Blogging in the Rain

When it rains, it pours. For a city that has clear blue skies three hundred days a year, Aix has sure dropped a lot of water today.

Which is why I am now sitting inside blogging. It's as good a time as any (better) to finish background information, so I can just tell stories in the future.

Food:

Not really French food, but it tasted good:

Food here is great. The French love bread. I love bread. The French think of fruit as a dessert. I'm inclined to agree. My host family thinks bleeding bird makes an appetizing dinner. I think it makes an edible one. Well it wasn't really bleeding, but it sure looked like it would. I ate seconds anyway.

On the flip side, cheese is a well known staple of the French diet. I'll suffer through it; the bread that is served with it far more than makes up for it. Mushrooms have appeared a little more often than I would like as well, but I hardly notice them in most of the dishes, and would much prefer an authentic meal experience to one catered around my petty dislikes, which I've realized are not quite as strong as I'd thought.

Oooooh, anecdote: Apparently there's some stereotype that American's don't like spicy food. Eve (my host sister) told her mother that I shouldn't be eating poulet indien (Indian chicken) because it was too hot. I hadn't noticed that it was the least bit spicy. In conclusion: Americans out there, stop being wimps.

Courses
There are five levels of French here:

Fort City of Gordes. I'm about to attack.
Just for the challenge of it.

• I:   Beginner
• II:  Low Intermediate
• III: High Intermediate
• IV: Advanced
• V:  Superior

Before leaving for France, I got courses from levels III and IV pre-approved for credit at Pitt. Last Friday, we took a placement test that encompassed listening, grammar, reading, writing, and oral assessments, in that order. The only one that took place tête à tête (head to head, I'm pretty sure it's infiltrated English though) was the oral portion, where I was informed that I was High Intermediate. So much for my ambitious hopes of Advanced.

Then we got the results Tuesday: I was placed into Superior. I might have dropped a level, but I was quickly told that level V was probably too hard for me. And while I might try to correct a mistake, I can't resist a challenge.

I haven't taken all of my courses yet, but the core courses seem manageable. I will also be taking Histoire de la Langue Française, which is about the evolution of the tongue itself, and Phonetique, which will hopefully improve my miserable accent.

Think I'm being self-deprecating? At phonetics lab, the professor asked me to read a short poem in my best French accent. After hearing me, she laughed. Then she thought for a few moments. Then asked if I had an apparatus in my mouth (to which I tried to explain that I wear a retainer at night). The finally told me to improve my French by going to a mirror and saying "ooo" and "aaa" to get my lips to move more.

I'm going to have to take one course beyond that, either Literature et Politique or Histoire des Idées, but seeing as I haven't had Monday or Tuesday class yet, I haven't gone to either, and thus haven't decided.

Oh, and Fridays are free for me.

 

A typical Friday, I believe.

Piano
My host family has a full electric piano here. 'Nuff said.

Guess that's it.