(21-23): You Know, I'm Starting to Think I've Dug Myself a Hole With This Whole Title Thing.

(21) is Wednesday, 27 January 2010 and my goodness am I running behind.

Wednesday (still in my first week of class), I went to my Alfred Hitchcock class at Paris VII. I like it... well, okay, I like Hitchcock and I like being the one with the best understanding of these films in the classroom. Of the various classes I'm taking, I think I understand this professor least... he moves kinda' quickly and I have a hard time following his train of thought. I'll be doing my best to pay attention and take notes, and I'll understand what he's saying, but I will have no idea what it has to do with the other things he's discussed or where the lecture is going.* At the end of class, we watched a clip of Psycho... boy, these French film professors love themselves some opening credits.

After class, I met up with a few Sidwell friends (ha! That was a pun!) who are in Paris on various programs this semester. We had dinner at La Volcan, a nice little bistro at the top of the hill on Rue Mouffetard. I had a delicious order of mussels and fries (that's 'frites' over here... rhymes with "fleets") and, after I tasted Lumay's dessert, I decided I couldn't pass it up. The Charlotte au Chocolat is a patty (right word?) of chocolate mousse framed (literally) with vanilla pound cake and bathed in a heart-achingly good creme anglaise.** This and the Pierre Herme Macaroons (The official delicacies of posthumous Oscar recipients, in case you'd forgotten) are about tied for best dessert I have had here so far.

(22) is Thursday, 28 January 2010

Thursday (still in my first week of class), I went to my Music in Cinema class at Paris VII. I like it... well, okay, I like Hitch-- ...oh. Ha.

My 'Music in Cinema' class is great; the professor is a musician who taught at... I wanna' say Penn?... for a year and taught us a little about Baroque through present instrumental music just by way of introduction, and we ended up listening to the opening of Casablanca among other things. We discussed how the visuals of the movie will determine a soundtrack more than anything else. The result, apparent when you listen to the soundtrack alone, is music that completely ignores music theory, classical style, and other academic words for "the sorta' stuff normal composers do." More of this fun*** sort of analysis to come, I hope. This is another class, I should add, that doesn't seem to believe in homework: no syllabus, no suggested books, no suggested music, and I asked the professor about midterms and finals. He has no idea. Rock on.

I'm told the goal on the no-homework thing is for students to be "independent"... something about being motivated enough to educate yourself? I'm still (even on day (28)) trying to get my head around this one.

After class, a few of us celebrated Liz's birthday by treating her to Indian food on Rue Moufetard. Good food, affordable... I'd recommend it, but it's just one of the many things that earns the entire street its recommendation. Another such thing was one of the many crepe stands that earned itself our money after dinner.

(23) is Friday, 29 January 2010

We didn't do much Friday (but watch me write at least two huge paragraphs about it anyway). We tried to go to the movies in the afternoon, but every movie theater (I think I'll refer to them as "cinemas" from here on out) seems to show all its movies at the same times. So, if you just missed the start of your movie, well désolé, but you're in a two-hour vacuum for basically all of them. I don't know why this is, but we disbanded. Liz and I did end up seeing something, however, and the posters and trailer for it had intrigued me since I saw them shortly after my arrival. I've been recommending this extremely obscure film to everyone since, so bear with me if I've already told you to watch the trailer at this web address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-xxAp7Hg0k

I'll try not to dwell on it too long, but Mr. Nobody was incredible: beautifully filmed, well-written, and nothing short of a marvel in terms of editing. That's because this movie is one of those ones where you're going back and forth among a bunch of different stories/realities and half the fun is figuring out why you're seeing what you're seeing. In my opinion, the ending brought it all together splendidly, even if that 'all together' could have lost 20-30 minutes between the middle and the end.

Well, I tried not to dwell on it, anyway...

That evening, that same bunch of us (plus Kirill, our new friend through Aaron) went to a party hosted by fellow JYA students from other schools and programs. It was at this great loft apartment that a few of them share-- it has a two-story living room with a big staircase in the middle, all in concrete but it actually made concrete work, and a good (and largely attractive) 40-50 people there... this is one of those parties you think only happens on TV (and... other people's blogs?) until you get to go to one yourself.

Speaking of parties-- I'm rather baffled about this one, but I've heard "I've Got a Feelin'", "Bad Romance", and (which of these is not like the others?) "La Bamba" more times in my weeks here than in my years in the U.S. I have the metro to thank for that last one.

(24) is... not in this entry. But 24 is a TV show you may know that many Parisians are just now getting to know. And they like a lot, from what I hear. No, the blog sub-entry (24) will be back after these messages.

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Footnotes

* Fortunately, today's class would render this a non-issue. Stay tuned!

** It was probably "heart-attackingly" good, too...

*** That was not sarcastic. And the Florida polls are in: I'm a nerd.

(20): Whatever Happened to Class?

(20) is-- and I don't quite believe it, either-- today: Tuesday 26 January, 2010

Today, I had my first class at Paris VII. Translated to English, it's called "The Paradox of Comedy in the Cinema." This is what we call an L3 course... have I explained the French university system yet? No? Brilliant.

In France, there is no SAT. All French high school (and IB) students take the Baccalaureate exam at the end of high school. It's cumulative of everything ever, but pass it, and you graduate, pass go, collect $200 (about 4.50 in euros), and show up to Paris VII on the first day. Now, since the college didn't have the SAT to weed people out for them, they have to do it themselves. The 'L1' classes compose the first year of the university's concise, no-dabbling, 3-year program, and it is these classes that serve as the litmus test. Thus, I'm taking second-semester L3's. If I were French, I'd be in scoffing distance of a diploma right now.

