Today is a slightly unusual Friday because I have no class, therefore I am taking over a good cleaning of the apartment, getting some homework done, and putting some more details into mom's upcoming visit. I am in a fabulous mood because I had my FLE presentation yesterday and it went really well. And even though I am the only student so far who has chosen an educational, or maybe I should say academic, topic, the class seemed really to enjoy it and the teacher even complimented me on my ability to make sure a "non-exciting" topic interesting. I presented on the modern-day divisions of the French territory (its regions, departments, cantons, and communes) the history of the development of the current France and the reasons for which it was divided up as it was, and some cultural aspects associated with the regions. To give you some perspective, the other three presentations were: a review of a film, some of the touristic locations in our regions, and high fashion. So the comparison was stark (= But I like it that way. Plus, I will possibly be able to use some of the aspects of this presentation for teacher lessons in the future.
As far as my other classes are concerned, I had my last class for "Introduction aux achats et à la supply chain" (Intro to buying and the supply chain) this week, and yet I will have to take the exam for the class in May. So I have a massive month and a half, at least, between the end of the lectures and the exam. I just love the French system. Other than that I am quite caught up, except in Culture Mythologique et Biblique. I was doing just fine when we were studying the Bible because I know all those stories basically by heart, so even though the professor is extremely bad at presenting material (he just talks, at a rather incredible pace for the entire time only stopping to occasionally write the names of people or places he thinks we won't know how to spell) I was doing ok. Then we started Greek mythology with all the Greek gods. Oh my word. I think I probably would have been lost in English at his pace of presentation, but add to the fact that I have to re-learn the name of about every single god, demi-god, and "other" and you have quite the class! My personal favorite pronunciation changes are as follows: (English then French)
Achilles : Achilles (Ah-shee)
Sophacles : Sophacles (So-fa-cluh)
Ulysses : Ulysses (Oo-lees)
Euripides : Euripides (Yu-ree-peed)
Troy : Troie (trwa)
Helen : Hélène (Ellen) - So I always thought he was saying my name when we studied Helen of TRWA, lol
Anyway I am sure there are plenty of others, that was just to give you an idea. For the most part the names are spelled the same way between the languages, but the pronunciation differences just strike me as really funny because the French has seriously Frenchised the names.
Oh, one more latest news. David and I's bathroom has started to reek. About two days ago, ironically right after we did our weekly scrub-down cleaning, we started to smell something rather rancid. We thought it must have been a drain, so we put the only cleaning agent we really have down the train, slept, and hoped it would be better in the morning. It wasn't. Then we thought maybe it was the shower drain... nope, I'm pretty sure not. Finally this morning it hit me where I have smelled that before (I guess it always takes about 3 days) - the mouse that had crawled into the island plug area and died! I am fairly certain that there is a dead animal in the wall somewhere near to our vents. Of course I really don't want to bother our landlord if it is not, so we are going to give it a few more days but if it gets worse or seems more probable, I suppose I'll call him up. The thing is he is the nicest landlord in the world, and he lives 2 hours away, so I hate bothering him unnecessarily. So anyway, just thought I would let you all know we have a smelly bathroom! (=
Ok well I think I am going to get to wok on all my proposed ideas above (homework, cleaning, planning, etc) because tomorrow David and I are off to Geneva, Switzerland, and the day after that we are celebrating three years of marriage! Have a great day to all of you back in the States!
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