a ha ha

His French Comes Out Greek
By Jack Engelhard, Philadelphia Corner

With the Flyers in Montreal: If there is one thing I was taught in high school it is that French is not something you speak. but something you conjugate. I can still hear my French teacher:
"All right, class, now, in unison, let us conjugate the verb – To Have."
"J'ai. Tu as. Il a. Nous avons. Vous avez. ils ont."
Those of us who did not know it by heart read from the blackboard which had all the major verbs conjugated in a row going from up to down. Every day we conjugated from up to down, and now, though I am unable to complete a sentence in French, you ought to see me conjugate.
But here in Montreal, the French evidently never took high school French. They show no respect for conjugation. In fact, they seem quite confused by it, and, what's worse, they expect a foreigner to speak French, never mind up and down, but sideways.
They make a person who can speak up and down, no matter how well, really feel out of place.
For instance, here we were on the team plane where the French hostess leans over and inquires of me in French, "How are you feeling, sir?"
In her language, I replied, "I am fine. You are fine. He or she is fine. We are fine. You are fine. They are fine."
She walked away without saying anything. Not a word about how flawless a performance. In school, at least, I would have gotten a gold star.
For the rest of the evening in the hotel, I tried to stick close to the hockey players who speak English, or those who understand French up and down. But the next day I got restless and decided to take a walk around Montreal.
Half of the population of Montreal is French, the other half English, so every second person you run into is bound to either be French or English. I ran into what turned out to be a French girl and, putting on the old charm, I said, naturally in French, "May I buy you a cup of coffee? May you buy you a cup of coffee? May he or she buy you a cup of coffee? May we buy you a cup of coffee? May they buy you a cup of coffee?"
She simply walked away. I stood there wondering if perhaps in my rush to get it all out I had missed a vital pronoun.
Then I continued my promenade and before long I was lost, with only an hour to go for the hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Montreal Canadians. I do not have to tell you how awful it is for a person who can only talk up and down to be lost in a city where almost everybody talks sideways.
I stopped a chap who could be either French or English-speaking and I said, in French, "I am lost. You are lost. He or she is lost. We are lost. You are lost. They are lost."
Luckily, he was an American.
"Perhaps I can be of help," he said in perfect high school French. "Perhaps you can be of help. Perhaps he or she can be of help. Perhaps we can be of help. Perhaps you can be of help. Perhaps they can be of help."

Currently Listening Wintersong By Sarah McLachlan see related

It’s snowing outside, and I keep peering out my window every couple minutes to make sure it hasn’t stopped. Snow!  Even though it’s not sticking, I still feel like a little kid about this.  It’s been two years since I’ve seen snow, and though that’s not exactly lightyears ago, it still feels special. Winter…cold…snow…frosty mornings…the joy of eggnoglattes…They all feel a little new to me, having missed them last year. 

As concerns the here and now : I’m teaching grade 10 French now and rediscovering why I love teaching.  Not all days are good days, but I see enough good things to keep me hooked.  I love my students, even the ones who call me “Madame VANDERTRAMP” by accident (let the reader understand the dangerous effects of passé compose teaching techniques).  And so yeah… French…there’s that too…  My sponsor teacher only speaks to his class in French, so I teach all in French as well.  This drives some students crazy. “Can’t you just speak English? Is this a conspiracy?” Well…possibly, but we’re getting results.  It makes me excited to see them able to hold conversations in French, ask questions, show themselves willing to struggle and make mistakes.  I’m a little less excited that they speak English often as soon as my back is turned, but I’ve made my peace. You can’t have it all.

Anyhow, I have lesson plans to right (blasted lesson plans) and lots of tweaking to do.  Student teaching has given me a very intimate knowledge of Murphy's Law. It seems much of lesson planning is mapping out all the things that could go wrong, and then doing the opposite.  My unit plan reads more like a fairy tale than anything someone would actually teach...

