Bao's winter in Paris

[Bao]

Annette Wieviorka, historienne,

wiewiórka is the Polish for squirrel

That's a cute name then!
A friend of my mum is a descendant of huguenottes that fled to Poland, and I don't remember the word (you surely know it), but her name was adapted to the Polish phonology - and now means bumblebee. I also like that kind of name =D

[Bao]

Je suis malade depuis samedi dernier. (J'ai pris froid, et parce que j'ai asthme, ça souvent devient une bronchite.) Hier soir, je ne suis pas allée au cours de français. J'avais écrit un émail à la responsable, qui par hazard était la surveillante dans ma salle pendant l'examen de français le mardi. Elle m'a envoyé un message super gentil en réponse.

J’espère que ça n’est pas trop grave. J’ai vu en effet hier soir que tu n’allais pas très fort.
Est-ce que tu es allée chez le médecin ?
Si la maladie persiste tu devrais aller consulter car ça peut être viral et dans ce cas-là, il faudra te soigner avec des antibiotiques.

(... on ne peut pas soigner les virus avec des antibiotiques, mais, j'arrête de me plaindre.)

Aujourd'hui je suis allée à seulement un des deux cours prevus, parce qu'à midi la toux s'est intensifiée. (Pobrecita, moi.)

Le cours du matin était assez intéressant. Par exemple j'ai appris que la brillance des marquages routiers devient des microbilles de verre, c'est à dire, du verre recyclé concassé en billes de rayon de 1mm environ.

[sjintje]

Tu as peut être atrappé l'hypochonrdie dont tous les francais soufres. Tu es déja bien integrée.

[Bao]

Tu as peut être atrappé l'hypochonrdie dont tous les francais soufres. Tu es déja bien integrée.

L'hypocondrie, est-elle contagieuse? Mais non, je connais assez bien la sensation de tousser avec du crachat jaunâtre d'une bronchite.

[Bao]

Oopsie ... I didn't do my written homework assignment. Because I changed courses between the days when the topic was given, and the only student I already knew didn't understand when I asked her to give me the topic and then I totally forgot about it.

Also: Well, I obviously need to spend at least some time studying grammar ... I guess I'll ask the teacher if he's going to give us the grammar exercise books we were promised at the start of the semester and that all the other groups did get.

Reminder for myself

[sjintje]

Ah, well done. From what you've been saying, I'd have thought you're oral and structure (grammar?) would be the other way round. Is the french course part of your uni course, or are you at a language school?

edit: not bad for an "abominable B1".

[Bao]

It's a class I'm required to take, which is provided for the foreign students of my école and another one.

Oral is high because it's basically participation in class, and while I make many mistakes I give my best to participate. (Thankfully he probably goes by gut feeling mostly influenced by the last couple of classes, and didn't take notes after every class - social anxiety makes it very hard for me to talk during the first weeks to months in a new group and I know I didn't participate much at the start of the semester.)
Structures de la langue, on the other hand, is pretty low because I lack quite a bit of grammar; I only did a fast track French course during 3 years at school (that means around 400 periods of 45min) with a kind of 'slimmed down' grammar instruction. Plus I tend to postpone reviewing grammar, because when I've already consciously encountered a structure several times in a natural context, learning it is easy and I can use it immediately, if I hadn't been able to before. On the other hand, when I try to learn it follow the order of the textbooks my language classes used ... things don't go too well. After a couple of minutes my head will feel like my brain has been replaced with cotton wool. Only more painful. I can kind of evade that feeling by memorizing the lesson text (that introduces the concepts) using cued memorization, but that's quite exhausting too. So, the hedonistic me just cheats her way through using context and postpones grammar until some time later

Also: Test taking skills, I have them =D

[sctroyenne]

Pour moi, dessiner pendant j'écoute le cours pose aucun problem, mais le bruit de fond de mes camerades français, ça c'est autre chose!

Oh là là, ça m’agaçait tellement pendant mon cours d'histoire de l’économie européenne.

[Bao]

Oh là là, ça m’agaçait tellement pendant mon cours d'histoire de l’économie européenne.

Même en Allemagne les étudiants qui traitent les cours comme s'il agissait de seulement une opportunité de fréquenter ses copains m'ennervent. Mais parce que la présence n'est pas obligatoire, je crois qu'il y en a moins qu'en France.



Hier, je suis allée chez le médecin. Oui, pour qu'il me donne un antibiotique sur ordonnance. (Pour soigner la bronchite et la sinusite bacterielles.) Heureusement la dame d'accueil de ma résidence, qu'est autrichienne, m'a aidé à le téléphoner. Chez le médecin, j'étais la seule patiente, il m'a donné beaucoup du temps pour trouver mes mots et à la fin on a parlé de ses propres origines et la situation actuelle en Allemagne.

[Bao]

Quoting myself:

The lungs decided it is time to leave the sinking ship, they are trying to creep out of my body.

Cue: Die Ratten
~♪♫

So, exams are over. I postponed two of them because I thought, it's probably not so good to write an exam with a cough so hard it already almost triggers vomiting. While on a cough suppressant. (But did the other six ones, if I include French last week.)

Meaning, I have free time now! An entire week! Ok, two assignments - coding and a presentation for English to for the week after, plus a lot of things I procrastinated doing, like, ugh, looking at letters that seem to contain bills - but ... that's pretty much free!

My campus wifi blocks certain things - apparently porn; I must admit I didn't actually try that one out myself, games with high traffic load, sites like 9gag - and apparently its algorithms also chose to block the 6 weeks challenge site. Will try to find the administrator and ask them what the heck that is about. I also chatted with a Japanese friend today, itching to actually spend some time on it. And maybe on Mandarin, too. (And I will try to see if I can find any Mongolian here. Huehue.)