We are the first in our class to do a presentation so we have decided that there are two ways of looking at this:
Either,
a.) We are screwed. (We have no idea what we are doing, what is expected of us, or how we should be approaching this presentation!)
OR
b.) We are expected to set the standard for the rest of the class and everyone else’s will be based on ours. (Does that mean we have an obligation to make sure it is really good so that following presentations are reasonably interesting to watch?)
Whatever the case may be, we are lucky that Siri has done similar presentations in her own classes in Germany, so we have at least got some ideas for how to start. We met up on my day off this week, on Thursday, to discuss how we were going to start the project but we ended up writing the whole thing then and there! :o) At least it’s out of the way now, anyways, for now. Siri had heard of some computer rooms in the Sorbonne building which are available to students for working on in their free time, so we headed first for one of these workrooms. When we found one, there was no-one in the room, but all the computers were on, screensavers frequenting every screen and the door was unlocked and wide open. We went in, found a computer and started to work on the presentation; people came in every now and then to ask us if it was OK for them to work there too, but of course we had no idea if we were meant to be there or not so Siri had to explain this to anyone who asked.
Eventually a teacher came in and spoke in fairly rapid French to Siri (she was the only one not looking blank when he addressed us) to which she responded in kind. He seemed angry, so, whilst they shared words, I saved our work and began closing down the computer. She told me, when we had made a hasty retreat from the room, that he had been telling us off for using the university’s equipment “unguarded”, as though we were going to walk out of the room with a heifer-sized pc on our backs! Silly man. The computers are there for OUR use, and we have had proof of that since the incident, so I don’t know what his problem was. Anyway, we toddled off feeling thoroughly chastised, and then spent several hours sat in the MacDonald’s just down the road from the Sorbonne. There, we could use their public wireless internet connection to research the poem and get some interesting facts about William Blake. A very useful way to spend my day off and then after we’d finished the presentation, we chatted and went for a walk. I now have until Wednesday afternoon to polish up our work and to make copies of our presentation summary to give to the class as handouts. It could be said that I feel very proud of our work :o) I’m not normally this organised, as most of you know!
Anyway, yesterday was nearly as traumatic (though in a passive sense) as I was forced to listen to an extremely boring lecture on the subject of American literature. We are studying The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos and my teacher really doesn’t make it easy to like the book . . .
She attempts to sound clever by saying really abstract phrases which seem to make very little sense to me; and I’m the best “blagger” in Norfolk! My essays never lack length, merely the required content (and often sense!) :op I can honestly say that not one of my essays for Uni last year, was under the word limit (or even ON it for that matter!); every single one surpassed the limit, even the essay I wrote through the night and finished at 7am!
Here is an example of her silly turns of phrase:
“Subversion is an active process; fiction, merely a product.”
“Dos Passos uses nature as an agent of subversion to undermine and subvert fictional conventions within the novel.”
“The characters are agents or victims of their own times.”
Oh and by the way, these are stated completely out of context, so we have absolutely no idea what she’s going on about because suddenly her discussion topic will just switch from one thing to another!
Well, no matter now, don’t need to think about the silly book or the silly teacher until next week; now is the weekend :o) Time for “chill-laxing”! Tomorrow I’m supposed to be going to an Erasmus “Soirée” run by a company called Parismus. They focus on bringing the Erasmus students together in a “family” kind of way whilst we’re all here in Paris. I don’t know if I really want to go at the moment. Am feeling a bit like becoming a recluse this weekend.
Oh well, shall let you know :o) Laters! Xxxx
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