When in France

It was nine o'clock on Wednesday night and unfortunately I had a significant amount of homework. I had to write about a page and a half of information for my Cours de Langue course the next morning at 9am. I began working on the homework and found it really slow going (that is the story of my life....slow) and very quickly became jealous of the fact that Lara didn't have any classes the next day. While she was fooling around in her room I was obligated to try to come up with a set amount of lines in response to a text that the professor provided. My brain was thinking "it isn' fair" (which I learned the next day in french is "Ce n'est pas juste," from our host Father, who agreed with that sentiment), but thankfully I was able to enlist the help of our homestay children for a little while, which sped up the process considerably. It did make me somewhat sad that I was reduced to get the help of a ten year old with homework, but a lesson in humility is always good, right?

Well, I worked on the projet until twelve and then turned in for the night. I set my alarm for six the next morning and jumped out of bed the minute it sounded. Well...it might have been more of a rolling action than a jumping action.....and it might not have been the minute it sounded. Nevertheless, I was eventually up and at it again and, with a little bit more help from the children, I had completed my first assignment. We will see what type of grade I get....But really, the important part was that I got it done.

On the way to school I reviewed some other homework questions and like the assignment asked, tried to think of a little story to go along with my answer. I came up with some stories right before I arrived and then took my seat at one of the booths in Labo 1. We had to listen to our teacher read something in french and then try to transcribe what she said....I ended up making up a lot of words, which was fun, but challenging. Making up words in french is more difficult than you might think. You have to be careful not to add too many vowels and accents, and you must not be overly zealous in your use of consonants either. It's a fine line to walk, but when in France...(this phrase has become a common refrain of Lara, I believe it is derived from the phrase "when in Rome," but I'm not entirely certain).

Well, Lab ended and we then went to a different classroom for another two hours of french class. We all told our stories that we had prepared and I ended up singing in Chinese for the whole class, something I had not prepared for, but when in France, right? (Lara often uses this phrase at times that don't entirely make sense, I think I just sucessfully did the same thing, but...when in France). I have to thank Jessica Chen for teaching me that song, it saved me in a moment of peril, thanks Jess!

Thankfully, the rest of the day did not requrie me to speak in any language other than French. However, I am realizing more and more that I was looking forward to becoming fluent in a language, but I wasn't prepared for the work. I often hope that one day I'll wake up and just be fluent in french. That would be incredible! But until that day happens it's french classes and french homework for me. Well, I hope that you are all doing well and you can incorporate the phrase "when in France" into your everyday speech at some point this week. Peace!