Assimilation with the French-Day 58-March 8th, 2018

I had four classes to get through today, but for me this was essentially a Friday. I was skipping all my classes tomorrow to meet my BU friends (non-Grenoble ones) in Amsterdam. This didn’t make getting out of bed any easier this morning though. As usual, one bowl of of cornflakes and a large coffee later I was feeling good.

As I walked to the bus stop I was feeling even better. It was a beautiful day outside and not freezing for once. One of my favorite thing about Grenoble is how easily accessible snow is when you want it, but not there when you don’t want it. Since I been here, it has rarely snowed in Grenoble. It usually turns to rain and all the snow is melted before noon. Conversely, if you drive forty minutes into the alps, there are feet of snow and it’s always snowing. It’s nice to have that choice.

Today we were starting the AC section of circuits and our schedules are now messed up as a result of the new lecture times. Unfortunately this means we have class every Wednesday now, and our math and French classes got moved too. I don’t really know what my schedule is like now, but to be honest, I know other people in my classes will figure it out and post it to our group chat.

The first class of the day was math. With out midterm on Monday, I was expecting way more review in class rather than complex derivations for something not on the exam. Fortunately he went over an old exam in the last fifteen minutes and I found it very helpful.

French class was next and went by really quickly. Harry and I got to present our role play where Harry played a girl I was hitting on in a bar. Our Professor enjoyed it and Harry’s acting was on point as the confused and uninterested French girl.

We had a small break after class, so I went with Harry and Nick to the cafeteria to eat my lunch I brought. I’m not going to lie, I think I am finally over sandwiches. When I return from Amsterdam, I will be entering a new food phase. Who knows whats next.

After lunch we had a DC circuits tutorial and an AC circuits lecture. The tutorial was just going over problems on the old material and was pretty helpful. The real fun started with out AC lecture. This was a big deal because the French students would be joining us. For a lot of the BU students, this was the first class they had with French students. Everyone in physics with me already had this experience. This was a different group of students than physics, but I still knew a bunch of them from going out.

While we were waiting in the hallway, I immediately started talking to the French students. I met some new people, but I already new Vesco and Antonin pretty well. I had taught them how to “dap” the other day, which is the signature handshake for anyone from the NY area. It’s sort of a universal thing among American teenage boys, and I know my French friends like learning American things. Both of them were excited to “dap” me up when I saw them.

Our class was in an amphitheater now since our class size was much bigger than usual. The lecture hall was like a super stereotypical one from movies. What I also found interesting was that every seat had a clicker attached to the desk.

These are what clickers look like

We use clickers in a lot of our BU classes back in Boston. Clickers are a way for professors to check class participation since they ask a question during lecture and you use the clicker to answer. They’re was a big sign in the front of the lecture hall saying that many had been stolen and that they each cost 50 euros. It also said how these thefts only deteriorated people’s overall education.

In America we use clickers, but we have to buy them ourselves. I happened to still have my clicker in my backpack, and pulled it out. I showed it to the French students and they were super impressed. I explained how we had to buy our own ones in America.

Lecture was mostly review for me because I had learned some AC circuits in physics last year. It was interesting because the French students had learned DC circuits in French, so our professor had to translate a lot of weird circuits words for them like “Kirchoff’s Voltage Laws”.

Later in the lecture, Antonin asked if BU was sponsored by a water bottle company or something. I was really confused by this at first, but realized he didn’t understand why nearly every American student had a water bottle on their desk. This is surprisingly not the first time I’ve noticed differences in American water consumption than the French. In our first week in Grenoble, I recall a lot of my BU friends commenting on how there was barely any water at dinner. Even I sometimes feel like I drink three times as much water as my host family at dinner sometimes.

I explained to Antonin that Americans were big on hydration and it was pretty typical for everyone to have a water bottle with them. I told him that in American lecture, every student usually has a water bottle, coffee, or both with them. Little moments like this are cool because you can really see the differences between cultures that aren’t so obvious.

After class I headed home, than changed and went straight to the gym. Despite my entire body being sore from skiing, I didn’t want to neglect a workout. Today was shoulders and biceps, which I followed with my routine ab workout and push ups.

I came home and showered. Shortly after it was dinner time. For an appetizer, we had beef and mushrooms in a tasty sauce. I eat mushrooms, or “champignon” as the French say, a lot in France and I’ve grown to really like them. The main course was a weird breaded turkey cutlet and green beans. The turkey was good, but the green beans were pretty bad. I still ate everything as a courtesy though. The main course was followed by bread and cheese, then cookies for dessert.

After we finished eating, I continued my pattern of sticking around after dinner with Jessica and Anne-Marie. This always a great opportunity for me to practice my French and Anne-Marie to practice her English. The things we discuss are usually pretty mundane, but it serves for phenomenal French practice. Jessica is pretty helpful in translating anything I can’t say in French, which is quickly becoming less and less. After twenty minutes of this, I headed upstairs to my room.

The rest of my night was pretty uneventful. I packed my bag for the weekend and spent some time relaxing. I had to be up really early for my bus, so I called it a night at 11 PM.