The tests were handed back this morning and when she called my name I could feel my whole body tensing up hoping the damage wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. She paused at my desk and said a bunch of French words I couldn’t understand but I didn’t need to understand because as I looked up I could hear in her voice and see on your face that she was as disappointed as I was. The good news? I passed… barely!
The other students (I can think of at least 4, failed miserably). I think the first test was a surprise to everyone. As I sat there thinking about the corrections we were going over I wanted to hit my head against the wall because I knew so many of these things, but totally choked on the test. I had so many thoughts coming into my head as I sat there feeling like I failed. It’s almost been one month and I still struggle to understand a lot of things in class and around me. Why is this taking so long? What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should just call my parents and ask to come home…but why? What would that solve? Why would I want to leave this anyways? It’s hard…but not so hard that I can’t do it. Can I do this? Maybe I will never learn French. Over and over these thoughts just came flooding my mind with nowhere to go. So when the teacher asked us to get into groups of 3 and I was put with girls that don’t speak English, one of the girls being the “smart” one in the class, I could feel my mind being completely consumed with discouragement. We were supposed to give our opinion about French musicians, artists and painters. She just immediately starts writing and erasing I almost thought we were in a race with the other students. She had this eraser that she would frantically erase the words and sentences she was trying to say, so by the end of my staring out the window and mumbling sounds to make it seem like I was interested to what she was saying, the desk was filled with eraser shavings. The other girl was as helpless as me, only she looked like she might start crying. A few times, to try and contribute to whatever it was she was saying, I gave her my opnion and tried to add it and she would look at me and then pause, mmm to herself and then keep writing her own stuff. Most of the sentences she wrote made absolutely no sense to me, not because of my lack of education in sentence structure, but because whatever she was trying to say was not being presented clearly to anyone. When I finally glanced down at my watch and saw it was almost time to go I was more than eager to let her volunteer to present it to the class. She stood up, and started off by je this and je that (which means I), and the teacher interrupted her and said NOUS (which means we)…which I think may have been the first time she realized that she was in a group. WOW. Glad that’s over. I decided the only way to make this day better was to get crepes. So on the tram, a bunch of classmates and I decided to go into commerce and try a new place. The crepes were more than amazing. I bought a ham, egg and cheese one because I was starving for some breakfast and then it came with a jus de pomme (apple juice) and a sweet crepe (I got blueberries- thought I would try something new). I asked a lady in the shop in my French if she could take a picture of us and it was so awesome because I messed up the conjugation of the verb “to take” and she corrected me. She was so nice and kind about it that it just made me happy. I knew the conjugation already and felt a little silly for saying it incorrectly.
It’s finally the weekend and I am looking forward to it. I have been laying on my bed trying to listen to the CES Broadcast by Elder Scott, but I can only manage to get half of it and I can’t seem to get the text in order to read it. Rubbish!
My evening is going to be filled with studying verbs and conjugations and memorize everything I SHOULD have known on my test! I can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday night in France! Haha (eye roll).
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