SO. My comedy in cinema class was actually more like a Vassar film class than I thought it would be... the professor stood at the front of the lecture hall, mumbled, didn't quite know how to work the technology, showed clips of relevant films, and invited students to give their input. The only differences:

--Roughly 40 students

--It was all in French

--It was 3 hours

--Best I could tell, not much homework... how 'bout that...

I then headed over to Reid Hall for my VWPP film class, which is supposed to be a combination of philosophy and film theory. This was a very surreal experience; we watched The Searchers-- well, not really watched, since the professor picked one part he thought was important (the opening credits?) and stopped at least once per second to point something out. So, here I am at 5 in the afternoon watching (as best I can) the opening credits to an American classic* with running French commentary coming from a guy who looks a little too much like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. Bright side: he definitely knows his stuff and doesn't seem to be too big on homework, either.

Since this hasn't been my most creative or entertaining entry, I can at least claim it was short. Oh, and since you haven't had your per-entry French lesson...

"Pedestrian"-- you know, those annoying things that get in your way while you drive?-- is "piéton" in French. Boy, is that an ironic explanation on my part...

-Andy

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Footnotes... er, Footnote. Because there's only one. Yes.

* The same one I've now studied three semesters in a row... Though, I have to admit, it did feel a little like home.

(12-13): Little By Little

(12) is Monday, 18 January 2010

(13) is-- predictably-- Tuesday, 19 January 2010

This week has been sort of a false start in terms of the true immersion part of the program... they told me my classes started on Monday, but my trips to Paris VII early this week told me otherwise. The long and short of that is I also had this week free to see Paris with friends (meaning I essentially got my winter break back with interest and a good exchange rate). I'm told I got all the classes I want, so I now have a good sense of my academic schedule: one 2- or 3-hour class per day Monday-Thursday, unless I want to double up on Tuesdays and then not have class on Thursday. Either way, my proud tradition of 3+day weekends continues, and only if I double up will I have class before noon.

As for Paris VII itself... "utilitarian" only begins to describe it. The main classroom building has hallways and stairs exposed to the outside (so they only have to heat classrooms and minimal pockets of hallway). No power outlets that I could observe from peeking into a lecture hall (handwritten notes, after all), and nothing in the way of student cafes or even a vending machine. Closest you get to Vassar's Retreat or any other student center are some small clearings with tables and chairs (surely meant for study only) in the administrative building right next door. That's where all the bureaucratic stuff happens and a few more classrooms are located. Library's also there.

I really should start putting up pictures, shouldn't I...

But the point is, even now I'm getting a roughly-sketched sense of how this whole French school thing is going to go. More on this next week.

The other big event these two days was my host father's birthday on Monday. They had dinner at the house and invited extended family over... I basically smiled, spoke some French, and took a lot of rounds of the compliment "Tu parles très bien!"* Dinner itself was something I'd never seen before in the States... there's a hot plate at the center of the table, a plate of meat passed around, and you cook the meat yourself on the hotplate. It was actually pretty good... go figure. I followed a projected 50% of the conversation** and they were all very nice.

I'm also noticing that my understanding of French is getting better. Not just I that I'm understanding more and more of what I hear, but there's an important distinction about languages I don't think most teachers ever explain. I think a big part of this immersion experience and mastering French language has been coming to understand French on its own terms. I'll explain.

Learning a language is so much more than "how do you say outdoors in French?" or "what do you call a party foul?"*** Now, as I've demonstrated in recent entries, much of this does work, and it's crucial to making your foreign speech functional. But, every so often, teachers or websites will tell you (rightly) that there really is no good equivalent for a word or term in the other language (here's a fun example: "nuc" in French is "back of the head" in English... do you know a one-word equivalent?).

If a language could be translated word-for-word into another, it would be pointless. It wouldn't be a translation; it would be a set of synonyms, bringing (almost) nothing new to the table.

The reason we have different languages is because they do different things well. For instance, the difference between addressing somebody with a formal pronoun ("Parlez-vous francais?") or an informal one ("Parles-tu francais?") doesn't make much sense in the U.S., where having many casual friends (nay, "acquaintances") is normal. You may not see a high school friend for the rest of your life after you graduate, and that's fine. But this dynamic fits very well in a society where social interactions are more formal and one's friendships are fewer, but expected to last a lifetime. When interpersonal relationships are more cut-and-dry than awkwardly wondering where you stand with somebody, that jump from "vous" to "tu" turns subtext into text.

I guess my point is that it's really all about taking the language and loving it for what it is. Chances are, those peculiarities and anomalies that make no sense are probably your best clues toward other things that, once understood, will really make you at home in this language and the culture with which its symbiotically involved.

On a somewhat-related note, getting into a new language takes a lot out of you. This was much worse last week, but living your life in another language is hard. I mentioned that my French capacities would be exhausted by the end of the day, but there's more than that. Doing even mundane things (like purchases) takes a consistent (and consistently larger) mental effort throughout the day. For your next long-term stay in country with a foreign language, remember this: even more than for jet lag, take it easy for a while to accommodate language lag.

So, my French isn't perfect and my daily activities still land me squarely in the category of tourist (an often-exhausted one), but I think little by little I'm plugging in over here.

-Andy

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Footnotes

*"You speak very well!"

**Hard to say for sure; we're still waiting for the Florida polls.

***For those of you who need that one in English, it's something socially unacceptable, but only because it's in a designated party setting. Let's take a popular example. Contrary to what you might think, crashing a White House party just means you've mastered the skills set forth in Wedding Crashers. This is not a party foul. What is a party foul is (even accidentally) spilling your drink. What's worse is spilling your drink on Obama's shoes. Worst of all? Doing that as a fellow Democrat, because you have thus committed a political party foul.