A Mind Boggling Experience Blog 15

Study abroad is not for people who don't want to think.

Besides trying to keep up with the language (which has not gone too well today) I am constantly forced to confront cultural issues, and new ideas as I meet new people and have new experiences.  I grew up in a Parma bubble and it has burst, leaving me sticky and slightly confused.

The French live differently than we do, and I've had to step back and examine a lot of my perceptions on "the right way to live" and accept things that don't seem normal to me.  I'm living in a country with a socialist government hanging on during a strike that is monstrous compared to any political movement I've ever seen.  But to be honest, socialism really seems to work for the French.  I never thought socialism could be a good thing, but that is probably due to my American education, because the French wouldn't have it any other way (or the strikes would turn into riots.)  Also, I'm constantly meeting people with ideas and views very different from my own.  It isn't only French people either, it is my fellow American students, who come from all over the country, as well as other study abroad students from around the world.  There are so many different perspectives on life, I don't even know what to think anymore!

I've had to face the fact that I have been closed minded for a lot of my life.  That is actually a major part of my personality, I'd fight to the death over an opinion rather than admit I was wrong.  But now, here in France, it is impossible to remain unchanged by everything that is going on around me.  I am becoming more open minded, but sometimes it feels like my mind is expanding so fast it is going to explode!

So what have I learned?  I need to make my own opinions, not just adopt the opinions of others blindly.  I may actually disagree with my close friends or family :( sometimes.  Maybe certain things, like political systems, don't have right or wrong answers, just different ideas that are equally good or bad.  And finally, it is OK to not have an opinion, maybe certain things are so big that it takes a lot of time to fully understand them.

All of this is so mind bending it hurts sometimes! Makes me feel weak to not have a position, to admit that I'm not that smart.  But what has kept me from completely going insane?  My faith.

It seems like a foreign concept to people, why I cling to my faith the way I do.  They don't understand why I would limit myself that way, following the rules sounds like giving up the fun.  But my faith is not rules, it is freedom.  Because I believe that Jesus Christ died and took the punishment for my sin, I can live with hope for life after this one.  He has given me grace, that covers everything I have ever done wrong!  Imagine that, being pardoned for even the most atrocious crimes!  Doesn't sound restrictive to me.  So if it is all about grace, why do I live this way?  Well, it is pretty simple, I'm ETERNALLY grateful to my Savior, I LOVE Him with my whole heart, and I know He loves me too.  Anyone who has ever loved someone else knows that love and trust go hand in hand.  I TRUST Jesus with my life, and I know that He knows everything, so when He tells me something is a bad idea, I listen, because I believe He is looking out for me, and has my best interests in mind.  It may seem like rules, but it is comfort, knowing that He holds my life in his hand, and is protecting me.

So in all this CRAZINESS when I don't seem to know what to think anymore, I can still turn to my God.  I may not have all the answers, I may not have ANY of the answers, but He does :)  And I'm so glad, because otherwise my brain may have turned to jelly by now.
 

Living in Franglais Blog 14

Franglais:  A mix of Francais (French) and Anglais (English)

I thought I would write a blog for anyone who has ever been curious about what it is like to try and learn a foreign language through the "immersion" method.

3 months is all it takes to become fluent in another language.  I've heard it time and time again, I really hope it is true because I have exactly 3 months here in France.

That phrase makes study abroad sound like it is all about time, so I sort of expected to just spend 3 months here and then...WHACK! get knocked on the head by the language fairy and VOILA! je peux parler en francais :)
That's not how it happens.

I got here, and could barely put a sentence together, it was rough.  I couldn't really understand anyone, people had to talk to me like a 3 year old, and then sometimes I still didn't understand.  I was embarrassed ALL THE TIME because my French was so bad.  If I was in a store, and I needed something important, I started the conversation by asking if the person spoke English, because I didn't even want to try in French.

I was good at French in high school and college, I always got A's which let me to believe that I had a handle on the language.  But classroom French and actual French are completely totally different.  I got a reality check, it hurt my pride and was very discouraging.

I decided in the first week that there was no way I could possibly achieve fluency, but I've come so far since then.  Learning French for me has come in a series of spurts, intense curves and plateaus and it is so much more complicated than I realized!

 Learning a language through immersion kind of sneaks up on you.  At first it feels like your mouth is stuffed with cotton and you have the ideas, but just can't get them out!  Then, slowly, time oils your jaw, your tongue loosens up, the cotton disappears and after a few weeks, you can speak!  But in this phase you grammar is horrendous, your accent is terrible and people care barely understand YOU and you can't understand them much either.

