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| House on my way to the bus stop |
Helene let me know the night before that I
would be making my own breakfast in the morning because she and Pierre would
still be asleep. This was perfectly acceptable to me, because then I didn’t
have to be nervous and speaking to them in the morning and about going to
school. It is strange because some of the other students say that their host
families make them bacon and sausage and eggs for breakfast, but here, and in every
other persons home who I’ve stayed with has bread for breakfast. Usually at
home toast doesn’t fill me up, but here, I think the bread is different. First
off, it’s not like sandwich bread, it’s these big loaves they buy fresh from
the boulangerie. Two slices of that bread with some jam on top and big cup of
tea leaves me plenty full for the day. So that is breakfast.
I caught the bus where Helene showed me,
without any problems, and also didn’t have any trouble finding the school or
the room we were supposed to meet in. Because of the bus schedule though, I had
to show up 30 minutes early. There was only 1 other student who had shown up
that early as well, so very uncharacteristic of myself I went outside and sat
down and introduced myself. His name is Anthony. He’s 22, part Mexican, and a
linguistics major. We just talked a bit about our host families and what we
thought of France and how long we’d been here etc.
The next student to arrive was a skinny 19
year old kid named Eric. We kind of had the same conversation with him, he’s a
chemical engineering major. Both of them were really nice. I felt a little
weird being so much older than them, but still, I don’t think it mattered to
anyone else. They had only taken French 1010, and they had it together, so they
already knew each other. They said there was also another girl who took the
class with them who was coming. Her name was Malory.
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| Field I pass on my walk home |
Once inside the room with the rest of the
students it was a bit of chaos. We were all standing in several groups, and
some had pamphlets about Grenoble they had handed out. We had to bring tiny
photos of ourselves, and we all had to stand and wait in that room until they
were done making our student ID’s. That part was a bit awkward, I will admit
being in all that chaos made me a bit shy, and difficult to meet more people
but Anthony and Eric did introduce me to Malory in there.
Finally a short stalky grey haired French
lady called out seven of our names including mine and told us to follow her. It
turns out the three people I had met were in this group with me, which was kind
of nice to have already met them. There is one lady in the program who is
retired, so I’m guessing she’s in her late 50’s, and there was another girl
from Hawaii in our class, and a tall skinny guy as well in our class. The best way
I can think to describe our teacher is jolly. She’s very animated, laughs a lot,
and seems to enjoy people very much. At first she conversed with us, I think to
begin to gauge how much we understood and could say. To my relief I understood
everything she was saying. I feel bad though because I didn’t realize the kids
who had only taken 1010 had no idea what she was saying.
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| Another pretty sight on my walk home |
We were moved into a second room with
desks separated by partitions and Plexiglas windows on front, but you still
couldn’t see the teacher. With our vision obstructed none of us could figure
out what we were supposed to do. Each desk had its own set of headphones, and
so we gathered at some point that we were supposed to put them on, but they
weren’t working. It was very stressful to be in that room with everybody
partitioned and separated from each other and to not know what page we were on.
I felt my heart pound a little bit and it was very uncomfortable. It turned out
the teacher couldn’t get the headphones to work, and so we went back down to
the first classroom. I was so relieved that I would be able to see her again.
It was amazing how without her body language, I was unable to understand what
she was saying.
When we got back to the other classroom
Malory was missing. Anthony said she told him she was having an anxiety attack
and ran out of the room. We didn’t see her until class ended a couple hours
later. I don’t know where she went, but she just said she got completely
overwhelmed and couldn’t hold back her tears, so she left. I think Paula, our
prof from the U found her and talked to her and she seemed a little embarrassed
but more sure of herself after that.
When class ended, we had to go with Paula
to buy our bus passes. I think mine took the longest to buy because when it was
my turn, the lady behind the desk said she needed to talk to Paula. Turns out that
the passes are more expensive if you’re over 26, plus I live so far into the
country that I’m not even in the right bus zone so the pass that everyone else
bought for $20 was $82 for me. The university actually ended up reimbursing me
for $50 of the price so that was nice.
We all ended up going home to our host
families after that. When I came home I read in my room but I kept the door
open to be a little social, but that turned out to be a huge mistake. There are
no screens on the windows, and because of the heat many of the doors and
windows in the house are opened. I also opened my window to try to get some
fresh air, but I didn’t realize there were mosquitos up here, and they have
always loved to eat me. We ate dinner, which was pizza with anchovies, a first
for me. It was nasty, but I was so hungry from not having any lunch and being
nervous all day since it was the first day, I just mixed the salad and red
peppers with my pizza to cover up the fish flavor. That night, I got eaten
alive by the mosquitos. I had a bite on my cheek, 2 on my neck, 2 on my ear, and
a lot on my elbows and feet. The next day Helene told me they keep all the
doors closed to every room to keep the mosquitos out of bedrooms and bathrooms
and she also plugged in a little mosquito trap into the wall in my room, so
hopefully tomorrow will be better.
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