I got to the university about eight minutes before my time slot, so I was able to talk to a couple of others who had just finished to get their take on it. Everyone was a little different because we were all going to be talking with different examiners. Ugh. Then, I turned the corner to go to my designated room and saw wooden chairs in a line all the way down the main hall that had signs taped to them saying, "Shh! DELF in progress." Great. THAT isn't nerve-wracking. Fortunately I only had to wait a few minutes before a woman came out and took me to a room across the hall. There I was told to choose two slips of paper out of a pile of maybe 20. Then she took me back across the hall to a quiet room where I had 15 minutes to read the two short articles, pick my favorite one, and prepare a summary of it and my opinion of its main point. I would be presenting that to the examiners... in french of course.
At one point while in that room, one of my two teachers (Vuokko) came in with another student. When she saw me, she whispered to me, "Samantha, c'est pas grave. (It's not a big deal/everything will be fine)" and signed to me to just take a deep breath and relax. It was exactly what I needed.
Eventually it was my time to go. The same woman came back to get me and then she brought me into the room where my two examiners were waiting. Fortunately, I had seen both of them before- they are both french teachers at the university- but I had never talked with either one. I was also fortunate to have a good idea of what was coming next: our second teacher (Isabelle) and given us a mock oral exam this past week that was exactly like the DELF. The first thing they had me do was introduce myself. I knew that the key with this was to come up with enough to say that they didn't have to prompt me with tons of questions, but to also keep it short and to the point. I also had to speak in complete sentences using the correct forms of verbs, know if a word was masculine or feminine, and actually say something of interest. I think I told them my age, that I came from California, and that it had been three years since I took french. I remember saying something about it being difficult to communicate when I arrived in Pau but that I feel so fortunate to be living with a host family as great as mine because I'm having a fantastic experience and my french is improving so rapidly. They seemed to like that because they started asking me questions about my host family- what sorts of activities do I do with them, what do I enjoy most about living with them, etc. There are only 3-4 minutest accorded to this portion of the test so that ended nice and quickly.
Next, I had to choose another two slips of paper from a pile on the examiners' desk. These were much much smaller and I had about one minute to read them and pick one to perform. The one I chose was: "you're leaving for vacation and you just found out that you can't bring your pets with you. You call your friend to see if he/she can watch your pets while you're gone." One of the examiners was going to be playing the friend and we commenced to making up a dialogue on the spot. She decided to be a mean friend and tell me things like, "why did you wait until the last minute to ask me? I just don't think it's fair that you are wanting to push this responsibility on me..." blah blah blah. It was all in good fun but I got enough into what we were doing that I felt annoyed with her. haha
Lastly, I had to present my article. I had chosen the topic I was most familiar with: Internet sites where one can make a profile to meet other people or to find someone willing to host them during a vacation. (If you've ever heard of "Couch Surfing" it's like that. You make a profile so people can see that you're not a freak and you can exchange information to set up a period of hosting. For example, you're going to be traveling in my neighborhood for a few days, why don't you sleep on my couch for free and I can share my culture, language, and neighborhood with you.) I presented the article to them and then gave my opinion that yes, I did think sites like this were becoming more popular with travelers. My evidence to support the point was that I had never heard of sites like these until I came here. Since being here, I've been around quite a few people who have used and continue to use sites like Couch Surfing to find free lodgings. I felt pretty good about everything I presented when I closed my mouth and they didn't have anything else for me- even though we still had 5 minutes left. Sweet!
I cannot describe to you my relief when I got to walk out of that room and know that it was all done! The most nerve-wracking part was over and I had nothing left to do for the day but enjoy being alive in sunshiny Pau, France. It was only 11a at this point so I spent the next hour talking with other students and trying to reassure them as they came in for their time slot. I filled the in between time with postcard-writing, and then at 12p I met up with my friend Aleca. The two of us had decided to go buy lunch from the same bakery Roshanna and I went to last week and take our food to Aleca's room in the Residence Halls. There, we started making plans for a weekend in Provence!
My "Norwegian" sandwich of ham, cheese, lettuce, and creamy mayonnaise; and a Nutella-filled beignet that we split :)
Aleca and I decided that we are going to go to Avignon, France the weekend of April 8th! We're going to see the massive Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes), have a picnic on a bluff-top cliff, see Avignon's famous bridges, and take a lunch time cruise on a river boat that will take us past lots of adorable fishing villages. YES!
We planned for a few hours and then it was time for me to head home for dinner. Tonight we had a delicious apéritif of Lionel's black currant wine mixed with white wine, salted cashews, and peanut puffs. We even took our glasses to the table at dinner time to have white wine with our meal (a rare thing in this house). We started dinner off with the ever-amazing raquelettes: individual fondue. This is where you put your slice or slices of cheese in a tiny pan and let it heat until it is sinfully melty. We poured our ooey gooey cheese on little potatoes and got our protein in more ham, bacon, and chorizo slices. There were also little cornish pickles and tomatoes to nibble on. We had a green salad [so this could all be digested] and then finished with yogurts: I went with the blueberry jam tonight. :)
Another excellent day!
