Politics

Last night's French homework was to research a few large French newspapers online and then buy the hard copy of another and basically compare their hard copy to the American hard copy and their online version to the American online version. I chose the New York Times for my American counterpart and it brought me back to those wonderful all-nighters (called nuits blanches in French - 'white nights') spent working on Byrd's final project, that scrap book that I honestly can't even remember physically putting together or working on. I think I may have blocked it from my mind altogether. 

Yesterday’s class was a definite fail for me, I had forgotten to do part of the homework and unfortunately it was the one area of grammar I cannot come up with on the fly, that most hated tense: the subjunctive. I had to review how to even form the subjunctive; it’s been that long since I was forced to use it. Lara claims I used it the other day but I think she must be imagining it because there is no way I would use the subjunctive of my own volition. It’s a useless antique that is simply kept around to keep students painfully aware of the fact that if they ever hope to become fluent in French, they will have to keep their speech clean of emotions, non-certitudes, desire or clauses followed by a change in subject. According to Madame, you will also never be able to participate in an academic debate (no big loss there, I can’t even do that in English and I haven’t been feeling the loss thus far).

That class goes by SO SLOWLY I cannot imagine how I’m going to make it through the linguistics classes at Paris8 that are all three hours long once a week. I can’t even express how much I would like for it to be the other way around. I would haul myself out there every damn day if class were only an hour. I mean obviously sitting still for three hours is a struggle but understanding French is he real challenge. My attention really starts to wan at the two hour mark if it’s not a class where I’m constantly asked to respond; at least in classes like that, I have to keep listening because I need to understand what the professor says in order to respond intelligently, not that I would at all want to do that in a French classroom setting. I’m not even going to be able to comprehend my classmates (they’ll be speaking quickly and probably in slang most of the time and I’ll be speaking slowly/mumbling with a heavy accent); I can’t fathom trying to speak in the same debate as them. That said, I am really excited to start at Paris8, if only to take Russian and a class on French slang. Just two and a half more weeks!

It’s only 10 but I feel like I’ve been up for soooo long. The Italian was up early this morning and it sounded like he came in an out of the apartment like 9 times and then he was making breakfast and I couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s weird living with someone that you don’t really know, and it’s even weirder that we must be the fourth or fifth pair of girls that has lived here with him. He’s lived here for two years and he said that every four or five months, there are students and it’s always two girls. I mean, with people changing all the time like that he must just feel like we’re just temporary tenants (which we are) but I feel like whenever we talk, I have to initiate it. I wonder if he even wants to get to know us anymore.