Wednesday 5-13-09

Last night Dean Van Peteghem and his wife Marie had Kami and me over for dinner. The French eat late so we began around seven o’clock and finished around eleven. Their home was lovely; Marie is an artist and unbelievable creative. Her paintings are on the walls, in the corners, behind couches, everywhere! She mixes acrylics and oils and gathers all sorts of objects and makes collages and paintings that are so creative. She thought the university’s walls were rather drab a few years ago and now they are entirely covered in her work. She apologized for dinner being simple; however, I thought it was great. She made two tarts: one with tomatoes and goat cheese and the other with zucchini and another cheese I’d never tasted. I had the latter and it was delicious. She also had a salad with avocados, corn, grapefruit juice, and cucumbers. For dessert there were homemade éclairs with strawberries. We sat and talked for hours; Didier and Marie are both well informed people and they were very interested in America’s current events. They are a sweet family with good values; and like most of the French, Catholic but not practicing. They don’t own a television because the channels can be filthy, which I think is a very smart thing to do. The two children are sweet; the girl Agathe (Agatha) is 11 and the boy Charles is 14. Didier is in his second term as dean and has traveled all over the world. It was fun to spend the evening with a new French family in their home.
Continuing on, today was a productive day. It felt a little long but I got a lot done. I think the highlight of the day came this afternoon though. There were a bunch of students taking a French grammar final this afternoon and I ate lunch with the professor who was administering it. She mentioned how this class had a particularly hard time with French grammar and how they complained endlessly, and how she hoped there would be better results than last year’s exam. I laughed and agreed that the grammar is tough but that it isn’t as confusing as English is. Well, then Professor Iagre said, “well, why don’t you take the exam with the students? Then we can compare their progress with someone who studies it as a second language.” I laughed and agreed to do it so at 13h, feeling unsteady with the true ink pen (no ballpoints for the French) I listened. Prof. Iagre dictated a text while we frantically wrote. There were a few words I had never heard before so I just had to invent my own spelling and move on. Then came the multiple choice section: harder, but understandable for the most part. Well, I walked out not really having any idea whether I’d bombed it or passed, but by that point, everyone in the office was interested to know how it went so they all snuck in to take a peek. Monsieur Lepoutre and Madame Blondeau came back looking slightly annoyed wondering how an American intern can score higher than her students that have been studying grammar their entire lives. I asked if they corrected mine and they said not yet, but that at a glance I remembered all the –aient endings when most kept them –ait, and that overall my copy did not look bad at all. Several of the women came up giggling saying bravo and now I’m dying of curiosity to see if I actually got close to the average score. It made me feel really good and brightened my whole afternoon.