So this week has been eventful for two reasons: the first week of classes, and the first Saturday
sortie.
First off, the classes:
AUCP has two required classes- French Cultural Patterns, and either Written and Oral Expression OR Translation. Luckily, my TEF test results allowed me to place into translation. Translation was my first choice for two reasons. One, Written and Oral Expression seemed similar to my Conversation and Composition sequence at Muhlenberg. If at all possible, I want to use my time in France to expand and broaden as much knowledge as possible. Following that goal, Translation seems to be a perfect alternative because it allows me to combine my love of language, grammar, style, and editing. Tuesday being the first class, the professor, Froncesca, gave us the first three pages of David Sedaris' "Holidays on Ice" and basically said "Go to. I'll tell you on Friday if I think you should stay in the class or not." Nothing like a little more pressure, right? The next 75 minutes were spent with the grande dictionnaire, muddling my way through the transition of English text to a language that I have nowhere near mastered. However, my reservations were settled on Friday when we got back our translations and no one was kicked out. So far so good. Even better, I get the feeling that this class is a lot more than mastering French. As we'll be using different texts and articles, I'll get to expand my pretty much non-existent knowledge of English literature as well as compartmentalizing style and form. In addition, a wide realm of texts means a wide realm of vocabulaire, which I hope will mean I'll emerge that much closer to being fluent.
French Cultural Patterns is targeted at understanding the differences between American and French culture so that we can analyze and figure out the root of our stereotypes. First lesson: stereotypes= bad. However, generalizations= good. We are reading two texts. The first is L'etrangete francaise (for Mondays), a philosophical analytical look at how the French and American cultures emerged and how these beginnings created the difference values and beliefs of the cultures today. The second is Evidences Invisibles (for Fridays), which looks at more quotidian aspects of the two cultures, pinpointing were the misunderstandings of cultural differences emerge. The class for the first text is more text and lecture based, whereas the Friday class is more discussion and anecdotal, allowing us to analyze our own personal situations, such as why the French hate it when we smile or why the French don't like to talk to people they don't know. (Abridged answers: the French value seriousness and believe in expressing the range of human emotions. Conversation is an affirmation of a relationship. Therefore, if there is no relationship, conversation seems like a personal invasion.)
Art and Archaeology of Ancient Provence is my 3hour block on Wednesday mornings. This week wasn't so exciting because the first hour was spent going over the syllabus. The next two hours were going over historical facts and dates of the major civilizations in Antiquity. My first impression is that the class would be a lot more interesting if the professor would speak faster. I know that I will get more into it when we start to introduce archaeology/art aspects to the historical aspects and when we know enough that we can start discussing/ participating. Straight lecture history classes are always dry for me.
Literature and Painting is sort of a convergence of art history and literature. It seems like it will be interesting because I can expand upon my general knowledge of art history and see how paintings influenced the literature style of the time.
My last class is Drawing and Painting, but I am up in the air as to whether I wanted to switch it. Originally, I signed up for the Painting class because even though it was a general class, its focus would be oil paint, which I am very unfamiliar with. However, now they've merged the two classes it is going to be a mix of everything. It sounds like it's well designed and would be beneficial, so I'm now just trying to weigh whether that or a different (non-art) class would be most beneficial.
Whew! Okay, on to the more fun part... La Sortie! AUCP organizes Saturday outings every once in a while, and yesterday's adventure was to the villages of the Luberon, a mountain range about an hour north of Aix.
Our first stop was Laumarin, which is at the foothills of the Luberon. It is a medieval town with a fortress, a church, and a pigeonnier, a house for raising pigeons. We walked around the perimeter of the town before entering to buy food for our picque-nique.
The next stop was slightly fortuitous. The small passageway in the mountain range was blocked, so we couldn't go to the planned lunch spot and instead had to detour all the way around the mountains. We thus got to visit Gordes, which is esteemed to be one of the prettiest towns in France (they should show this every year, we decided!). I can understand this statement: the town sits on the side of the mountain, and the building code states that the buildings can only be made out of stone. Our first view of it was definitely impressive:
The third village is Roussillon, named such because of the reddish color caused my the ochre soil. We also got to explore the village, and climb in the mountains of ochre. The colors were incredible!
It was also interesting because the church interior was completely white, providing a stark contrast to the colorful soil and buildings.
Also, all of our sorties are with the AUCP group in Marseille, where another Muhlenberg student is studying for the semester!
Today was another patisserie day in the kitchen. Coline and I made tiger butter, but since we couldn't get peanut butter, we improvised with Nutella instead. Then we made cookies a l'americain: chocolate chip! They came out alright but the recipe needs adjusting. I'll have to figure out how to convert all my favorite American recipes so we can make those, too!
Fin, I think that about covers it... Props to all of you who made it this far!
