The three Nat(h)alies in my life . . .

So my French classes finally started! Hurrah! The other classes have been going strong for a while but I am happy that I finally am beginning to formally learn French. My French teacher's name is Nathalie, which means that I now know three Nat(h)alies in France, including my host mom and the TA for our program. And I have been tremendously blessed to be acquainted with each. I guess that I could go through each to describe my past week. . . .
Nathalie (the French teacher):
I will be spending nine hours a week in her class, plus homework. It will make for an interesting and busy semester . . . hopefully I will learn quickly. There is a class on writing on Mondays, a grammar class and an oral expression class on Wednesdays, and an oral comprehension class on Thursdays. All of these classes are with the same teacher and I like her a lot . . . she speaks entirely in French and I understand almost all of what she is saying amazingly . . . although I am definitely one of the least-French-proficient students in the class. I think that since I actually tried hard and studied for the placement test, I placed into a class with students who are better than I. I'm glad about this (as any cross country runner will tell you, you should train with people better than you so you can improve) and the teacher has been very helpful in enunciating and answering questions and repeating herself and noticing when I look perplexed. She's gifted, as good teachers are, with the all-important ability to engage everyone in the class through humor and through inclusion . . . I'm looking forward to learning from her. For those of you (cough cough Mom!) who want to know my vague weekly schedule, here you are:
Lundi:
9-12 Writing
1:30-3:30 Honors Seminar with Jim
Dinner with Jim and other students in the evening
Mardi:
1:30-3:30 EU Politics, Economy, Law Seminar
4-7 Film class
Mercredi:
11 - 1 Grammar
3 - 5 Oral Expression (discussion)
Jeudi:
9-11 Oral Comprehension (listening)
1:30-3:30 EU Politics, Economy, Law Seminar
4-6 Film class
Vendredi, Samedi, Dimanche: Who knows? Hanging out with other students, movies, homework, mass, exercising, going to the market, updating the blog, school-sponsored field trips, student-sponsored day trips, etc.
I am so happy to have it and to have it settled . . . In America, students know their schedule months in advance, but in France I found out my schedule at 8:30 last Monday morning. Also in France, teachers don't really use the internet to let people know whats going on; there's just a sort of informal by word of mouth thing. And its quite common for a teacher to be gone for a week to do something else and have someone else fill in. And there are no syllabi/syllabuses. So there are definitely some things about the American system that I appreciate a lot. The whole nine hours of French class is something that was not originally a part of the program, but I'm glad to be learning more French than expected. Right now we're only getting about 3 hours of credit in the US, which is frustrating, but since we're getting so many contact hours hopefully that number will increase some. And maybe some of it will even be graded, which would be good for the GPA (provided I actually do my homework instead of just update my blog :-P) . . .
we'll see what UNC people say.
Nathalie (my host mom):
I've already written about her, but had to include her for the blog title to work. So just to recap: she's beautiful, she has two sons who drift in and and out of the house because of school and other things, we live in a beautiful apartment downtown, there is a little Westie named Valentin who is a part of the family, and she's very kind to me and helps me practice my French.
Natalie (my TA):
She is absolutely amazing. She is kind, beautiful, intelligent, great at listening, and resourceful. She does a lot of the busy/administrative work with the program and serves as liason for the two universities. She helps organize, plan, shop for, and cook the weekly dinners. She attends class and plans the field trips (especially logistic-wise) and serves as a resource for helping us with our big paper and any other academic queries that we have. Most importantly, she is a friend and mentor and generally looks after us (sort of like an RA from afar). For example, Friday night (when most students are not provided dinner from their host families), we all had a fun informal potluck and watched Indiana Jones together. She's had an amazing life: she spent years and years as a gymnast which led to a scholarship to UNC where she majored in French and International Studies. Then she taught English for a year in a French village not far from here and then spent several months in Tanzania working with an Aid Agency. Afterwards, she completed a Congressional Hunger Fellowship serving in Louisville, Kentucky and researching the causes of hunger and policy solutions in Washington DC. Last semester, she lived with her boyfriend in England and recently got engaged before working here this semester. After she gets married this summer, she's going to pursue a Masters in Nutrition and Food Policy. We go to mass together and I really enjoy talking with her because she exudes quiet wisdom, faith, joy, and commitment to justice - qualities I hope to cultivate in myself. As aforementioned over and over again in the blog, one of the best things about this program is all of the amazing people that you meet through it . . . Natalie is definitely one of these amazing people with whom I hope to be lasting friends.
So that's it for the three Nat(h)alies. Not terribly much event-wise happened this week - about the most exciting thing is that I saw a couple of movies (Stories of our Fathers, Little Miss Sunshine - for the third time!) and that I enjoyed them both. Plus I finally gave up on waiting to gain access to the gym and began running in the mornings. And it is wonderful! I haven't done that regularly in years (not since IB became a part of my life!) so its good to get back in the habit. I'm no longer running with my pants falling down but the French people do look at me a little funny because almost no one wears shorts (at least not in chilly February). And especially not bright Carolina blue ones. That is one thing I miss about the US: color. People like their fashionable blacks and greys here. When I went to the art museum, I was kind of drooling because I could actually see color! I've tried to be good and blend in with the culture and wear plain colors, but this week I finally went crazy and wore green pants. And stuck out like a sore thumb and probably got some funny looks. But at least I got to embrace color for a little bit!
Love,
Rachel