Currently Reading The Maltese Falcon By Dashiell Hammett see related

    Ummm... hello Xanga.  I decided not to kill you after all... After almost two months of not writing and being quite at peace with that, I'm back on here, checking my subscriptions and (gasp!) thinking about what I might write.  Nothing too fascinating has come yet, but I do want to say  that I'm (very) excited to start school again. 
     The 'beginning of the end,' the 'end of the beginning,' whatever you want to call this last year...I can't wait to get started. Janice and I went up to SFU today, because I was hoping to get my books and talk to an advisor about my French test. I am not overly ashamed to say that I did not do so well as I had hoped on the oral part of the test, so I wanted to ask for tips and explanations of my grade.  The advisor sees a lot of people like me though, I think, because before she sat down, she reached over to her desk, grabbed a box of Kleenex and placed it between us. "Yes," she said, "it's very difficult for some people to hear about this." 
      We proceeded to listen to the tape of my test and she explained why I had lost points for saying 'day-su' rather than 'duh-su' and many other rather silly mistakes.  The worst one, I think, was the time when I was trying to say 'I feel very strongly on this point' and said instead 'I smell rather strongly on this.' Ah, les faux-amis...But, on the positive side, she also said that my anglo accent is not all that strong and that the examinators had been very particular when giving my grade.
      My books were not in the bookstore when I checked, but Janice and I had a grand time eating sushi, soaking up sunshine and wandering around.  The campus was buzzing with little freshmen and freshwomen wearing nametags and following people with orange shirts around and it all felt very 'first-day-of-school'-ish.  And the first day is always the best, isn't it?  It's only later, when you have to write papers and study and it rains,  that school loses its lustre.  But that story is for another day, and for the moment, I can't wait to start.

Currently Reading The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics) By Henry James see related

So. Everyday life huh.

    It's been a month since I left Suriname, though it feels like much longer already.  It scares me a bit to think how quickly everything passes into photos, anecdotes, and the odd sharp pang of memory.  I remember leaving last year this time, and feeling like I was teetering over the brink of something huge that would change everything.  It did, in many ways, some of these permanent, some not.  But the impression I'm left with is also of the brevity of a year, even for someone who has hit the grand old age of twenty-two.  How quickly everything passes and I am home again, desperately scrambling to get ready for what comes next...

   What comes next for the upcoming days and weeks is a bit of a hodgepodge.  I am starting a new job tomorrow as a 'Customer Experience Representative' at Chapters.  I love the title, because it makes my heart swell with pride just thinking about it.  It's not 'retail,' honey, it's 'customer experience' that I am responsible for...
    I'm also cramming. Zut alors, my French competency test is just around the corner, so I'm forcing vocabulary into my brain at a rate of a page or two a day.  I've just realized how little everyday French I actually do know, in fact.  Exactly what is 'puck' in French? How do you say 'bodycheck'? ('La rondelle', et 'mise en echec', respectively, should you be wondering.)  It's depressing to think of how few of my numerous French university courses are actually relevant for this... We spent so much time discussing miméism in litterature and so little time discussing hockey...  In any case, if I pass this, all is well and I will go to school again for teaching in September. If I don't pass, all is not very well and I have to find Plan B for the next year. So, no pressure...

I haven't been a teacher all that long, but already I've received some rather hilarious gifts in my career.  My very first was a little green and purple porcelain dog that a camper gave me once: it means the world to me.  I've also received: old clothes, very nice clothes, teddy bears, candy, books and... something that really doesn't fit into any of the regular categories. Is it a music box? decoration? instrument of torture? Watch the video and decide for yourself.  I love that one of my students thought to give this to me for my birthday.  I love that it's called 'A Funny Music Staye - modern and elegant in fashion' for some obscure reason and I love that those little plastic children have unfocussed pupils and disturbingly blank expressions for see-saw riders.  I love most of all that the show-off one doing a handstand on the beachball falls off right away. Serves him right.

Here it is in action (turn the volume up for the full effect):

Has anyone else received a gift like this?  I'd love to hear any stories :)