C'est la Guerre

Okay...I haven't really got enough anecdotal or philosophical nonsense, so today is going to be one of those "random day-in-the-life" entries. I know, it's tedious and not cohesive, but it's practically Thursday and I don't want you guys to feel abandoned. I'll try to keep it brief at least, and I'll try to do better next time.

So, bad news…when I first came here, after I got attacked by an angry mob of mosquitoes, Isabelle gave me a little plug thing that lets off time-released poisonous gasses. Or something. That’s not the bad news. The bad news is, it’s out of poisonous gasses, and I’ve already got one bug bite on my ankle and something on my arm that is forming a hideously alarming (if tiny) blood blister. I am going to have to guard my face and toes especially well tonight…and I know you’re thinking, “wait, whaa? toes?” which just goes to show, you have never had a bug bite on your toes.

In other news, it’s about a zillion degrees in Aix. I’ve been reassured that this is normal – apparently the French are as bad as the English when it comes to talking about the weather – and I’m overjoyed, really I am, that it’s not muggy and humid, but…when I grow up, I’m buying a house in Iceland. Today, for my French 202 class, the professor (a really nice, but certifiably insane French woman who likes to take us “into the field”) decided that we should go on a walk to a park, and to a factory in said park that makes tiny clay statues. Also today, for my French 201 class, I had to bring in three textbooks, a French-English dictionary, and a reference book of French verbs for an in-class written assessment. In conclusion, I took a long, cool shower after the 30-minute hike down and the 30-minute hike back. …Ta-da!

Actually, the past 24 hours as a whole have been an adventure. Last night, after lying around in my underwear, finishing two books, and eating an entire box of tic-tacs, I went out to a café wearing a cloche and bright red lipstick (among other things, obviously). I got a lot of looks from a lot of French men, so I don’t know…does bucket hat + vibrant lip color = fille publique? Or maybe there was something stuck to my shoe. Or maybe I’m out of style. Anyway, at the café, was a lot of intense techno, so I got less studying done than I had planned. I have two tests tomorrow (why am I blogging?)…on the other hand, I’m not really that worried, because I only need to get a C in these classes. Although, I know how to get an A, and I know (in theory) how to get an F (the theory is: do nothing), but I’m not really sure about the work ethic of a C grade. Most of my studying so far has been to sit in coffee shops and bookstores and restaurants and silently rehears what I might say if anyone were to approach me. We’ll see how it goes

This morning, I got up at eight, nearly fell out the window while jumping out of my lofty bed, nearly stepped on cat puke (gross, Malicious…), nearly scarred my face permanently with a hair straightener (I sleepily scalded my arm instead), and nearly was late to class thanks to a bowl of cereal. Classes, other than the above, were fairly unremarkable. Around 4pm it had cooled a bit, so I went to another café to study (will I ever learn?) and to get a cool drink. I ate some kind of Algerian fruit that might be called a “niffle” and got in an argument about whether the English word for “niffle” was kumquat (it’s NOT).

Isabelle wasn’t home for dinner, but her niece Marie came over and made me some delicious saucisson (that’s French for sausage, you guys). This horrible thought is slowly occurring to me that Isabelle doesn’t use any garlic, it seems…this upsets me. Maybe she doesn’t like the thought of it oozing out her pores. Also, she seems to have issues storing leftovers in the fridge – she just puts them in there without saran wrap or Tupperware top or anything, so everything starts to taste like fridge after a day.

After dinner, I tend to walk around the block briskly (thanks to my iPod) and look longingly in shop windows. This may or may not help my French skills. Or my social skills. However, I like to be shockingly optimistic and claim that I’m slowly improving my French, at least, citing the (dubious) facts that I can understand a lot more than I can say, that I am starting to think in French, etc. I’m thinking that one of my biggest language problems (well, okay, in addition to the other big problems, like verbs, and verb tenses, and determiners, and prepositions…) is that I don’t have a big enough vocabulary. I must sound like a complete dunce when I speak French…not only am I grammatically incorrect, I can also only talk about things like, say, pencil cases (les trousses). In the park this afternoon, we sat in a circle on the grass and did little oral presentations based on topics drawn from a hat. My question was about which books I liked, which sounds like a good one for me, but in fact, requires all kinds of things I don’t know how to say. First, I awkwardly forgot everything about the verb lire (to read) except that it's irregular and the past participle is “lu,” and then I realized I never knew how to say things like "science fiction," "pride and prejudice," "world war two historical fiction," "non fiction," or "actually, I make it a policy not to have favorites."

C’est la guerre.

Well, I hear some cats yowling in the courtyard, which makes me think I’ve gone on enough so that only those of you who truly love me will have gotten this far, so I’m off to study les verbes. A toute à l'heure!