It was supposed to be two weeks long and cost 350€. Yeah, nope. The idea of spending that much made me nauseous.
Fortunately, only two people signed up originally, so they changed it to one week for half the price. This, I could do. I had considered not doing it at all, but Guy said it would help. It was supposed to be about understanding the university system and some other stuff. Or so I thought.
What did I get out of it? Blisters, sunburn, and stress. I paid 175€ for pain and suffering.
It was every day from 9h30 to around 16-17h. It was EXHAUSTING.
The first day was super overwhelming because I literally had no idea what was supposed to be going on. All of the sudden this lady starts speaking a mile a minute in French and there's a trip to a lake so bring a bathing suit and comfortable shoes (which I had none of), and a small test that we have to take, and then we have to give a 10-15 minute presentation in French about a subject. WTF.
I freaked out and cried. I was so completely ill-prepared, and I was tired because I couldn't sleep the night before.. it was awful. I just wanted to be back in Charlotte, in my apartment, and snuggling the boyfriend. At the very least, I wanted to go back to my dorm room to nap and not come back for the rest of the week. Honestly though, I should have done that.
But the test wasn't too terrible; it had been a few months since I had really focused on French, so it was a little bit of a struggle. There was then some "classes." The one where we actually worked on French was okay, but the other ones.. they were kind of random, and it didn't seem like there was any preparation at all. I really have no idea what was the point. My brain was pretty "Frenched out" by that point anyways, so everything started to sound like garbled noise.
Monday night I went grocery shopping with Candice and Hunter, and while I was at the Hyper U I bought a pair of 20€ running shoes for the lake trip.
Tuesday was the lake trip, and the details are here.
Wednesday, I was super exhausted from the long day on Tuesday, not to mention my face was sunburnt and I still wasn't sleeping well. Oh, and the blisters were back and made worse, and then I also got new ones. Joy. I got to hang out with Guy and look at courses that are available in Fall (again, I'll post more details later), and then two new Americans showed up that afternoon! Their names are Lyndsie and Matt, both from Oklahoma. I'm seriously being surrounded by "Oklahomans." There is an UNCC graduate here doing his Master's research on French documents from the 18th century about..something (can't remember AT ALL. That's terrible.).
Woo! Representing UNC Charlotte!
Anyways, Matt is here doing a Business program in English, and Lyndsie is here for French. I'm really impressed by Lyndsie's willingness to come here and learn because she's never taken any French before. Serious kudos to her!
Thursday was an okay day.
Thursday night, however, was another thing. The presentation was Friday afternoon, and of course because I didn't want to do it I was waiting until the last minute. I already knew what I was doing it on (Tea history, duh.) and had the information ready.. I just had to make it into a presentation and translate it into French.
Friday morning rolls around and I've got it pretty much done and then I do something really stupid.
I drop some of my freshly made lava-hot green tea on my foot. Uuuuuuugh it hurt so bad! I put aloe on it immediately which really helped take away the redness, but it was still tender for a couple of hours. By the time I was ready and willing to put shoes on and go to the campus it was lunch time, so I just waited until presentation time to show up. I really could not care less at that point. I was also exhauuuuuuusted. Like, the professor asked me if I was okay kind of exhausted and wanted me to go to the infirmary on campus after we were done.
So presentation time. It was okay. Hunter's was about liminality, which I found super fascinating. It could have been because he was talking about Greek mythology though. One guy talked about some human rights/ laws because he is here to study law, and the other talked a little about his research on Epilepsy and the school, because he's going here for medicine. Mine, for some reason, was really long. I think because I stuck to the 10-15 minute rule.
I hate presenting in French. It makes my throat hurt and I quickly lose my French pronunciations and it sounds super crappy. Sigh.
BUT because I had mentioned how much I love clafoutis earlier in the week, one of the professors made one for us! I have to say, that was super sweet. And because Candice didn't go, there was an extra piece left, and you better believe I took that home and ate it for breakfast on Saturday!
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| Cold clafoutis. Still super delicious. |
Right?
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