Life's sweet!

 

It's been a week since my arrival in Angers, and life's been so sweet! I suppose it doesn't hurt that this is a little like a vacation since classes don't start until Monday. But still, I'm enjoying this city so much and the very friendly people I've come across so far. I've been grateful for my studies at UC more than once, as many French people have kindly said I speak French very well. And that's when I'm thankful for the professors who drilled in corrections for me. But now I've got to adjust to being less picky on being correct, and just communicate- a couple times a wavered between masculine or feminine articles or something silly like that and a new friend said oh it's no big deal, you're understood either way.

Yesterday I roamed around the city with my roommate and her friends from her Masters program, all new to Angers like myself. When we sat down at a cafe I realized how far I have to go, they spoke so quickly and don't use too much of the vocabulary from my two main sources: the intro to French course I taught two years in a row, or French lit from the last few centuries. :)

 

There was a meeting on campus on Tuesday, and one of the funny takeaways- computer viruses would not be a problem for the U of Angers, they aren't used! There was so much paper everywhere in every office. I don't think I'd be able to keep it all organized myself. This is what my schedule looks like. Imagine in a school of 20,000 students, 1,000 teachers, and there are sheets filled out like this by hand for every teacher, with every course they teach. For English classes the teachers' schedules take up two huge 3 or 4 inch binders binders.

If the line is in between hours, it starts or ends on the half hour

Thus, they refuse to make different levels of English for first year students. It would be too complicated to schedule it. There must be a computer program for scheduling courses, somewhere out there!? So for first years, we have one general class with a wide range of levels of English (less than ideal for the advanced student and for every teacher.) One survey said that many students leave the U of Angers feeling that they've regressed in English.

I have one more meeting on campus today, before classes start so I'm hoping I can learn a little more about my new job. (I was handed this schedule, without a word about it, so un-University of Cincinnati.) Wish me Bon courage!

 

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