Phase two:  all that knowledge you learned in the classroom suddenly starts to come in handy!  You find that if you pause for a moment before you start you sentence you can put your verb in the correct tense, and maybe even place your direct objects in the right spot.  You start to sound a little more intelligent :) (ps. this is so much harder than it sounds)

Next comes the accent.  Occasionally people correct your pronunciation and you begin to listen closely and modify your words to match those around you.  The best part about mastering the accent though, is that you can begin to understand people better!  French and English share so many words that when you listen correctly you hear a million words that you already knew, but never understood before because of the accent.  

Now is the time when new words start pouring into your brain.  You learn phrases, and vocab at a rapid pace.  You hear new words, you read new words.  At the beginning of this phrase it is really hard to remember a word if you have just heard it, it has to be written out to be understood, but soon after you can visualize in French :)

Here comes the coolest part:  You begin to think in French.  All the sudden, in conversation, you realize that you aren't translating every word in your head before you speak, you are just, talking.  It is a really awesome feeling, and does wonders for your confidence :)

Eventually people begin to tell you how much you have progressed, and remarking to other people "Doesn't she speak French well!"  It is so nice :)  And you are not nervous anymore when you have to go to an information desk and ask a question because you KNOW you can handle the French.  It is actually really exciting :)

This is as far as I've gotten, and I'm definitely not content yet.  My grammar is still atrocious, I'm lacking a lot of vocab, and I can't understand as well as I would like to.  But I have 2 months left, and that may just be enough time to become fluent :)  Over all though, I have to admit, I'm really proud of my progress.  Learning a language through immersion is EXTREMELY difficult, but looking back, it is a really nifty process.

The worst part of study abroad Blog 13

There is nothing worse than being 6000 miles away from home when a loved one passes away.  It hasn't been any of my relatives in particular, but almost everyday this week I've received news that someone has passed away.  My heart aches for my friends.  Friends that have lost brothers, daughters, grandmothers and grandfathers.  I can't be there to give them a hug, or comfort them.  And one in particular was someone I really cared about, and I want desperately to be able to go to the funeral, his family is my family, and I want to be there for them.  I feel so far away, I feel so alone.  My friends and family are hurting, I'm hurting.  I've never missed home so much.

The only thing I can do is pray, and believe me, I am.

I find comfort in the fact that there is a Heaven, and that makes this less painful all around.  But I just want to be with my family right now, and I can't.

So this is me, sending digital hugs to everybody who has lost someone in the past couple weeks.  I'm thinking about you and I'm praying for you constantly, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Retraction. Blog 12

There are two sides to every story.  

Maybe I was a little harsh on the French strikers.  

Maybe because it isn't a simple situation there is no simple answer.  

Here is the other side of the story, you can decide for yourself.  

The French government is raising retirement age from 60 to 62, the whole nation is on strike, this has been going on periodically for months.  2 years doesn't sound like it is worth this chaos to me.  But maybe, because I am not a French citizen, it is not the same.  What I have learned is that the French are upset about more than just the retirement age, they are upset because they live in a "republic" but the government is not acting like it.  President Sarkozy never mentioned this retirement reform in his plans when he ran for president, and now the French feel like he is just throwing this new law at them.  Also, he never stopped to ask what the people wanted.  I've heard that 71% of the population is against this reform, and if the government is supposed to represent the people then this law shouldn't pass.  The strikers want negotiation, they may understand that reform is necessary, but they want to participate in the decision.  Sarkozy has made it very clear that this is HIS decision, and there will be no negotiation.  

So maybe this strike has more passion in it than I accredited it with.  I suppose if I felt that my government was overstepping its bounds, and taking away my freedom, I would be upset too.  I suppose that if the government refused to listen to the voice of the people, I would be angry.  I suppose that maybe the French are justified.  Perhaps they see no other way to be heard.  In a republic, the people's opinion should matter.  The people have ideas, and THE WORLD WILL KNOW!

And the World WILL KNOW! Blog 11

I know what you are all thinking:  2 blogs in one day!  That's crazy!  Nobody is going to take that much time to read Courtney Burnside's ramblings!  Yeah yeah.  Oh well, I've been inspired, I'm going to write.  

So the title of this blog is a song from The Newsies in case you are not enough of a Disney fanatic to catch the reference.  The Newsies is a movie about the paperboy strike of 1899.  The paperboys are getting cheated out of wages and they go on strike, and sing a lot about it.  I love that movie.

