Dubai, because it's better than French Class...

I missed some class because of an unplanned trip to Dubai. Not much happened, other than half the class has the flu.

The loud Portuguese woman is becoming more annoying everyday. It started by being generally 100% louder than anyone else in the class and trying to answer every single question. Then last week we did an exercise in a room where everyone wears headphones with a microphone on them and we repeat some dialogue so the teacher can hear us individually at a control panel at the front of the class. This would have gone well if Loud Portuguese Woman (LPW) didn't holler all of her answers into the microphone that is less than an inch from her mouth. I couldn't even hear myself conjugate "Avoir" over her butchering her "Etre"s.

Today it came to a head when I was having trouble pronouncing a word (it happens often) and she started laughing hysterically at my mispronunciation. Now, I am not particularly good at French, but it was not at all funny, let alone enough to be doubled over and screaming like she was. Swiss French teacher called her out on it saying Anglophones have trouble with this particular word and that she (LPW) has trouble pronouncing different words and no one laughs at her. LPW did not learn from this, laughing and pointing at a nice Argentinian woman for making a small mistake an hour later. I am not the only one beginning to seriously dislike her.

Highlight of the class today: Learning the different quarks of communication from different cultures. Examples:

- A human making a dog barking noise around the world: Woof woof, arf-arf, bow-wow, taff-taff, eff-eff, kaack-kaack, cue-cue.

- Some cultures wave "come here" upside-down (it's stranger than you think, try it!).

- Different parts of the world start to count to five on their hands using different fingers. Some start with the little finger, some start with the thumb. Anyone who has seen "Inglorious Basterds" knows this.

- The French make a sound effect when doing things that has no English translation. For instance, while typing in your information, a customer service person might say "tack!" while entering a line of data. It means nothing, other than "tack!"

French Class, Day 8

Swiss teacher today, she's a little nicer this time. I guess she is warming up to the class. It was a pretty uneventful day to tell you the truth, no antics.

A little about the class:

- Swedish girl looks like January Jones who plays Betty on Mad Men. She also rides horses (like Betty from Mad Men).

- There is a Buddhist Monk who is one of the better students.

French Class, Day 7

I tried to get there early today to change seats so I could sit with the American and the Swedish girl but I missed the early tram. Same old seat, surrounded by the bottom 10 percentile of the class.

Test today, there was tension dans la chambre! After some review (that most of us thought was the test), we begin. Within 10 seconds Clueless Turkish Guy and his friend, Slightly-Less-Clueless-But-Still-Clueless Afghan Guy start cheating off me. First of all, I am the LAST person you should be cheating off of. But, I have to say my French is better than both of these guys. I didn't really care until Turkish Guy actually grabs my test paper and flips it over because he wasn't done copying the answers from the other side.... while I was still writing.

After grading our test Nice French Teacher asks about a third of the class to stay behind. The Afghan and the Turk did not get to leave early, I did! Maybe I'm not so bad after all, or my teacher just uses a bell curve.

Other notes:

- The Libyan girl who has the "Bratz" notepad also has a "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" pencil sharpener. Also, she is not 17 or 18 as I had assumed, she is 22 (We were learning to say our age the other day).

- Somewhat-Clueless Afghan guy talks to himself all the time. It's really starting to creep me out...

French Class, Day 6 + Birth of the Blog!

NOTE: Back in class, back on le wagon. Or is it la wagon? Is a wagon masculine or feminine? Who decides these things? That would be an awesome committee gig. Deciding what genitalia inanimate objects would have if...

Today I have started this blog because facebook and twitter limit my bitching to 420/140 characters respectively. So from now on I am not held back on my thoughts on the French language, or my fellow etudiants. So if you are reading this now and wondering why days 1-6 are all on the same day, that's why.

Oh, and please feel free to correct my French in the comment section!

and now, Day 6....

Clueless Turkish guy has changed seats, is now beside me. I am now surrounded by people that know even less French than I do. Turkish guy goes overboard when we are learning the names of different "cartes" (Driver licence, passport etc). He continues to pull out ID and show the class long after the teacher is ready to move on. Swedish girl gets him to stop when she says "That one is not even ID, it's a boarding pass."

French Class, Day 5

So I didn't go again. Second best day of school yet! I pulled a late night writing the script (They loved it) and I had to prepare for a photography workshop I am doing on the weekend. I am just happy to have the nice teacher back on Monday morning. Désolé je devais travailler, il paie ses factures (via Google Translate...)

French Class, Day 4

Best day yet, I didn't go. I had to work on the script for the Africa piece and I had a shoot in the afternoon. How do you say "hooky" in French?

French Class, Day 3

New French teacher today, we get her Wednesday-Friday. I hate her. She hates me. She sees my lack of French as an inconvenience. I see my lack of French as the reason she gets paid and I attend the damn class. The loud Portuguese woman is still YELLING THE ANSWERS TO EVERY QUESTION. The new French teacher politely tells her to shut up. J'habite a Geneve.