At school, we've quickly shed our initial trepidation, and everyone (myself included) is speaking with more ease...though not always with the same graceful rhythm or pronunciation of the French/French-speaking Swiss. The students/teachers are serious about learning...so it's not always fun and games, but we're often laughing together while doing role play/oral exercises. Other times, especially in my phonetique and pronunciation classes, we are working the muscles in our mouths, jaws, lips and tongue to make French sounds and it's pretty hilarious to hear a whole class in unison try to make the 4 nasal sounds of "an", "in" "on" and "un". Or when one of my classmates brayed like a donkey in pronunciation class when she was asked what sound a donkey makes in her native Greek. A theatre student by training, she gave it her 100% and it was the best darn donkey I have ever heard in my entire life.
At the end of the day, I am super tired and my brain is buzzing with new vocabulary, grammaire, tips from my phonetique classes, or French idioms (like busy as a bee and strong as a Turc or as tall as 3 apples..meaning, not very tall at all).
The biggest progress I've made is that I can now formulate sentences using a few verb tenses! I'm super excited I can finally communicate in French...albeit a bit slowly and with poor pronunciation. This weekend, I have to work on an expose - basically a 5 minute speech about a theme of my choosing to present to the class next Tuesday! Wish me luck..I'm either going to write about Boston..or about what I like about living in France.
I don't know about your neck of the woods, but SUMMER is ripe here. We're having a canicule - a heatwave of 30+C (which is 90+F) this week. Thank goodness for 3 things to beat the heat: 1) climitasation in some classrooms at UNIGE 2) free cold eau potable at most fountains in GVA 3) the huge, clean municipal pools close to our parking spot in France. Twice this week after school, R and I spent the afternoon at the outdoor pools. J'ai saute dans l'eau et j'ai nage! There are 3 pools, a tall slide, ping pong tables, mini golf, and lots of green park where we can lay in the shade. I tried the water slide twice...you climb up the stairs, sit your butt down, and then weeeeee!!! I thought I was moving fast, but apparently, I was slow..the little kids were zipping along but I was happy to be going at my pace. I heard it was hot in Boston too - and my nephew Isaac swam for the first time by himself!
R and I have colorful plans this weekend - what about you?
1. I will sleep in both days as much as possible on my new mattress! And I'm hoping to tend to my garden..R saw a few green tomatoes today. I'll also keep in touch with my family - my 97 grandmother broke her hip this week and just had surgery. She's awake but not quite alert yet and unfortunately, she's at the age where her short-term memory often fails her. So she will sometimes wake up and forget why she's in the hospital.
2. The Tour de France is passing by this Sunday on their 8th TdF stage! R and I will be dressed in yellow and will be supporting Lance and the hot Spanish one (or at least I will be. Heheh.) I can't wait - so excited! I'll be thinking of you Steven + Yoshie - who's your favorite rider? I will try to take a pic of him speeding by.
3. World Cup finals on Sunday: NL vs ES. We'll be sporting our oranje again and hoping for the first Dutch World Cup ever.
Lastly, here are some pictures from the past week or so. Enjoy! And keep cool.
The vide grenier (flea market) with 200+ tables in our little ville. R and I bought 3 copper pans, 12 DVDs, and an old leather briefcase for a great deal!
Picture of one of the cheese stations at the Fete de la fromage a few weekends ago. I sampled beaucoup de fromage...comte, reblochon, and more. So good!
