Bittersweet

Day Thirty-Nine

Today was a bittersweet day.  Had my first rude interaction with a French person (the rudeness was not from me).  I promise, everyone is so sweet and friendly here but today I saw a side of someone that surprised me.  That's about as far as I'll go with that.  I will go on paying my respects but will definitely be more reserved from now on.  There's days like this when I really miss the comfort of home and family in the states.  Then had class and yet again, it was great!  But towards the end, we recieved another lecture from our teacher--and it was totally deserved.  Our teacher asked a question and I honestly didn't even hear her say it because so many people in the class were talking amongst themselves.  So then she was waiting and eventually sat down at her desk until we were quiet.  I got the hint and tried to get some people's attention but it was so bizarre to me.  It doesn't matter that we're a class of people from all different cultures--in no country is it normal to disrespect the teacher by having side-conversations.  Actually, that doesn't even apply to the classroom.  That's for any situation where someone is investing their time to help you, you respect their efforts and give them your attention.  There was a whole group of people speaking Korean in the class too!  We're in class to learn French, wait until our break to speak whatever language you want.  When we quieted down, she told us all to close our books and made the paper handout we were goign to do as a class a pop-quiz that she collected.  And of course, people were talking during that too.  Huh?  It was beyond me.  Eh, just a quick rant.  But it was very hard for me to have patience with those who kept talking, just from my own upbringing and also going to West Point.  But still, I would assume this is something taught in every culture--respect for authority.  During the break, my teacher talked to me about West Point and was interested to learn a little more.  When she asked me why I'm learning French, I explained that every cadet has to take a foreign language for at least two semesters and that I fell in love with it because it's a beautiful, romantic language and also because I'd like to work in Africa one day.  Since French is a predominant language in much of Northern Africa, it just made sense.  I found out she worked in Senegal for a year!  I'll have to ask her more about that sometime.

After that incident, we all left the classroom to go take pictures in the city.  What I mean by that is last week the class went on a field trip to a photo exhibition.  So after that, our teacher split the class into groups and gave us one French word that we had to capture in a photo in Lyon.  We brainstormed yesterday and today were given time in class to go take these pictures.  It's a pretty difficult assignment for some pictures (had to be creative for some groups with interpretations).  Mine was super easy: bouquet.  The other nine words were: coup de foudre (love at first sight), atelier (work of an artisan who designs/makes everything by hand), protéger, unique, cachet (a seal on a letter, for example), voilà, vis-à-vis (face to face), savoir-faire (know-how).  Each of these words have several different definitions which we discussed.  Funny how words grow new definitions over time.  I loved the assignment so much, I asked my teacher for the definition handouts on the other 9 words so I could do this assignment with all the photos on my own.  When I was exploring yesterday, I found a perfect example of coup de foudre in a store window!  Here's to the start of my photo portfolio de dix mots!  :)

After class I met up with Amelia to go out for dinner and we found a nice Chinese restaurant with great food for great prices!  That was nice and then worked on some homework.  Next week I'm going to have my first exam--need to prepare.  Now about to head to bed.


I found the Lyon version of the "Stairway to Heaven," I'll have to try it out

Bouquet 1

Bouquet 2

Bouquet 3

Look what I walked by today!  Four actors practicing their performance in the courtyard of a church

coup du foudre.  I couldn't stop thinking of how perfect it was, that I asked the store owner if I could take a picture of the work (worth 220 euros, I'm pretty sure)

 

There are bookstores with ancient books, so cool!  But so expensive.