Sunday, October 7, 2007

Le commence d'ecole

My long, long vacation has finally ended. I'm back to real life as a student with homework again.

Monday I finally had my first class. It was a little overwhelming to jump back in to the swing of things. Especially since I'm a week behind almost everyone else because I couldn't start classes until I'd finished up some testing. What actually surprised me was how well I could understand my professors. Just being here in the midst of everything and having random conversations with people, I felt like my knowledge of French was very weak. Trying to communicate with people has been very frustrating and difficult, but as time is passing it is becoming easier, although I probably sound really weird to them because my vocabulary is so lacking. I was trying to say 'trail' and the best way I could in French was 'the little road on the mountain that goes up to the top.' Yeah, it takes me forever to say anything because I have to describe the one word that I don't know.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent all day at school, going from one class to the next. This semester I'm only studying at the school of French as a foreign language (EFLE) so I have exciting classes like, Overview of the written media, a grammar class for 7 hours a week, Introduction to linguistics, phonectics, introduction to french and french speaking culture, Translation from English to French, and my favorite... methodology of studying a foreign language at university. So overall I have 20 hours of class a week, so hopefully enough to keep me busy. I'm not quite sure how homework goes here, but there is definitely less of it. I'm already missing math and physics classes, but they don't offer any of those at UNIL.

Friday I didn't have any classes, so instead of doing my homework, like I probably should have, I went shopping. I live close to two good sized malls, and can't help but wander over there. It's kinda funny cause all the malls here have grocery stores in them. My problem is I would love to spend all my money on their great shoes and coats, but I do want to travel some while I'm over here and so I have to save my francs for that.
\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>No, but it's fun to have classes and to study at EFLE because for the most part there are the same people in most of my classes and we all don't speak perfect French. It's fun to see the diversity of people that have come to Switzerland to learn French. Unfortunately, the people I talk to the most are the Americans and the British. It is easier to speak English to get to know people, but I really am trying to just speak French at school and hopefully meet more non-English people.\n\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Yeah, the people here laugh at me cause I'm not at all used to the petits-bissoux, the little kisses on the check that you do with people you know. I'm like k, you're invading my personal bubble here, and I'm not sure if I know you, but I'm trying to get more used to it cause that's the way things go here. Maybe I'll get more accustomed to it so they don't always tell me afterwards, if they speak English, it's a european thing.\n\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>Yeah, so life here is good. It's beautiful and still green. The temperature is still around 65 F. But it's funny because you'll see people here all bundled up in heavy coats and scarfs and boots, and I'm like this is still good enough weather to wear shorts. I wonder what they'll do when it actually gets cold.\n\u003c/div\>\n",0]
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No, but it's fun to have classes and to study at EFLE because for the most part there are the same people in most of my classes and we all don't speak perfect French. It's fun to see the diversity of people that have come to Switzerland to learn French. Unfortunately, the people I talk to the most are the Americans and the British. It is easier to speak English to get to know people, but I really am trying to just speak French at school and hopefully meet more non-English people.

Yeah, the people here laugh at me cause I'm not at all used to the petits-bissoux, the little kisses on the check that you do with people you know. I'm like k, you're invading my personal bubble here, and I'm not sure if I know you, but I'm trying to get more used to it cause that's the way things go here. Maybe I'll get more accustomed to it so they don't always tell me afterwards, if they speak English, it's a european thing.

Yeah, so life here is good. It's beautiful and still green. The temperature is still around 65 F. But it's funny because you'll see people here all bundled up in heavy coats and scarfs and boots, and I'm like this is still good enough weather to wear shorts. I wonder what they'll do when it actually gets cold.

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