Ramblings about School

I sure do miss school. What I miss is my old school… the students and the teachers and the “intelligent life” there. I miss the interesting conversations and hanging out in the teacher’s lounge. I think it will be a long time before I have a conversation beyond, “hi, how are you, and the weather is beautiful today, isn’t it.”

But maybe the next best thing is going to my French school. I suppose that intelligent life exists there, but since we are all from different cultures with different languages, we can’t discuss anything beyond a conversation that uses the French vocabulary that we have developed. Today was different… and that was good… but first - about my fellow classmates…

Every week is different. Students come and go – why... I’m not sure... and why I don’t go... well, I guess I haven’t learned enough French yet. Maybe they learned all the French they could, or maybe they were only here for a specific time...but so far, only one other student has lasted as long as I have and she is Japanese. Almost everyone in the class is a student, either in high school or college. The youngest student is 14 (and from New York) and the oldest is .. well... me.

Sometimes it feels like there is not much in common between all of us except learning French. I wouldn’t really know, though, because we don’t have much discussion. Today, our teacher was working on the e sound with various accents. Kinda boring for me having grown up in Louisiana... but one of the words was éponge, the word for sponge. Suddenly this room full of adolescents and post-adolescents lit up as they associated the word with... SPONGE-BOB SQUAREPANTS! The teacher had never heard of good ole’ Sponge-Bob, but the kids from every single culture knew exactly who he was. It was fun as they all tried to explain Sponge-Bob to the French teacher. I even got up and drew a picture of him on the board.

It feels good to be on the other side of the desk for a change.