Pigeonman, schedule, weekend, classes!

So there is this guy who lives in the apartments above the IES center's building. His name is Jonathan. He is a professor in Paris. He is American. He found a baby pigeon who could not fly. He kept it as a pet in his apartment. Not in a cage in his apartment, no... just in his apartment. It sleeps in his bed. Its name is Poopzilla. Allow me to repeat that: ITS NAME IS POOPZILLA.

How do I know this? I walked out into the garden, and a man was sitting there in the sun, reading a paper, occasionally glancing up at a pigeon in a cage. I remarked that I thought the pigeon was cute. He told me all about the pigeon.

I like this crazy old professor; he and I would be awesome friends.

What else? I have my schedule now! My schedule allows you to call me when I am NOT in class. All times listed are first in Paris's timezone, then in Central time.

Monday:
Wake up at 8:00 am (1:00 am, if you're awake you can call me!)
Theatre in Paris, 9-10:30 (2 am - 3:30 am)
Comic Strips and Society, 10:45 - 12:15 (3:45 am - 5:15 am)
Free time (when I'm in the computer lab with no reception)
Word and Image: French Cinema, 16:00-17:30 (9:00 am - 10:30 am)

Tuesday:
Wake up at 8:00 (1:00 am, again, you can call me!)
Translation, 9-10:30 (2 am - 3:30 am)
**Starting Oct 5** History (time TBD)

Wednesday:
Wake up at 8:00 am (1:00 am)
Theatre in Paris, 9-10:30 (2 am - 3:30 am)
Comic Strips and Society, 10:45 - 12:15 (3:45 am - 5:15 am)
Free time (when I'm in the computer lab with no reception)
Word and Image: French Cinema, 16:00-17:30 (9:00 am - 10:30 am)

Thursday:
Wake up at 8:00 (1:00 am, again, you can call me!)
Translation, 9-10:30 (2 am - 3:30 am)
**Starting Oct 5** History (time TBD)

Friday - Sunday:
FREEEEEEE! Call me any time between 3:00 AM CST and 4:00 PM CST! If you want to call me outside of these hours, send me an email, and we'll figure something out beforehand.


Non-sequitur! This weekend I was hanging out with a friend (after I twisted my ankle and it got better). He smokes. A man walked up to us and heard that we were speaking in English, so he asked, in English:

"Do you have ... fire?"

I struggled to keep a straight face as my friend picked up his cigarette lighter and lit the man's cigarette. The man walked away.
Hee hee.

Okay, so then I started classes. Let's go through them in slight detail.

Theatre in Paris
Very nice teacher. We're reading 4 plays, then we're going to go watch 6 different plays in Paris. Free admission to the plays. AWESOME. Mostly contemporary French plays. I'm not a fan of contemporary plays as much as I am of classical plays, but you can't be picky when it comes to free theatrical outings.

Comics and Society
AH I LOVE THIS PROFESSOR! And yet... it's awkward. I'm already the 'exception' because we were talking about girls and how they generally don't read comics. «Girls, did you ever read lots of superhero comics when you were little ?» he asked. I nodded. All other girls shook their heads. « Well, you're just the exception. We're not talking about you.» he grinned.

Additional reason as to why it's awkward as follows:
I know a webcomic. He's super popular. We occasionally chat online, and I mentioned this to my professor (in the context of "What is your favorite comic?") and he was extremely interested in a super popular webcomic in America. This is because my professor is a comic/film critic in one of the biggest newspapers in Paris.

SO at his request, I sent him the link to the webcomic. I will not include the link on my blog, nor will I mention its name, simply because it has rather 'crude' humor (yes it is the humor; it doesn't have any naughty pictures or anything!!) and my family and parents (Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi Grandpa Z!) would probably not appreciate it. In fact, it's 100% certain that they would not appreciate it.

Anyway, he read the first comic and liked it, but he didn't quite understand the joke. I had to explain it to him. The joke was something that students and professors DO NOT DISCUSS in normal classes. That alone was mortifying. He will continue to read it, and he told me he will continue to ask me questions when he doesn't understand something. OH MY GOODNESS. AWKWARD.

Then we had class, and he said, «Now I truly understand how difficult this class will be for you. Cindy sent me a link to an American comic, and it took me a long time to understand WHY it was funny. There were several cultural and linguistic aspects that I had to research before I could finally understand the joke, and this is what you're going to have to do throughout the course.»

He went on to explain the comic in great detail. I felt awkward because again, NOT SOMETHING STUDENTS AND TEACHERS DISCUSS. I professed the reason for my embarrassment to him after class. He responded, «Ah yes, but I am not your average teacher. This is the kind of thing I study... the kind of thing I critique! It's a very good exercise, for me. I will be reading more!»

Enough on that class. Moving onwards:

Word and Image: French Cinema
Now, what's cool about this class is that it's taught not by a professor, but by a (former?) film director (and producer, I believe). We're learning about the development of cinema right now, but it looks like a VERY promising class. Also, we're forced to watch French movies outside of class. DARN, my homework requires me to go to the movies with my friends! (That was sarcasm, you know!)

Translation
This class is not about translating French to English, which is very easy. It's about English to French. A lot harder than you'd think, because English has two sets of vocabulary bases: Latin-based words (the ones that are similar to French, Spanish, Italian, etc), and Anglo-Saxon words/grammar structure (think German!). French only has one major vocabulary base AND grammar structure, both of which are derived from Latin.

So if I want to translate something from English to French, but the English words are all taken from the Germanic roots, it's a lot harder to find a corresponding word in French because FIRST I have to find the Latin-based synonym for the word (if one exists), then I have to translate that into French, and I have to make sure I haven't lost the meaning during all of this.

OH BUT NOW IT IS TIME FOR CLASS! Gotta go!