23 Feb 2009 11.20pm Grenoble

I am now sitting in my room listening to “hakula matata”. Today was the first day of school after the winter break. I had my awful lessons with those awful French kids again. I was late for the class and when I went in to the LT, the prof was just talking to my group members. Crap. I walked towards them pretending to be cool and the prof saw me and then talked to me in French. Of course I didn’t understand what he said. And of course this stupid dwarf gal laughed again into my face (by the way she is a head shorter than me). I was still looking cool, but I cursed her in my head for at least a hundred times before I smiled at the prof and said “ erm, I didn’t quite understand what you have just said.” That was hilarious, I think. I was so proud of myself to be so thick-skinned now. The prof then said in English to me. It was about an email I sent to him two weeks ago and I had some questions to ask him after I was totally fucked up by my group members. He never replied to me of course. But smart as I am, I figured it out myself eventually. So after he explained to me again, the same guy from my group asked me the same question again as two weeks ago -- “tu comprends?” and I gave him the same answer as two weeks ago --- “non.” But this time I was able to say something more, thanks to the French intensive week:“vous parlez trop vite pour moi.”  He seemed to be impressed that I actually spoke to him in French, so he was NICE enough to explain the question to me again, IN FRENCH. “That helps a lot” I thought to myself, sarcastically of course. But it was a miracle that I actually understood. Of course I did not understand his explanation in French ---but rather, I did research on my own two weeks ago and it was exactly like what I thought --- can’t imagine French people need two weeks for something we usually do in NUS for two hours. So after we split into two subgroups, two Swedish gals in my subgroup came to talk to me in English. It was exchange students type of conversation, talking about weekends and parties, and skis, and parties. And this same NICE guy was now the only one in the group now not speaking English and he was like “hey, no English!” I laughed, saying “sure, sure” but was thinking “what the hell is this your business? This is a free country for crying out loud! ” I met Karen the Mexican gal after class and the first thing she said to me was “I hate French people”. Well, haven’t I said that enough in the past three weeks?

So I was glad when the school finally ended but the weather just turned to be so cold that I realized that I was actually shaking when walking on the streets. I was planning to watch “west side story” the musical in two weeks, but I was not sure if it will be in English or in French. I guess the French people can’t change everything into French, can they?