The teacher stares me down and pegs the tennis ball at me at the same time as barking a subject and a verb in my direction...I'm supposed to turn this around into something french-sounding that makes sense and toss the ball back all in one smooth motion...
I'm like a rabbit in headlights...
For approximately 2 hours of every 4 hours (ok - for 3 of the 4) that I am in a little classroom with 15 others at the Alliance Francaise each morning I pretty much have no idea what is going on. Luckily, as I look around at my fellow classmates the vast majority of them are looking just as confused.
The lessons, of course, are conducted entirely in french. This is true immersion. Luckily the teacher is quite good at miming and acting out her instructions...she's obviously done this before. Sometimes I DO understand what she's asked of us - but that is usually 30mins later - and by then it's too late...
It's hard to concentrate on something you can't understand for four hours a day (and then go home and do an hour or so of homework - especially when you haven't really understood what you're supposed to do!) and by the end of each morning I'm exhausted....but, as the hours go by, surely I will begin to understand more and more and will finally begin to contribute the way I would like. My saving grace is that mistakes are expected here and the people around me are friendly and just as useless at french as me....
One day perhaps I'll not be such a rabbit...
My aim each day (after ducking the headlights each morning) is to do something that I have never done before. Today it was to head to Montparnasse - an area of Paris just south of my apartment. Climbing to the top of Tour Montparnasse - the highest building in Paris - I had the perfect view of the Eiffel Tower and the City of Lights as it turned on it's magnificent display...
My enthusiasm is dimmed by events in my home town...as Toowoomba lies in ruins because of flash flooding and my friends and family are left to clean up the debris I feel very far away. I have been watching the international news every day and watch images on French news channels where the only word I understand is 'Toowoomba', trying to grasp the true magnitude of the tragedy. Toowoomba, it seems, is finally on the map on an international scale - but for all the wrong reasons. I trail through facebook looking at the horrific photos uploaded by my friends to try and feel connected. Perhaps Paris is the best place to be...at least my feet are dry - but it's times like these when you like to pull together with the people you belong to and who belong to you and I feel like I'm missing the opportunity to do that. My thoughts are with you my soggy queensland readers.
Till next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment