-- Within ten seconds he was so tangled up

in a maze of mutilated verbs and torn and bleeding forms of speech

that no human ingentuity could ever have gotten him

out of it with credit. --

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

Class at the Sorbonne is very different than class in the U.S. They are much more strict here than in the States. At St Mike's, it's not uncommon to see kids walking to class in the morning in a tee shirt and their pyjamas bottoms. That would be UNTHINKABLE here. Everyone is dressed to kill here. People of all ages are dressed absolutely impeccably, as if the metro was a fashion expo. In class at the Sorbonne, you put on your Sunday best.

The old rule of no hats indoors really doesn't mean much anymore in the States. Kids sit in class with their hats on backwards, sideways, and maybe even rock their rally caps if the Sox are on a streak (RIP Sox of '06). Here, the professor will walk up to you and tell you sternly to remove your "casquette" if you want to continue to be a student in her class. Also, instead of saying it politely, my professor usually adds a little something extra...the humiliation factor. There was a girl who forgot her cahier (notebook), and the professor went up one side of her and down the other; and capped it off by saying, "You don't forget your bathing suit when you go to the pool do you? So why would you forget your notebook to class?" The girl was so embarressed, she barely squeeked out a "Oui, Madame..." And to make sure the class was absolutely clear on who's the boss of the room, my professor made quite the statement by saying "France is a democratic republic, but this classroom is a tyranny." She said it in a half joking way, but she said it the same way President Bush said "This would be much easier if it were a tyranny..." Which makes me think she means it.

Moving on to a more uplifting subject, I've noticed an interesting dynamic concerning the interraction between students. There are about 25 kids in my Cours Pratique class. Those 25 are spead out across the entire world as we've got kids from China, Japan, Columbia, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Israel, and of course the U.S. Outside of class, when it comes time to talk to the other students about our crazy professor, a sort of magical thing happens. I can now speak to a Chinese student, who doesn't speak a word of English. Through our common language of French, we can communicate! It has been fascinating to hear Asian people speak French, because they have difficulty with different aeras of phonetics than English-speakers do. I never even thought about that. This whole communication thing with the Chinese, Japonese, Danish, Spanish, etc was totally unexpected on my part. It's icing on the cake, an added bonus.

If you have been wondering where I've been getting all the Mark Twain quotes, it is because (aside from he being my favorite author) I've been reading his book The Innocents Abroad, known as one of the best travel novels of all time. Especially for an American. It is amazing to think that his reaction to the French was extremely similar to mine, and the book was first published in 1869!! I guess not that much has changed in a hundred and forty odd years. Then again, we've had two world wars on French soil...yet their attitude towards les americains hasn't changed much.

I still love it here, though. The Twain quote above is one of my favorites because it illustrates perfectly how your mind sometimes can't get you out of the wet paper bag that French can be sometimes. Been there before!