Chance is a funny thing

Yesterday and today have been filled with excitement. Also, it is Thursday, which for me is like Friday, so that is also exciting.

Yesterday morning we had Grammar at Reid Hall at 11 (never fear – soon enough I will write a post describing all of my courses). The professor was calling roll, and when she got to Jessie she asked her if she was the girl who knew Aaron from the other class. Jessie said, “Yeah, I went to high school with him.” At first, I thought that she meant that she hadn’t known he would be there, and had just randomly run into a friend from high school in Paris. It turns out that she did know him – in fact, she’s the one who convinced him to come to France. But I was thinking about it, and I said to Vaune, “Damn, how weird would it be if, while in Paris, you randomly ran into someone you knew from high school?” Then we went back to playing hangman in the back of the classroom.

After class was over, it was time to make a mad (nearly impossible) dash across Paris to Clignancourt, where our Translation course was meeting – we didn’t even know if there would be room for us or not so we wanted to at least get there on time (the way for Tulane students to get into classes at the Sorbonne is to just sort of show up, grab a seat, and protect it with your life - if a registered student tries to claim their right for a seat, clam up and pretend you belong). I also had to pee, so I was running like a madwoman. I ran into the hallway in Reid Hall, saw Aurora Kurland, kept running. Stopped. Did a double take. What is Aurora Kurland doing in the hallway of Reid Hall, many miles from Bowdoin and Lexington?

So, for the record, yes - It is VERY WEIRD to randomly run into someone from high school when you are in Paris and not expecting to see them. Especially if, only one hour before, you were talking about just such a situation. I’m still trying to come to terms with the complete coincidence.

For reference (Aurora is on the left):



So then we went to our translation class. The first hour is French to English translation. We translated an excerpt of Camus. It was wildly easy, and entertaining. The professor kept checking with us to make sure that ça se dit. Once it appeared that we were in fact below the legal number of students allowed in the classroom, she was absolutely delighted to have les native speakers in her class, although she kept getting embarrassed when she used Briticisms and we just shrugged and used American phrases. Relax, lady! You’re the professor – you are smarter than we are. We just happen to have grown up in the States, by no fault of our own.

The second hour was slightly less easy, but still riveting. Of course, we switched from translating four sentences of very simply structured Camus to translating two paragraphs of John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga, which is slightly more difficult. How exactly does one translate, “Life took on a subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a darkness shot with shifting gleams of light,” into French? But she was very patient and encouraging with us and never once tried to speak to us in English. She seemed strict, and proper, but a good teacher. And we already have homework.

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we got sandwiches. I came home and had yet another bowl of muesli and yogurt, my current staple food. It is delicious. It was early bedtime, because we were leaving at 6:30 this morning.

So this morning I got up at 5:30 and showered and got dressed and met Vaune downstairs. We were prepared for the insane sardine-like Métro ride that we had encountered at 8 AM on Tuesday morning. We vowed that next time we would leave an hour and a half before our desired arrival time, because we barely made it to Swedish on Tuesday. So, since our TD (travail dirigé – we have a giant lecture and then a “smaller” discussion group type thing, similar to recitations at Tufts) for Grammar and History of Language was at 8 AM, we left, logically, at 6:30 AM. However, there was no one on the Métro. We got there at 7 AM. So we sat in the subway for an hour, writing in our journals.

The class was great. The title of Grammar (synchronic section of the course) is, to me, somewhat misleading, although I guess it makes sense. It seems to me more like descriptive linguistics, but it is true that it deals (for now) mostly with syntax, morphology, and semantics. There is also phonetics. And then the History of Language (diachronic section of the course) part seems like it’s going to be really exciting, too. It’s just what I am interested in.

The rest of today has been pretty normal. We had Swedish, and now we are home. Jessie is making chili tonight. I have volunteered to cook on Saturday – I hope to make garlic mashed potatoes and garlic/parmesan baked chicken breasts. I hope that’s not too ambitious. And I hope I can substitute potato types. I have so much to learn!

To finish off, I am going to borrow a term coined by Erin and an idea borrowed from Vaune, and begin sharing with you my iMétro Tunes of the Day. This morning, I was mostly concerned with listening to music that would wake me up, and I found the perfect caffeinated melody in the Scissor Sisters' "Ooh." Enjoy. And I am being completely honest when I tell you that I did not even know that that music video was based around kids listening to iPods on a train before I went to Youtube to find a link to it so you all could listen. It's karmic. Click play - it's a catchy song.