Placement test, and illness
I ended up napping on Sunday after we met with Bernadette, and really didn't do much the rest of the day aside from sleep and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on my computer.
We woke up early and took the tram to the university, where we waited in a sea of non-French humanity to take a really disorganized placement test. We actually took it at Montesquieu, which is the other university just across the tram rails from ours, in a huge auditorium designed by someone who thought a 60s-ish geometric pattern would be the absolute coolest theme in the world. The sides of the auditorium cut in and out as if the room could be folded from front to back like an accordion. The ceiling was covered in protruding 4-sided pyramids. The long desk for panel discussions at the front was even cut in triangles. The tables themselves were interesting, with chairs connected to tables like you'd expect in a large lecture hall -- except that the chairs were actually connected to the table BEHIND you, so that once people had sat down there was absolutely no way to get out until the people on your row had stood up.
This was a problem for me, as my nose was running like a faucet and I kept finishing the test early. It was kind of miserable to be stuck there. The test was way longer than I expected or wanted. It was four sections, and three of those were written, and took 40 minutes each. The first was reading comprehension, and we were given a newspaper article and a bunch of questions to answer in a free-response format. I didn't expect free response from a test with as many participants as there were. They claim it will be graded by Thursday, but I really doubt it.
The next two sections were listening (heard audio clips and answered questions about their content in a free response format) and writing (three essays of 50, 80, and 140 word minimums respectively). The last section was speaking. We were supposed to meet with a professor one on one to have an evaluation of our speaking skills, but since there were hundreds of us and only maybe three professors giving the exams, and no scheduled times, it took forever. They told us "some of us" would take the test on Monday afternoon between 1:30 and 5 (and I guess we were just supposed to sit there?) and the rest of us from 9 a.m. to noon the next day. We were supposed to find our names on the list in the main room and then go to our assigned rooms and just wait. I wasn't on the list. Neither were Alex or Maria. We had to wait in line to ask someone why we weren't on the list, so they added us to the bottom of one, seemingly at random. We assumed that meant we were last and we went home.
I spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching Star Trek, except for a few minutes when I went to Monoprix to buy soup. I was momentarily confused by the lack of canned soup in France -- they put it in boxes, instead. Once I figured that out, everything was groovy.
Back to the university this morning for the speaking test, and we just sat and waited for two and a half hours before any of us got in to take the test. The funny thing about the way that worked out was that only the Americans and the Chinese had even assumed there was an order to the list posted -- everyone else just went in, as apparently the administration intended, and that left just us Americans and Chinese sitting around looking at each other to the end of the second day.
Anyway the speaking part turned out to be actually conversational, which I didn't expect. We took cards about our major and where we came from and stuff, and the professor I had just asked me questions about the card at first. Every time I answered a question she asked another one about my answer so that it was pretty conversational. It was fine. I didn't think it was very hard, and I am less and less convinced that I want to take French as a second language. I think tomorrow will be for getting a phone and maybe opening a bank account at LCL, since I think I can accomplish those things without a student ID.
Thursday afternoon I will go to the university and look at my DEFLE (Département d'Etudes Français Langue Etrangère) score and make a final decision on classes, and then go to the people at International Relations and tell them that I'd like to enroll in real college. I think, honestly, that even if I didn't ace the DEFLE test, I'm functional enough that, rather than completely failing my classes, I would just struggle for a while and then end up learning way more than I could at DEFLE. I'm also concerned because the obvious result of being in classes with all people who need to learn French is that I won't meet any French people. I'm not okay with that.
Anyway, we came home and we all took naps, I think -- me because I was feeling pretty bad and my roommates because they'd been up hanging out until like 5 this morning -- I woke up around 6 p.m. and Maria and I went out to dinner with her parents at a bistro not far from our place. They leave in the morning for Spain before they go back to the states.
I'm back now, and planning on another early night. Maybe I'll play some guitar. I've been trying to work on learning songs by ear instead of looking up tabs for them. I think it'll help make some of the theory I've been studying make sense.
