my life with depression.com

BONJOUR! je suis dans paris. j’ai lecon du francais pour deux semaines!

HELLO! i am in paris. i have french lessons for two weeks! so today was my first day of class at l’alliance francaise. this group is known through out the world and usually have a local chapter that you can join. they offer weekly class for a nominal fee. the whole hour is in french.

i now know how it feels to be a sardine. i took the metro to starbucks first and thought that i would miss the stop. my “pardon” wasn’t as loud as everybody else’s “pardon” and i don’t think that people understood me anyway. so i pushed a little and meekly said my pardon.

so my first day. i was late about 3 minutes because the starbucks guy was moving rather slow this morning. maybe he was new. luckily he understood my grand soya caramel machiato = 5.30 euros = about $7.00.

so i arrive to class and listened patiently. EVERYONE was speaking french AND this is suppose to be a class with zero french. i thought that i was in the wrong room or something. turns out that that group has had two weeks of classes already and today is the start of their third week. AHHH. VOILA ET OHH LA LA. luckily i did some pre-work on my own, so i was able to hang as much as one can.

immediately, they started asking me questions in french and i was expected to answer. say what??? the teacher looks at me and tells me that EVERYONE gets to ask questions of moi. they asked me my name, age, why i was taking the lessons, where i am from … so on and so forth. i guess i know more french then i thought- because i was able to answer them with ease (most of the time). i don’t have the confidence to speak like them, but when i do, it hardly feels like pulling teeth!

i don’t know if the teacher thought that i liked to be called on, but man … did she keep calling for my participation! i guess you can’t say “mon maison” … you have to say “chet maison”. i will always remember that because i made that mistake.

there were other nationalities there. the girl to my droit (right) s’appelle Nada. she is from lebanon. a gauche (left) s’appelle Sofie. Elle is from Shanghai but prior to quitting her job, she was working for her company in germany. then there’s a woman from honduras, one from korea, a guy from brazil and two from germany. one of the german girls is named Hannah. She said she saved for the longest time to afford to be able to learn french for 3 months. WOW. my dream. i told her that i was going to join the alliance in SF (Sofie will also do the same) but she said that it was too expensive for her and with her rent and everything … well then, it’s probably good that she is taking the three months. i should suggest getting a pen-pal.

i accidently called my mom at 4:30am thinking that it was like … 10:30am or something. oooops. i counted the wrong way on my watch. ooopsy!

as it is lundi (monday) and i don’t have afternoon classes, i decided to eat locally. i thought, should i eat sushi or korean bbq? i know… i know … je sais …. je sais, but i eat french food here ALL THE TIME, so i wanted to taste other ethnic foods here. i chose korean. the menu was basic and they only served bibimbop (spelling?). i tried asking for the panchan (little side dishes) but later found out that they are japanese. DING! no wonder they didn’t understand what i was saying! i was only able to get kimchi - which cost 5 euros. such a RIP! my meal - with - meat cost 7.50 euros! darn it! i knew i should’ve brought my own kimchi!

the mcdonald’s here serve everything smaller. they don’t give you ice in the drinks, so when you get the extra large size, it’s like the size of our regular drink. the fries comes with ketchup and pomme de frites sauce - which is like mayo, but it’s got something else in it. it’s okay…. i would only use it once i’m out of ketchup. i tried their sundaes today. i don’t know if they normally give you a lid for it, but i didn’t know how to ask for one, so i said “fuck it!” also , they charge 1.60 euro for one. i thought … WOW cheap! that’s like two bucks in dollars. when the order came, they were like, half our size… no wonder they say french women don’t get fat, it’s cause they starve to death! (actually - recent data suggests that they are starting to get fat. not at the rate and size as american women though). vive la france et la cuisine!

well, i must start studying and start my homework. oh and i’ve never taken so much notes in my life. although i had fun, it’s exhausting when you have to pay really close attention as EVERYTHING is in french - unless the students don’t know the french word, then they use the english word. I guess english and the desire to learn the french language is the common denominator here.

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