I've neglected blogging lately about school because I was sincerely scared that if I blogged about the recent goodness it would somehow jinx my luck. Now, I've decided that if I am jinxed after this post then I can deal with it just fine; I dealt with an entire semester before, so a couple of months won't kill me now.
This semester has been wonderful as far as my classes go. I am taking Medieval Theatre (Farce), Style and Syntax, Ronsard's Love Poetry, & Mythology in 18th Century French Poetry.
Medieval Theatre is quite entertaining. I don't catch a fourth of the play on words in the farces, but the crude humour and stereotypes make for fun academic reads. The female professor speaks clearly, writes on the board whenever my face wrinkles into confusion, and likes to hear the students' thoughts. It's the most 'normal' class I've had here, a normalcy that I appreciate so much more after last semester.
Style and Syntax are split up into two different days with two different professors. The two courses study texts from the rhetorical and grammatical points of view. My syntax teacher is female, an intimidating prof. who marches on through examples and very brief explanations for two hours straight and doesn't so much as ask questions as she demands correct answers. I literally count the minutes till class is over, praying not to be called on, and doing my best to understand the american equivalents of the french grammatical concepts she's trying to teach. My Style professor is a laid back male who allows us a ten minute break in the middle of class and who also takes pauses to take thoughts and questions from students. His course is really interesting and I like attending his class, the only problem being that I can't really understand his french. I have to sit next to someone with clear handwriting to follow along making sure I've caught everything.
Ronsard's Love Poetry is taught by an old french man who looks a bit like Santa. He has no beard, but he does sport a huge mustache, a round belly, and a constant twinkle in his eyes. He's clearly an expert on the subject of 18th century poetry, he's been teaching it for over twenty years in fact. I adore his philosophy that too much importance is placed on perfect grades while true learning and application of knowledge is left by the wayside. This prof. also teaches Mythology in 18th Century Poetry at 8 am on Friday. I really don't like 8 am classes, but his greeting of "bonjour mes enfants" and his little anecdotes throughout the two hour period melts my bad mood every Friday morning. Having the same professor for two courses on French poetry, two days in a row, makes my week feel more organized and condensed. last semester I had too many professors to keep them straight.
I'm really happy with my course load (chosen by the Le Miral administration of course) this semester. I still have no idea how well I will do, but this time I'm truly growing in knowledge that I will apply to future studies. As far as grades, I found out that I passed all my french courses from last semester. Such knowledge gives me hope that if I could pass last semester with all the confusion it brought, then I should be okay this semester.
As I look ahead to my last six weeks of classes (yes only 6 more before the exam period) I am excited to see what I will have learned by the end; I already feel like I've attained so many new concepts and ideas about French literature!
~Tam in Toulouse
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