We woke up early and took the tram to the university, where we waited in a sea of non-French humanity to take a really disorganized placement test. We actually took it at Montesquieu, which is the other university just across the tram rails from ours, in a huge auditorium designed by someone who thought a 60s-ish geometric pattern would be the absolute coolest theme in the world. The sides of the auditorium cut in and out as if the room could be folded from front to back like an accordion. The ceiling was covered in protruding 4-sided pyramids. The long desk for panel discussions at the front was even cut in triangles. The tables themselves were interesting, with chairs connected to tables like you'd expect in a large lecture hall -- except that the chairs were actually connected to the table BEHIND you, so that once people had sat down there was absolutely no way to get out until the people on your row had stood up.
This was a problem for me, as my nose was running like a faucet and I kept finishing the test early. It was kind of miserable to be stuck there. The test was way longer than I expected or wanted. It was four sections, and three of those were written, and took 40 minutes each. The first was reading comprehension, and we were given a newspaper article and a bunch of questions to answer in a free-response format. I didn't expect free response from a test with as many participants as there were. They claim it will be graded by Thursday, but I really doubt it.
The next two sections were listening (heard audio clips and answered questions about their content in a free response format) and writing (three essays of 50, 80, and 140 word minimums respectively). The last section was speaking. We were supposed to meet with a professor one on one to have an evaluation of our speaking skills, but since there were hundreds of us and only maybe three professors giving the exams, and no scheduled times, it took forever. They told us "some of us" would take the test on Monday afternoon between 1:30 and 5 (and I guess we were just supposed to sit there?) and the rest of us from 9 a.m. to noon the next day. We were supposed to find our names on the list in the main room and then go to our assigned rooms and just wait. I wasn't on the list. Neither were Alex or Maria. We had to wait in line to ask someone why we weren't on the list, so they added us to the bottom of one, seemingly at random. We assumed that meant we were last and we went home.
I spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching Star Trek, except for a few minutes when I went to Monoprix to buy soup. I was momentarily confused by the lack of canned soup in France -- they put it in boxes, instead. Once I figured that out, everything was groovy.
Back to the university this morning for the speaking test, and we just sat and waited for two and a half hours before any of us got in to take the test. The funny thing about the way that worked out was that only the Americans and the Chinese had even assumed there was an order to the list posted -- everyone else just went in, as apparently the administration intended, and that left just us Americans and Chinese sitting around looking at each other to the end of the second day.
Anyway the speaking part turned out to be actually conversational, which I didn't expect. We took cards about our major and where we came from and stuff, and the professor I had just asked me questions about the card at first. Every time I answered a question she asked another one about my answer so that it was pretty conversational. It was fine. I didn't think it was very hard, and I am less and less convinced that I want to take French as a second language. I think tomorrow will be for getting a phone and maybe opening a bank account at LCL, since I think I can accomplish those things without a student ID.
Thursday afternoon I will go to the university and look at my DEFLE (Département d'Etudes Français Langue Etrangère) score and make a final decision on classes, and then go to the people at International Relations and tell them that I'd like to enroll in real college. I think, honestly, that even if I didn't ace the DEFLE test, I'm functional enough that, rather than completely failing my classes, I would just struggle for a while and then end up learning way more than I could at DEFLE. I'm also concerned because the obvious result of being in classes with all people who need to learn French is that I won't meet any French people. I'm not okay with that.
Anyway, we came home and we all took naps, I think -- me because I was feeling pretty bad and my roommates because they'd been up hanging out until like 5 this morning -- I woke up around 6 p.m. and Maria and I went out to dinner with her parents at a bistro not far from our place. They leave in the morning for Spain before they go back to the states.
I'm back now, and planning on another early night. Maybe I'll play some guitar. I've been trying to work on learning songs by ear instead of looking up tabs for them. I think it'll help make some of the theory I've been studying make sense.
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