 Anyways, that was my frame of reference for strikes.  Strikes are full of passion, standing up against the unjust, fighting for what you believe!  Such a romantic idea.  But now that I am in the country that strikes as a national hobby I've been changing my mindset.  Here is a little background information on the situation here in France:  By 2050 there will be 2 retired people for every 1 working person in France.  That is not a good statistic at all because the working people's taxes are paying the retired people's salaries, and 1 working person cannot support 2 retired people.  The retiring age here in France is 60 years old.  President Sarkozy has proposed changing it to 62 in order to avoid a serious problem in the coming years.  And the nation has responded with 4,5,6 I've lost count, nation-wide strikes.  When I say nation-wide I mean that the banks, the post offices, trains, planes, buses, schools and more are shut down or delayed.  It is getting really irritating.  

I see nothing wrong with letting the government know how you feel about something, but it is already a law, and nothing is going to change.  This is a serious issue, and there aren't many other options.  People are not really being treated unfairly, this is just the way it has to be.  The Communist Party who has been leading most the strikes and rallies has not even proposed an alternative solution.  

The concept of striking is overused here in France.  They are so common that there are a set of striking rules.  The majority of strikes happen on Tuesdays or Thursdays and you must let your employer know in advance if you are going to strike.  For example, there is going to be ANOTHER strike Oct. 23rd.  There are signs up the day before at the bus stops predicting delays and cancellations, and everyone just sighs and tries to find another way to school.  If they want to really make an impact, they cannot go on strike over everything that makes them unhappy, because nobody even pays attention to the strikes anymore.  The strikes really only irritate the common citizen who is trying to take the bus to work, or wants his mail to go through on time.  Strikes in the US have so much more meaning because they are a last resort.  The people here need to decide what is important enough to demand attention for the government.  Then they can go on strike and make the strike big and drastic, but they can't do that for everything.  

Finally, the student strikes.  I looked out the window of my classroom today to see the entrance to the high school across the street blocked of with a huge stack of DUMPSTERS.  There were a bunch of kids sitting outside by this mountain of plastic hanging out.  Our teacher explained to us that the STUDENTS were on strike, because of the retirement age.  Whatever.  I don't believe that for a second.  They wanted to be dramatic, like their parents, and go on strike.  They wanted to attract attention, they wanted the day off school.  I looked at that pile of dumpsters and thought "that would never fly in the USA."  I feel that if the students want to act like adults, they better have adult reasons.  They way it is because of retirement age, but I don't think they have a clue what they are doing.  They don't understand the meaning of their actions.  

This being said, I've only ever heard French people complain about the strikes.  Nobody seems to like them, yet they continue to go on.  It is a weird paradox, it is so much a part of French life and culture that it is accepted, but I can't acceptt it.  I may just be a 19 year old college kid, but I think that these strikes have really gone far enough.  I hope they end soon.  This whole thing really killed my romantic ideas about injustice and striking, I'll never look at The Newsies the same again.

In Defense of English Classes Blog 10

I read an article today in French class that was very difficult to understand.  It was a piece describing somebody and I only knew  half the words, but when it was being read out loud I could feel the author's emotions.  I could hear a purposeful rhythm in the sentences, and I paused to appreciate the beautiful French rhetoric.  And all the sudden, I missed AP English in high school.  Wow, that is not a feeling one gets often, but in that moment I realized how valuable all my English classes throughout school had been.  

I miss being able to write well.  I can probably write at the French level of a 7 year old right now, and I miss being able to express myself with words.  I can write what happened, but I can't make it sound good, I can't make it sound real, or put any feeling into my words.  And it is almost impossible to be persuasive without good rhetoric to back up your ideas.  It doesn't matter how smart you are or how much you know, if you can't speak well, or write well, no one will ever listen to you.  

For example:  I was ripped off by a taxi driver.  I am positive he took advantage of my friend and I because we were young and we didn't speak much French.  I didn't even have the words to challenge the price he gave us.  I was so frustrated that I could not do ANYTHING about the situation.  My second thought was to write a letter of complaint to the taxi service.  But they would throw it out, my French would be so terrible and full of mistakes that no one would take me seriously.  

Example 2:  Politics, politics, politics.  France and America have very different political systems and I often find myself discussing these systems with French people.  But I am so limited as to what i can say.  I have so many IDEAS but I can't convey them!  I am only as smart as my words allow me to be.  

It is so difficult to truly appreciate the opportunity that you have to learn English and to learn it well, until you find out what life is like when you are unable to express yourself.  It is so hard.  So this blog is in honor of all my English teachers that I've ever had.  Because without them, I would always feel trapped by my own inability to wield the english language.  Intelligence is useless without an outlet, and that outlet, for us, is English.   

