... but I've had a really good afternoon. I went to three classes, and when I say went to, I mean that I pretty much just sat there and got to offer "opinions" every once in awhile. But I hear a lot of French this way, so it's really good for my comprehension. I even got to choose the subject matter for the BTS class!
Oh yes, the BTS class. When Katie and I were walking home last night, someone was saying something to us out a car window. I look, and it's one of my students. He was just saying "hi", nothing mean or anything. He's super nice and actually quite good at English. Well, of course, in class today, he brought up the fact that he saw me out last night (Add that to the fact that I think the student sitting next to him was at the bar in St Quentin), and then there was a discussion of my life in Chauny. Fun fun.
The last class had a "quiz". I use quotations, because they were chatting the entire time and just had to write about some photos. I just talked with the teacher the entire time. He had mentioned awhile ago about finding a TV for me, but then, I think he forgot. We were talking about something, and he remembered this, and he asked me if the assistants at the other school had televisions. I said yes, so he ran out of the room to talk to someone. When he came back, he said that he would be bringing me a TV tomorrow! Sweet! Hopefully, it'll be one that'll work without cable (i.e. has an antenna). And I should probably clean a space on my tiny desk for it.
Back to the class, last week, this is the class that there was the whole "singing" when reading thing, and he promised the students that I would have to read in French this week. They did not forget! So the last five minutes of class became "Torture Shannon Time". I'm not kidding that. He literally said "Il reste cinq minutes pour la torturer" (there's five minutes to torture her). Out came their French literature book. First I read part of an Apollinaire poem, but poetry is always awkward, so I made them choose a text. I read (very badly) the first paragraph or so and then the teacher read it. A native French speaker does read differently than us. As he says, I still "sang" when I read French, but his reading was very concise and forward. It's difficult to explain, but trust me, there's a difference. Maybe someone else can explain it better than myself. It's just weird, because it's not something you would normally think would be different between languages.
Okay, I'm seriously done writing for today. But like I said in my last post, feel free to ask me any questions you'd like!
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