Miracle of miracles, happiness of happies: I got a refrigerator!! (darn, my miracle isn't Prince Charming...haha) And it's free!! Due to my refrigerator adventures, I have decided that I'm going to leave a note for any future OU students who come here about things you need to know but no one will tell you, because having a fridge is amazing, and I would have never known if I hadn't met another exchange student who told me. There are so many things that you have to just discover, or know to ask about, but no one tells you about them. The internet, a refrigerator, the kitchen (because apparently there is one, I just didn't know until I saw the sign saying "Keep the kitchen clean!" and then going to someone and asking why there's a sign about a kitchen when there isn't one on my floor), how to receive mail, laundry…the list goes on. Definitely leaving a note, so you're welcome, future Sooners in Limoges =)
Classes have been…fun, interesting, and sometimes wayyy over my head haha. There was one class where I felt like a complete fool. It was a speaking practice course, and the exercise was to repeat a particular sentence in a bunch of different ways. For example, say it while whispering, shouting, crying, laughing. I had no trouble with the laughing part - I couldn’t stop laughing. Shouting, however, was a bit awkward and stupid-feeling. At least we all were making fools of ourselves together =) The grammar class, well, most of that's way over my head. I don't even do this intense of grammar in English. Craziness!!!
And then there was my ghost class. My Ancient Greek History class, which is Wednesdays at 13:00 in room 404, does not exist in reality. On paper and online, sure it exists. But I went to the classroom and sat there for a good half hour. No one showed up. No students, no professor, no one. I found a random professor in the hallway and asked her for help, and she showed me to an important looking lady. This important looking lady told me that the class exists in the room I had been sitting in. Phantom class!!! The quest is on to figure out where on earth this class actually is and whether or not I can understand it well enough to enroll in it! Ah organization…a word that apparently doesn't translate in to French =)
I kind of feel like I'm in IB French again, except on steroids. For example, at the end of the semester I have to do an expose. I thought my IB expose was nerve-wracking: 10 minutes over a topic of my choice, 4 minutes speaking and 6 minutes question and answer. Question and answer with an American teacher who was encouraging rather than scary. Anyone who was in my IB class can attest to how nervous I was about that particular expose. This expose-on-steroids is 15 minutes, over documents that I will be given 1 hour before I present, in front of 2 scary French professors who will do everything in their power to distract me and make me lose my train of thought, such as opening and slamming the classroom door, digging through their purses, checking their phones, and other things to make me screw up. They also will provoke me during the question and answer part to make me change my stance and falter. As if talking in a foreign language to native speakers of that language isn't nerve wracking enough. Horrified. Beyond. Belief. Almost wishing for the good old days of simple IB exposes. But if I was going to wish for "the good old days," I would wish for the days before I knew what exposes were =) It's times like these where I wonder what exactly I've gotten myself into…
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