And this blog is also written to anyone who has ever complained about an English class (including me).  You don't even know how lucky you are to be able to learn how to use language effectively.  That skill will benefit you for the rest of your lives.  So, even though its tough, and a TON of work *cough Mrs. Lateulere *cough, it will be worth it in the end.  Hang in there and try to appreciate it :)

When in Rome... Blog 9

So you probably all know that I spent last weekend in Rome.  My profile picture is a dead give-away.  But I thought I would share a little bit about my trip.  As always, I will mix some life lessons in with some humor (because I can't seem to avoid awful situations that are hilarious when you look back on them.)  And I will try to paint a nice picture of the city for you.  (of course if I don't do a good job, I have an entire facebook album dedicated to my trip)

The story starts about 2 weeks ago.  My friend Lindsey and I are walking out of a class and we look at our schedules only to realize that we didn't have any classes on Friday September 30th.  A day off in this school is really something special.  For the whole semester we only have 2 long weekends for mini excursions, and in that moment Lindsey and I were faced with the fact that we had ANOTHER long weekend, that we hadn't known about and we needed to make the most of it!  There were 9 days to go, to plan something, to take a trip, and the words "let's go to ROME!" slipped out of my mouth.  2 days later, after much credit card hassle and insane travelling research we had plane tickets, and 6 days later we were on a plane bound for Rome.  

Rome is stunning, it is really so beautiful.  Every time you turn around you spot another ruin, or another ancient building that was constructed with so much beauty and precision that it makes your jaw drop.  I have mentioned how much I love the history in France, well in Rome, I was in a city that was even OLDER than any city in France.  I loved it.  There is so much to take in, Lindsey and I walked around the city marveling at how well the old and the new blended to create such a wonderful place.  

A mix of ancient temples, a massive blood sport arena, and the capital of the Catholic Church make up this city.  It is a bizarre mix, but Rome wouldn't be Rome without them. The Colosseum is both beautiful and terrible.  The structure itself is stunning, but when you learn about the blood sports it churns your stomach a little.  The Colosseum was the home of the Gladiators, who were paid to fight, but it was also the place where many prisoners breathed their last, in front of thousands of onlookers.  It is believed that the Colosseum held about 50,000 people, and that it was packed every time it was open.  Everyone loves a spectacle, but i have a hard time understanding people who watch other people die for enjoyment.  But then you have to wonder, would people from another culture or another time find our sources of entertainment sickening?  

The pagan temples and the Vatican are within walking distance of each other.  It could actually be said that the Vatican is the reason the temples are in ruins because when Christianity became popular in Rome, the temples were torn down and used to create Vatican city.  Although I don't agree with the things the pagan temples stood for, it saddened me to see so much history lost.  I suppose they thought they were doing what was right, but I can't help but feeling that love and kindness are a better witness than destruction and condemnation.  Of course, I could be thinking way too symbolically about the whole thing.  At least a few buildings (temples that were converted into churches) were saved so we could have an idea what ancient Roman life was like.  

This whole trip has been a huge lesson in Catholicism for me, thanks to my dear friend Lindsey :) Considering that Catholicism was the only form of Christianity for a very long time, and Europe was one of the first mission fields of the early church, there is Catholic stuff everywhere!  I've been in so many cathedrals so far, and Rome was no different, except they are called Bascilicas.  So Lindsey has been kindly answering all my elementary questions as we tour these amazing churches and I have to say: I understand.  I understand the Catholic faith (well at least better than I did).  The Catholics, just like the Protestants, have really good reasons for everything they do, and they have scripture back up.  So who was I to ever say they were wrong?  Maybe, just because I don't always agree, doesn't mean it is wrong.  I've reached the conclusion that while there is only one way to Heaven (Jesus) there are many ways to practice your faith, and worship.  People have the right to develop their relationship with God in whatever way is most comfortable for them.  And anyone (catholic or not) should visit Vatican City if they have the chance because it is beautiful.  

Once again, I feel like I'm growing up here in Europe.  I've finally stopped fighting it, I can't be a kid forever, and there are definitely some perks to being an adult.  I can't believe that Lindsey and I booked our own tickets, and hostel and toured Rome on our own!  While we had some bumps along the way, (we accidentally got on a train bound for Pisa, luckily we got off before it left) and we got lost a few times, and almost missed our plane, it was such a learning experience.  I've found that I am capable of more than I ever imagined, and I'm excited to keep going :)