Schmoozing with my students

Friday night, there was a potluck for the French host families and the American students that had been there a week.  I was invited so off I went.

At first it was a bit awkward because I'm not really student nor professor.  Luckily, a friend turned up - she did the exchange in 2002 and her mom still helps out.

When she left, I looked around for the friendlies/least awkward group to sit with and found some of my premières (juniors), some Americans, and one terminale student (senior).  I had a total blast as we joked around for quite a bit.  It was fun to relax with them - they're great kids.

They spent a lot of time teaching each other informal slang and swears.  There was a lot of French white girls saying "What's up, homies?" with accompanying "gangster" hand gestures.  Also, my students agreed we would all pretend we hadn't hung out without the teacher/student hierarchy. (That being said, i refused to teach them any swear words or do anything else that would compromise my role as a teacher.)

Also, some fun quotes from the evening:

Student: All the Americans are leaving tomorrow.
Me: What? I don't count?
Student: No, you're part of the lycée now!

My students were asking me for words - to help translate between the American and French students.
Me: I'm just a dictionary to you.
Student: But you're a very nice one!

One of the French professors who had been in the States had taught a student a vulgar phrase in French. So on Friday, my students told the American student to go up to Philippe and say "Vas-te faire foutre." As he walked off, I asked the Americans students if they all knew that meant "Go fuck yourself." Nope, they didn't.... until the professor translated.  He was cool with it, but his wife was horrified because she thought Philippe had taught the American student how to say that.

How is it already March 19th?

The german assistants (well, except for one of my friends who got an extra month on her contract) go home in two weeks. And my contract ends a month after that.  I am in denial that about half of my friends leave in two weeks.  This also makes me realize that I am really not ready to go back to the United States. (I mean, excited to see people this summer, but in terms of the next school year, can I stay please?) I love being an assistant.  Cross your fingers that I get one of the two assistant jobs I applied for next year. Until then, I'm back to denial about how quickly time is passing

Are you looking for a French spouse?

My physical therapist likes to talk.  Which is cool - he's interesting and moving to the US next year, so we talk about cultural differences and such.  (Although for the record, massaging the muscles over my lungs does not help my French prononciation.)

Oh, and this story is funnier if you know I have to take my shirt off for PT.  But less creepy if you know he has a wife and kids.

So, back to the massage where I try to get out understandable French while my lungs get moved around:
Him:  So are you looking for a french spouse? 
Me: Actually, no.  I have a big family and France is very far away.
(we revisited the subject later)
Me:  Well, getting a visa is pretty easy with my contract cause it's basically through the government, but otherwise it's much more complicated.
Him: So you should find a french spouse

Electoral College

One of  my favorite quotes from today:

We've been talking about the American elections in class, including the electoral college.

One of my students (Swiss German but has spent the last four years in Ireland) stayed after class to ask: "Wait, but if [you have this electoral college system], how exactly are you a democracy?" He was totally serious.  And I didn't have a great answer for him.

Are you fluent yet?

It's an interesting question: at what point do you become fluent in another language?

I had a South African man observe the end of one of my classes at the private English center I work at.  When the (all adults) students asked him how long he had been in France, his reply was "un petit moment" aka, a little moment (lit,), a bit.  His definition of a little moment turned out to be ten years.  We all seemed to disagree with him that that's "un petit moment"

But what is more interesting (to me at least) was when the students asked him if he was bilingual in French after living here for ten years.  His reply was no.

After class, we talked for a second.  I told him that people think I must be fluent after getting my undergrad in French and now living here for six months.  We both laughed - probably remembering all the times we still don't know the right words, use incorrect grammar, or don't understand the slang.  For example,  I had no idea how to say mink in class today.  Do I need to know that word to be considered fluent?

It's an interesting discussion - do I check that box that says I am "fluent" in another language?  (Yes, there was one on a job application I did.)

The South African guy who has been here for ten years still doesn't speak like a native speaker. Even my french professors in university - who had been in the states for more than a "petit moment" -- still had French accents.  How well do you need to speak a language to be considered "fluent."

And the other question I have started to ask myself is: How much do I really care?

