Finals period at McGill throws an emotion at you that doesn’t really have a word attached to it. But it sits about halfway between the feeling of waiting for the messiah (who might never come, just like the weekend after the tests are over) and the mortal panic of being about to get hit by a Mack truck.
Finals here are more or less the same process, but with a big shot of novocaine. The knowledge that all of this is pass fail lubricates the whole process. I’ve now taken six out of my seven (!) exams here, and even done a fair bit of studying for them all (with my 60-80% comprehension level notes). And somehow, until today, I’ve felt very distant about the whole process. Like in some kind of strange out-of-body experience. Not understanding everything the professors are saying helps.
Frankly I’m kind of worried about exams. It’s hard enough to take them in English, but I really am relying on my being a non-francophone foreigner to ride through these. It isn’t even just an issue of comprehension: a lot of what goes on in class relates to structures of how various layers of government work, things that these students have been familiar with since they started university and that I’ve just been dropped into.
I have one class where I basically had to do a project tracing the building of a development project out in the suburbs. I did the best I could, given that my partner had decided to quit school two weeks before the due date, all the while taking the notes with her. Most of the effort I put into the project wasn’t on the project itself, but rather getting to the point where I know what sorts of structures I’d be looking for in the first place. Then I did the project the best I could.
So I guess the question is whether me writing “Etudiant CREPUQ (non-francophone)” on top of all my tests will make the professors realize how far behind these people I actually am, or will only cause the professors to forgive my grammar mistakes. I’m at this weird point where my French is good enough that professors expect things out of me, but bad enough that I’m not completely able to provide it. True, the comfort is way way up compared to October, but that had to be expected. I’ve been here for two months and can’t spend all of it in my room.
Speaking of comfort. The other solution to the notes problem is befriending people who I could ask for notes. And here’s the thing: I’m coming to realize that people at “la fac” – that’s to say, university – are really, really nice. And I’ve found out that since about 80% of them did the university-disrupting “prepa” program to try to get into the elite French private schools, all of them have felt somewhat awkward as well here, themselves not really knowing anyone. The only difference in my situation is the language, and that’s becoming less of an issue.
The last evening before Christmas break (which, in France, is less a break than a massive pre-Finals study period) I managed to go out and get a beer with some of the other geography students. They were clearly by then friends, and it was heartening not only to be able to understand them but to be able to riposte! It’s not perfect, since I still have trouble with vocabulary and with forming the sarcastic tone of voice, but this is progress. It’s only January. I’m here till the end of June. Life is looking up.
The ERASMUS people, by the way, are excellent as well. Low-key bunch, mostly Italians and Spanish, with a few others, like yours truly (token American), who I actually can joke around with. We’ve managed to score a mega-cheap car rental to drive to Amsterdam for a few days in early February, which will be excellent. I’ve been impressed with how little it costs to move around Europe, even if things once you’re at where you’re trying to go are really expensive.
Vacation. Belgium and London were both excellent. I’m about halfway though an article on Bruges for Urbanphoto, which I’ll post here as well. I’ve started to put up photos on a flickr archive, so feel free to check that out. Antwerp was fabulous too. I do plan on explaining those places more, but frankly, finals have intervened.
So this has been what’s been going on in my life in the three weeks since I’ve last posted. I’m going to Stockholm tomorrow night for a few days, and maybe either Oslo or Copenhagen. I don’t want to go away for too long. I don’t like hostelling that much, and Paris has become comfortable. I need a few days where I can just get up late and do nothing.
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I can’t keep writing in the newspaper-feature-article style I’ve been trying to write most of the posts in. It takes too much work, which means I can’t post as much, which means the blog doesn’t fulfill what I wanted it to: to tell my family and friends what I’ve been up to without having to repeat myself a hundred thousand times. From here on out, you have to deal with normal stream-of-consciousness.
There probably aren’t too many places left in the world like Bruges. Located in Western Flanders, in the northwest of Belgium, Bruges is probably the best-preserved medieval city left in Europe. It’s a classic storybook town, drawn straight out of romance movies and children’s books, the kind of place you’d never imagine a city bus snorting through.