy/ non-existent so far, which is a nice change of pace from St. Olaf (I wrote over 50 papers for last semester alone).
I have a total of four classes outside of the international school, meaning at the university with actual French students. Two are part of my translation course (one being French to English and the other English to French), and the other two are English courses taught in English by French professors of English to French students majoring in English (I hope that made sense). In one we are reading Elizabeth Gaskell's Victorian-era novel North and South (of England, not the U.S. as I stupidly assumed), and in the other we are attempting William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Taking an English class at a French university is, in a word, bizarre. For one, we are spending the entire semester focusing on one novel rather than the seven plus expected at an American university. For another, the profs speak the king's English (with a French accent) so it's almost like taking a class in a third language as I try to parcel out the meaning of "molonkly" ("melancholy") and "abitrally" ("arbitrarily"). Furthermore, the teaching style is completely different. The French students are united together and sit in a large clump in the back two rows of the classroom, as far away from the prof as possible. (I made the mistake of sitting in the second row and had to move back as to not be the only person sitting within two arms' lengths of the prof.) The professor is basically the all-powerful and all-knowing Wizard of Oz who pronounces her opinions decisively. If she desires class participation, she will ask the class a leading question and then fish for the answer she wants until the French students finally break their silence and come up with a half-way decent response that she then amends for good measure (this process is extremely painful). At the moment I am struggling between my own desire to respond because I'm excited about the text, can answer in fluent English, and want desperately to end the excruciating fishing-process, and my desire to be cool with the French students by acting like them (I get the feeling the over-enthusiastic student gets kicked out of the French student solidarity circle).
My reception in both classes has been interesting as well. In the Gaskell class, the prof briskly asked me in French why I hadn't read the novel yet and sent me scampering to my seat; in the Faulkner class the more absent-minded professor-type joyously welcomed an Amercian to her classroom and demanded that I explain the American South to the class (this was before she figured out I was actually from the South--when she discovered that little factoid I think she had to suppress a happy dance). The French students tend to look at me blankly and return my timid smiles with even more trepidation than me. I don't think it helped that over-excited Faulkner prof told everyone at the end of class that they should ask me out for a drink because I am a poor, lonely American student who can help them with their English. As you can imagine, no one really jumped at the idea.
My favorite classes so far are my class on medieval architecture and my class on French phonetics. Both are headed by kind, extremely knowledgeable profs who have the same accent and facial expressions as my host mom. The architecture class is intimate and the topic is fascinating. I can't wait to go on our excursions around France and actually be able to know something about the cathedrals and castles I come across. (Cool fact: Notre Dame was once completely painted in bright colors to designate its status as a house of God. Only royalty could afford to wear colors and decorate their homes with them; it therefore makes since that God's house would be the most colorful of all--though I can't say I'd fancy a Notre Dame decked out in clown colors.) In Phonétique, as it is called, we have an hour of class time learning theory and another hour in the language lab. Today's class involved going over vowel placement in the mouth (a familiar topic from voice lessons) and a lab where we recorded ourselves speaking and got individual help with our pronunciation.
Family life has been pretty awesome so far. I can't stress enough how nice my family is. Sometimes we struggle to communicate, but overall between their effort to slow down and my semi-decent French supported by my exaggerated body-language we are able to share information. Manu LOVES Canada and especially admires the beauty of the lakes and forests, so we've talked a lot about the Boundary Waters. Tonight I gave my family the first in a series of gifts I have stashed away for them: a calendar of Minnesota. It went over even better than I had imagined. Not only did they "Oh" and "Ah" over the pictures, but Maxime went to town pronouncing and translating all the English words that he found in the calendar.
I met Charlotte last Saturday. She is such a ball of energy! She's very witty and loves teasing her older brother. She also loves everything to do with women's fashion and frequently walks around the house with Carole's shoes and purse pretending to be a grown-up. We hit it off almost instantly. We play games together and draw (another love of hers), and she is always ready to give me a hug or sit on my lap. When something doesn't go quite her way, she makes a sad face and pretends to flick away a tear while saying, "Sniff" (pronounced "Sneefe"). She was shocked when I imitated her for the first time, and now it's become a joke between us as I can now anticipate her "Sneefe" and beat her to it.
This Saturday I will have my first excursion with the American program CIEE. Because of my time in Paris, I missed out on all the American-student bonding that happened in the two weeks before I arrived. I'm hoping our ten-hour adventure to Mont St-Michel (monastery surrounded by quicksand) and St. Malo (coastal town in Brittany) will help me get to know the group a little better. Then Sunday I will dedicate to my host family. Maxime and Charlotte are battling each other over what American dessert I will make this Sunday: American apple pie (Maxime) or chocolate chip cookies (Charlotte). I'll keep you posted on the winner.
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