In French there is a word "debrouiller." It kind of translates to "make it work," but it is used a lot and in many situations.  In french, I would say that I can "me debrouille" in French.

Yes, my accent still gives me away (and probably always will).  I am working on my pronunciation (note to self: recheck out that book on how to pronounce French) so that the times when people don't understand my pronunciation of a work continues to decrease.  And yes, I still have grammar to perfect and (many) words to learn

I still have a lot to learn to be at the level I would like to be at.  But I am also pretty sure that I will never speak like a native speaker.

Perhaps the goal is to be able to "se debrouiller." If the point of learning a language is communication, well then I can definitely make it work.  Cause as much as I like setting high goals (my goal was 4 languages by the age of 21 - so I'm a bit behind) -- I'm not sure how many people can ever learn to speak the language like a native speaker (fluently and without an accent).

International Sociology - mind blown

Last Thursday, for International Women's Rights Day, I went to see "En Secret" (released in the US as Circumstance).  It is a film about two high school girls in Iran, and deals with sexuality, homosexuality sexism, religion, the moral police, etc.  Click here for the trailer.  It was a really interesting movie, although it certainly had its faults.

What was most interesting for me was the discussion with Mme. Direnberger afterwards.  She has a phd in Political Sociology and her dissertations was entitled: "Genre et Citoyenneté politique en Iran et au Tadjikistan" (Gender and political citizenship in Iran and Tajikistan).

It was so interesting! And so different from what I think of when I think of the Sociolgy PhD track.

Her dissertation seems to have mostly focused on feminism in Iran.  She went and lived in Tehran, giving lectures at the university and doing her research (and has obviously also researched in Tajikistan, but that was less the focus of the talk).

When I think of political sociology, I don't think of people writing their dissertations about Iran.  Based on the sociology courses I took in university, including a political sociology course, it seemed that we tended to focus on the US - and sometimes the US in comparison to other countries (these were usually northern European countries). Her research in Iran seemed so different from the usually US-centric (and sometimes European-centric) sociology I had seen in university.  (I am sure there were some exceptions, but they were rare.)  And when I think of political sociology, I don't think of feminist movements - although that's less of a jump from my political sociology course.

So I went up to her after.  First, I asked her if she spoke Farsi - which apparently she has learned in order to do her research.  Ok, so she got to combine learning languages with sociology? So cool! Can I do that?  My second question was less a question and more of a this isn't the type of sociology I saw in university...  And her response was that she was not the only one. Plenty of other people are researching/working in similar subjects.

So basically, you can combine study social justice (see feminism), international contexts (see Iran) and Sociology (see PhD)?  It's like my two big spheres of interests - sociology and international contexts/languages - just collided. So I don't have to chose?  That's incroyable!  I'm working on learning more about what other people in that field are doing. And totally geeking out with excitement in learning about this subsection of sociology.

Some random updates

So first some things I find interesting:


Edited to add: The postal workers in Saint-Etienne take the tram with their roller-bags of mail  (like the ones people use to carry their groceries here sometimes) to get to their route. Not sure if it's all postal workers, or just some, but it always makes me smile when I see it.


1) The Help (the bestselling book and movie) translates to La couleur de Sentiments, aka The Color of Emotions.  Interesting - and actually, it makes much better sense for a French title since "the help" translated would not have the same cultural connotations.  (Ok, I'm a bit of a language nerd.)


2) I am sort of thrilled about how much time I get to spend on google translate and wordreference.com.  I love being surrounded by foreign languages and working on learning more.  It makes me smile that the addition of "bing translate," which can automatically traslate a certain amount of stuff on facebook just by you clicking "translate"- is something I get to use frequently.  (Ok, still a huge language nerd.  But I love my life.)

3) That being said, when I tried to google translate some german in a facebook message from friends, this is what it gave me: "orthorhombic dehei?"  No, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean in English....

4) I am having a huge pancake dinner for about ten non-american friends on Saturday.  I can't wait to introduce them to pancakes and maple syrup.

5) I am now being tutored in Spanish once a week by my friend Rodrigo, who is from Ecuador. It's awesome on so many levels.