I had my first class in England EVER today!!! And it was grand.
And not that I don't think you're important, but I really should be honest and admit that I'm writing this blog to distract myself from the gnawing hunger that is assailing me an hour prior to dinner. That being said...
French 1A plopped into my schedule at 2pm today, and I plopped myself next to a friendly looking person, who turned out to be an Indian student studying at Drake in IA who is now studying in Nottingham for the semester. Her name was Sonrita, which is like "sonrisa" in Spanish, which means "smile", and I just thought it was adorable. On my right was Sofia from Italy, studying in Nottingham for the full three years. Both were incredibly friendly and made my first class enjoyable.
However, the professor came in looking grim as ever, threw her things on the table, and continued to lecture us on how this would be "an intensive course" and that most of us would not make it to see another day of French because "French is one of the hardest languages". (...Need I remind you that we're in an INTRODUCTORY French course. I think we'll be okay...) However, after this lecture I'm pretty sure my eyes were bulging awkwardly out of my head, and I had to will them back into my skull so I didn't look so obviously panicked.
By the end of the class, however, I was able to wipe my brow, realizing that I had in fact made the cut and could remain in the class, and that our professor had a tough facade but was truly sarcastically funny underneath. Pleasant surprises are always a good way to counteract the initial terror of the first day of class... :)
The class itself was certainly not structured the way I would have imagined it would be. I haven't begun a language for 7 years, so the complete lack of structure was bewildering to say the least. The first thing she had us do was pronounce all of the countries and nationalities after she did. This was difficult, having absolutely no knowledge of how to read, understand, or pronounce the French gibberish that was sketched across the page in front of us. When she asked me where I was from, in French, and I tried to answer, in French, I must have managed to answer in more of a Spanish accent than anything (common mistake for a third-language-learner), and she asked me, in French, if I was from the Dominican Republic. No. No, I am not. I'm just American... which is probably painfully obvious by now.
In any case, it should be an adventure to take French and an advanced Spanish translation course at the same time. We'll see how that goes down, but hey, it was about time my dream of being trilingual became reality, so I'm truly very excited about it!
Both breakdancing and advanced street dance societies start tomorrow evening (right during dinner, ironically, as American dinners are at least 3 hours before typical Brit dinners), and the musical theatre group will meet on Thursday. (Also the day three of my classes meet. Ouch. Long day, but survivable.)
Until then, I am trying my best to ignore the delicious scent of lasagna (which is army crawling its way under my door) by watching old original videos from freshman year. Oh short hair, I miss thee some days... it was just so sassy! And straight. There's really no point straightening my hair here with all the constant moisture in the air. Thank God for the hormonal changes that have given me easily manageable curls :)
Until next time!
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