Students’ Views

Learning French has done a number on my written English. it’s really suffering. I guess I just haven’t had to write a lot in English. My spoken English is a little bizarre too. Everyone one in my program agrees we’ve forgotten a lot of vocabulary. I’ve become temporarily habituated to saying certain phrases in French: (thank you, how are you, cool, excuse me) things like that. Right now, I’m in England with a friend from my program. We both feel a little lost. We speak English well, and yet we feel conditioned to respond to certain things in French. People tend to look at you funnily when they hear you speaking English and then here you say something loudly in another language.

…and it’s weird to be in a place where they speak English. There’s this tank-topped redneck in my heart who thinks ‘they… don’t…. speak it right over here…talk right already!’ It makes me miss the States more than I have this whole time. The English is very different and the accents are difficult.

I’m meeting my friend from Austin in London tomorrow. I haven’t seen anyone from home in so long! Man! We’re going back to Paris to stay with a friend of mine, and then to Bayonne and then back to Toulouse. I’ve gotta start working! I’m so excited to be with someone who knows me. I’ve taken for granted how nice it is to feel known… to not have to explain yourself all the time… to not have to censor yourself… friendship…

In less exciting news, I’ve had to start thinking about my capstone a lot (senior thesis). It’s extremely had to do this from far away. This isn’t very exciting either because it means college is coming to an end. The day my program ended we were celebrating and the one sophomore in my group made a toast, ‘ you guys are all seniors now! yea!’ We all sort of shrugged and started looking down at our feet…. hahahahaha I guess we have to start thinking about after college at some point.

Recently, I found this English teaching assistance program in France and all of it’s overseas departments. You sign a seven month contract. This means I could return to France, go to Martinique, Guaduloupe, Tahiti, New Caldonia, Reunion Island, French Guyane. I found another program recently in which you do basically the same thing but in Francophone Africa…. not bad.

Off to speak English poorly,

W