Out of Tune

So, life in a foreign country is not so bad. I'm happy, but currently i'm experiencing a friction...insatisfaction that is so typical in life. I feel distant from my dream of decent french--now i see the reality my french and its not so pretty as it should be...the more i know of a language the more i know that i don't know it at all...this is my future--and from my ideal experience. Now I'll go into too much detail to describe those few sentences.

I'm actually over-enjoying about having a nice room to myself...all my hobbies are indoor: reading books or wikipedia or news, drinking coffee/tea, crocheting, writing, doing homework...so i have to make myself go out. I have ridiculous amounts of time. I only have class in the morning on MTW and only in the afternoon ThF. I have homework, but its not hard...more than spain, less than the US of A. And i'm going through the stage where I hate hearing myself speak french because i know how bad my accent is, i can hear my mistakes, i continue to make the same damned mistakes over and over and i'm sure that i'll never get any better. i'm even frustrated with my english....i realize that i am barely comprehensible by my friends now when it used to be just my mom...and if i want to teach ESL (which seems like it will enter my life at some point) i have to learn to speak clearly.

I'm frustrated. And my french teacher is very kind but the french way to teach (so they tell me is the justification for her attitude) is to maintain control of the class by not listening to the students and always assuming they are wrong. I like that she's strict--thats fine--but she corrects us (me sometimes) tactlessly. But i think i'll learn from her. I almost cried in class today (don't be shocked into sympathy...almost crying has little to do with actual crying, which doesn't even require that great of a provocation) because i defined a word by saying that it puts "emphase" (emphasis) on something...but she said "No, you said that word yesterday too and its wrong." That pretty much summed up my frustration with the situation of myself and the french language...always saying the wrong word (which turns out to exist in the french language, but i just discovered from my not-so-friendly dictionary that it means "pompous". Good...) repetitively and ignorantly. But then we chatted over our coffee break about languages...an appropriate subject matter for a french student and teacher. She speaks French Spanish and English too. cool eh?

And it was in that conversation that i realized that most conversations i have are driven by each participnt trying to get out as much of what he/she wants to express. or maybe its just what i do...i definitely do that and it kills conversations. I still need to learn to pose more questions--or maybe its changing my perspective to actually care more about what the other person is wanting to say. I think i do care, but i'm interrupted by what Mean Girls referred to as "word-vomit"...or something like that...i'd like to think better of myself that myself acts.

I crocheted some amateur mittens this last week. I also finished A Prayer for Owen Meany which was AMAZING can i say again AMAZING and long, but i read it steadily on the metro. This morning i was on an over-crowded metro and when the doors opened and everyone got out, we all seemed to walk nervously like we'd all just been violated. sometimes people on the metro look like cows, standing dumbly and staring randomly.

Another problem: this week has been nice because i've had time to myself, but its been weird because i haven't really spent too much time with other people. I'm pretty happy...i like this side of Katy-independent, well-read, well-prepared, satisfied. But last night i went to our program class (which is NOTHING like Granada seminar or the culture shock classes...where time and intelligent banter is less important...here our class is all intellectual about the political philosophy of the french) and i saw my friends friends and i got all excited, but i couldn't let any of that energy out because i had to pay attention in class or at least feign paying attention and then i had to run home for supper. so i gave alli the mittens, wrote notes in class, tried not to giggle during class, and then went home. But i'm gonna get out tonight hopefully. If not, i'm definitely gonna go check out this yarn store that keeps eluding me. I'll catch it one of these days.

Balance. That's what I need. Time for me and time for me +company. Duh. I hate it when the answer to a question is simple...it belittles the importance of the problem. Its the same with my general frustration--it could easily be labeled as "culture shock" or someone could draw me the diagram that shows the process of language immersion (which is not at all what i'm in, but close enough) with its upward slopes followed by plateaus...I really don't care that what i'm feeling perfectly exemplifies the experience of living in a foreign country, trying to learn the language. What i care about is figuring out what i can do to use the frustration for improving.

And if this whole description of my current perspective on life seems a little too negative, that's not what exactly what I'm experiencing. Its more like a slight friction. Its like when you're trying to get a note in tune and its just not working (i never mastered musical instruments enough to do it easily)...it slides out of tune and the beats get quicker...i hate that feeling. But i know that after some time...i won't notice the beats anymore and its because i'll have worked them out...i'll finally have tuned in my ear to the french culture, language, and people...as well as it can be tuned.