teachers, smeachers

so apparently i haven't been on here in a while to update things.
i guess that's what happens when your wifi crashes and you can't get to the computer every single night to do things. it's super weird to not have constant access to the internet. it's not that i really really really need it every single night, but it would be nice once in a while to be able to sit on my bed and to write my blog. i miss my bed.

no, i'm not going to use capital letters right now. i'm too lazy. that's what happens when it's been raining all day and it's 22h34 and all you really want to do is go to bed. you get lazy.

classes here are fine. as i've told some of you, one of my profs is dumb. i'm sure i've used other adjectives, but i haven't used 'dumb' yet, so i thought i'd give it a try. her name is madame cieslarczyk and she's a doctor, apparently, and i'm sure that she's a really nice lady. but when i'm around my friends i call her the demon lady, because she sure does love to make our lives about as much fun as getting stuck in an iron maiden.

today, for instance, she was telling us all that we needed to go see the movie "bienvenue chez les ch'tis". i've already seen the movie, i loved it and thought it was hilarious. i even understood pretty much every single word of it. so we're in class, and she says: "even though you're only in niveau seuil, you might be able to profit from seeing the film."

ok. seuil is the middle level. like i said a while ago, it's almost advanced, but not quite. it doesn't mean that we're stupid. julia and i looked at one another in disbelief just after this repugnance came out of her mouth. even though? why, thank you. i now understand and appreciate exactly how much confidence you have in me and each of my classmates. from there we went on to write down clichés that we had of the french before coming here. abby and julia and i wrote down the typical ideas: everyone smokes and eats bread and cheese and drinks wine and wears black and hates americans. dur. the fun part was when we had to explain to her that these clichés were in no way our own...what teacher doesn't understand "these aren't our thoughts but the things that a lot of americans think"? and what teacher who says that she's been teaching international students for over 10 years doesn't know what chinese watercolor painting is? everyone knows what that is! everyone! and she even has a lsdjflsijf doctorate! a doctorate! what!?!?

so that's enough of that. my other classes are just fine. i've met the two most amazing teachers in the universe. one is monsieur blanchet, my prof for oral expression. he speaks french, english, chinese, german, and a little spanish i think. he makes us work for things, but he helps us to work for them. he doesn't treat us like children. the other prof is madame noury. she's been teaching at CIREFE (council...uh international...blah blah étudiants) for FOREVER. the first day she told us that she is the princess of CIREFE. we love her. she spent ten minutes of one of our classes explaining the different uses of 'bof'. it's pretty much not really a word, but she made it seem like it was. unfortunately, in order to understand everything that happened you kinda need to speak french. suffice it to say she had us rolling in our seats with laughter with all the references she was making to french stereotypes. she makes us work too. she makes us work a lot. and she didn't tell us the first day, like SOME teachers did, that she was going to go easier on us because we were international students and maybe 'deserved' a break. nope.

the first day she stood up in front of us, explained the french system, and told us to get used to it. i like it. no nonsense, demands respect. gets the job done. why can't i have noury three days a week? not fair...or perhaps it is.

today i started making vocab lists. i need to get more words in my head and i decided that the best way to do that is to start just writing everything down; and to look up words that are all in the same families so that when i learn one word i also learn about fifteen others. i started the first list while i was hanging with collin in a café after classes. i finish by 15h30 every single day, which is nice, but all the rest of my friends have classes until 17h30ish every day...ugh. well, not everyone, but there's usually at least one of us who's off pretending to learn.

which reminds me, i need to tell you about brest. not breast. brest.
uh...i'm gonna do it later. i know, i know...but i'm so tired...and tomorrow is wake-up-with-the-highschoolers day. that means i have class at 8h15 and i have to ride the bus into centre ville with a vehicle full of high schoolers. so much fun. you know, you know that you're american when you get into a bus of lycéens and they're all younger than you, and also are all dressed better than you. so sad. i even have my new frenchie trench. no good. it's must have something to do with only wearing black otherwise...

haha. of all the stereotypes, the whole wearing black thing is the most true.
classy, though. i think i'm going to buy some more.