Oh, Learning

Startling fact: Substitute teachers do not exist in France.  If a teacher is absent, the students don't go to class.. they hang out in the cafeteria, otherwise occupy themselves, who knows!  A teacher has to be out for 15 days- THREE WEEKS- before a replacement is brought in.  I don't know why this is.

Education Never Ends: My week was full of French classes!  I found two free courses offered by the University of Toulouse to international students and people like me.  Both are oral, focused on improving our speech.  (You learn to speak by speaking!)  They're entirely in French (at this level, I'd be extremely disappointed if they weren't), partly because it's the only common language: each class has 12 or 15 people; in both, I'm the only American; Spain is the only country represented more than once; people hail from Iceland, the former USSR countries, Colombia, Asia...

My Thursday night class will be language taught through culture-- French film, photography, literature, painting... Knowing nothing of the subject, I'm glad to be learning it from a connoisseur.  In the introductory class alone I took a page of notes on grammar, French history, current political figures, movements in film, colloquial expressions (learned how to say "I don't give a damn" and a few more vulgar phrases).

Another unofficial French class: I began my weekly meetings with the librarian from one of my schools who wants to maintain her English.  We met at her house, with her Jack Russell terrier, drank tea, and exchanged an hour of English for an hour of French.  Her topic of choice for the English hour was "mama grizzlies," referring to Sarah Palin and the political fad in the States.  The ensuing conversation taught me a lot about French politics my knowledge of which went from nothing to something.

... Interesting stuff, people. Take my word for it.