Finally got into the right class level!

So thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes! I had a very wonderful birthday and got to celebrate throughout the entire day. I had about 5 friends over and my French mom brought home some amazing champagne. Any type of French wine or champagne has been so delicious here! Cointreau is pretty popular in Angers, so she made us “Cointreau-politans” that were also amazing. Anne-Dominique also brought out this superb chocolate cake and I once again was sung to. It was a very enjoyable evening. Afterward, we went out to a bar called Soft, which is pretty popular with the students in Angers as they have pretty cheap drinks. It was crowed, but we had a nice time and enjoyed some excellent sangrias.

Wednesday, I had school again. I sat through my morning classes and was bored out of my mind by the time I got to lunch. Rachel, Chris, and I had a brief meeting with Madame Work to just talk about our experiences so far. She was very surprised that the professor had not changed me to the higher class level, so we went upstairs to talk to the secretary. We ended up getting to talk the director of the entire program and I convinced him to put me into level 7. I’m glad I finally got that worked out because I did not come to France to be bored in class every day.

That night, I decided to go out and get my own food and make myself dinner since my French mom has not really cooked anything since the first night here and I was tired of microwave meals. So I got some green beans, some mozzarella cheese, and spaghetti sauce and made myself a big pasta meal with tomatoes and mozzarella. Typical though, I had just put my food all on my plate and sat down and Anne-Dominique walks in with a bag of groceries, ready to make dinner. Awkward.

Today was my first experience in level 7 and it was so much better. We’re actually learning things that I don’t know and we’re learning important and useful vocabulary and phrases. We’re even doing some more advanced grammar like present participles and gerunds, which are bizarre in French. In our labotoire class, we did phonetics, which is really smart and useful because a lot of times, we know the words to say, but we don’t pronounce them correctly and thus we’re not understood. It’s so much better to actually be challenged. I have to actually pay attention in class so that I can know what is going on. I feel like I’m at least getting my money’s worth now.

The weather’s been a bit odd. I’m never sure whether I need a jacket or an umbrella or nothing. It needs to make up its mind. Well, I’m off to do a bit of homework. Tchao!