Happiness, Patience and Stress

This week since I’ve been back from Glasgow has been interesting. Well, I guess now it’s been two weeks. The weeks are flying by, and I am started to dread having to leave my friends here. I started babysitting my precious girl, Marth, this week. Her family is originally from France, but they have been living in the USA for the past two years, and their oldest child (Marth) speaks English very well because of having lived in America. This had to have been the most ideal time for her to live in America, because now as a four-year-old, she speaks both French and English FLUENTLY. Better than me I would say. There are of course words that she does not know, and between French and English, we are always able to understand each other. Her parents wanted me to babysit her and speak English to her in order that she would not lose her language skills. The first day I spent with her, she spoke English with me, but by the end of an hour, it was no longer a game to her, and she didn’t want to speak English anymore haha. I was very afraid that she would hate me from then on. BUT, I bribed her to speak English this last time by telling her that it was like our secret language because none of her friends at school understand English. She was beyond thrilled to have this “secret language,” and I smiled smugly to myself as I had accomplished to keep her from being angry with me for the next two months! I am able to see the inside of a French “home” due to this job, and might I say that I thoroughly enjoy Americans’ big houses, cars, Big Macs, and anything else “oversized.” Sometimes I wonder how people could happily live in this kind of environment when they are fully capable of living in a huge house in the suburbs.

Marth being showing off her silly faces

Mom sent me a box last week as well It took long enough to arrive, but it was WELL worth every day that I checked for the mail. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! I only cried a little when I got it (or I might have sat on my bed and cried for thirty minutes hugging my ranch and peanut butter…maybe). I learned that the word for a box is  « coulis ».  Some days the people in the secretariat are nice, other days, not so much. The day I checked for the box, the guy knew my name and everything before I even said “bonjour” (probably because I had asked him the same question literally every day for a week). But then I had to use the laverie in the residence (I don’t normally use that one) to dry my clothes because they weren’t fully dried, and the woman I encountered was down right hateful.  I have learned how extremely difficult it is to express myself fully in another language, especially when it is extreme anger/impatience or extreme happiness. When I got the box, I could not contain myself, and I spoke English to EVERYONE. I couldn’t let the words flow as easily in French, so I just switched to English, because I knew they would understand me. And when the woman was hateful to me, it took everything I had to not switch over to English in order to ask for the key to the laverie. That’s all I wanted, but somehow she couldn’t enough words out of her mouth to explain to me what I needed to do. All she kept saying was, “Tu dois avoir la carte.” I think she said it five times to me. I understood fully the content of what she said, but I did not understand what card she was talking about! Through each experience, however, I feel myself improving in my language skills. It is difficult, but it has to be done. I have to be more patient than the person I am dealing with in order to get the answer I need.

Box with Ranch, peanut butter, bacon, and Easy Mac :)

Henrique, Pri and I before our French test

And finally, the stress. We (Henrique, Pri and I) took our FIRST exam this week.  We are now, what, five weeks into the semester? Six weeks? I don’t know (I lost count after that first three hour Law seminar completely in French – my brain turned to mush). But it is incredibly that this is the first written work I have had to do all semester. I have ZERO accountability, and it is beyond stressful. I don’t know how the final exams will be administered. I don’t know how much I have honestly learned here, and I feel as if my brain is slowly turning to porridge despite the fact that I feel PHYSICALLY worn out after each and every class session. Despite all this, things are getting easier to understand, and I am actually able to take several pages of notes without needing to look at someone’s computer anymore. I am finally able to understand these people!! Woo! (Only a month and a half too late). But I decided to document our first test, so here are those pictures. We have gone crazy from the intense pressure of this educational system. And of course, you have Priscila who likes to sit in the hallway and cry over YouTube videos while I am dying in my Sociologie Politique course ;)

On the bus on our way to Campus for the test

 **Side note: Nathalie went to Berlin with Henrique, Bea and Pri. She had a fantastic time making up for her lost trip to Glasgow. And apparently, she speaks better English AND German than the other three Brazilians ;) She touched the Berlin Wall, and she was able to have a drink or two in the hotel bar.

Henrique pledging to keep Nathalie safe and never lose her

Bea,  Pri, and Nathalie having drinks

 **Interesting thing: There are these Arabic weddings (I'm not sure if it's a Muslim thing, or Arabic, I'm not meaning to offend anyone with this term though) that like to drive through town in a huge train of cars honking their horns obnoxiously. I always forget to take pictures, but this time I got one! Apparently it is a common thing for them to do, and it most always happens every Saturday. I don’t know why I find this so interesting, but it reminds me of the Trojan Train at my old high school and the Rush Dinner trains that we have at Emory.

Arabs making circles around the round-about
honking their horns for the wedding

** Tomorrow is my BIRTHDAY. I hope to not have an egg cracked on my head by José Lucas, and I will probably forget to buy myself a cake (like Marcelo did for his birthday). I will get to listen to birthday song singing in Portuguese from Bea, Pri and Henrique, and Rafael and Wendell will of course be in attendance to my so-called “party” (according to Pri). I have a wonderful adopted family to celebrate with, and though I am so far away from my friends and family, I know they are all thinking of me. Sing to me across the ocean! Grands Bisous pour tous <3