Tuesday: DELF day 2. The second and final portion of the DELF exam started at 10a today and this was the same time for everyone taking the B1 level- which was almost every USAC student on campus. I find this strange that most of our Group C class was able to take the same level as those in Groups D, E, and F, but whatever. This portion of the test was the longest and the most challenging. We had about an hour and a half to demonstrate oral comprehension by listening to three different recordings and answering question about them (with only two listens each), complete two reading comprehension activities, and then write a long essay to demonstrate written expression. It was hard. We've done a lot of this same work in class the last couple of weeks but I struggled a little with the recordings. I was able to answer almost all of the questions but I had to leave two blank and that really frustrated me. I wanted to a least be able to make an educated guess but I couldn't. I did feel good about the two written sections, though; especially my essay which I could easily have bombed. Our prompt was to pretend we were writing for an entertain magazine and choose a film or book that we loved or hated. We had to give a brief synopsis of the piece and then explain what it was that we loved or hated about it. I chose one of my favorite books, "My Life in France" by Julia Child. It was the perfect choice because I could easily summarize the book, and the things I love about it are simple to say in french. I had thought about writing about my favorite movie (Titanic) but I figured there would be a lot I wouldn't be able to say in french (for instance, I don't know how to say, "I think the special effects are some of the best ever" in french).
When it was done, it was done! The DELF was over and I was either going to receive a diploma or not- it was out of my hands at this point. I wish I could say that I had no more obligations for the day but it isn't so. It just so happens that the final stage of the Visa process for this trip (the doctor's visit) was to happen today at 3p. Zut! Oh well, at least all of the stress from this exam could now dissipate and I could go enjoy lunch and some free time with friends until then. I met up with Joe (from the Italy trip) at La Vague (the nearest cafeteria) and we had lunch there. Aleca met us towards the end to have coffee with us and then another guy from my class (Steve) came in because the two of us had our doctor's appointment at the same time.
It was eventually time to head downtown and get this all over with. Steve and I still needed to purchase the [insanely expensive] 55 euros stamp that was required for the doctor's visit, so we headed to a tabac downtown to buy the stamps. Afterwards, we had about two hours until our appointments. lol We had expected all of that to take more time. So the two of us wandered into a Barnes & Noble type of store called FNAC to look at CDs, movies, and whatnot to kill time. An annoying amount of time later, we could finally head to the doctor's office. We got there and there were three USAC girls already waiting in the lobby. I still can't understand why they schedule groups of people to be seen at the same time by the same doctor. Anyways, we were taken in one at a time to a clerk's office to have our passports looked at (I.D.'s verified) and get the paperwork we needed to bring to the x-ray room. Then we all had our first and hopefully last experience with the french style of getting a chest x-ray: boobs out! There were two closets that lead to the x-ray room and these were treated as changing rooms. Basically, you go in there, you're greeted by signs such as "Strip your torso nude. If you're pregnant, no x-rays for you!" and you undress your upper half. Apparently they don't believe in those silly gowns that I now appreciate much more in France. Then you sit in there with your whole upper half naked and wait for the door to the other side to be opened. It was a very weird experience being locked in a closet like that. You start to think that you've been forgotten and nobody is going to come for you until the janitor makes his rounds that evening, or that the door is going to be opened and the last person to get their x-ray will still be standing there. That was my main fear, that the x-ray technician was going to open the door and Steve would still be in there getting a full shot of me without my shirt on. Thankfully, none of these things happened. The technician opened the door, put me in front of the x-ray machine, took my picture, and then went into her little room to decide if the picture was good enough. She came out a few minutes later, handed me my x-ray, and told me I could put my clothes back on. Then she shut me back in the closet to get dressed.
Waiting for my turn to go in
Back down the hallway we go!
After that, I headed back to the lobby to wait for my turn to see the doctor. I went in there and one of the first things he asked me was if we were going to be speaking english or french. I said that we could try french. He looked at my x-ray, took my blood pressure, weighed me, measured my height, looked in my eyes, had me do a very short vision test, and then asked me simple question about my health. He was irritated when I said that I didn't have my Immunization Records with me, but we hadn't been told to bring those so whatever.
Afterwards, I took all of my papers (including Lionel's I.D. card and Proof of Habitation written by Christine) to the secretary. She checked it all, pasted my pricey stamp on her paperwork, stapled a small headshot of me to the other side, printed my verification slip, and taped it into my passport. I was legal!! ;)
Finally, I could relax. Thankfully the doctor's office was very close to my house so I was able to walk home from there. Once home, I chilled on the couch watching "La vie en rose" until dinner time. Dinner was interesting tonight and I'm still not sure if I really liked it or not. We started off with soup as usual and then had a main course of asparagus loaf. This was made with white asparagus, eggs, and not much else. It looked like a very large and slightly spongy stick of butter and tasted just like mashed up asparagus. So the flavor was fine, I just don't know how I feel about it in general. With that we ate a chicorée (endive) and apple salad and then finished off with the usual dessert. I had raspberry again because this was the first jar I've seen that also has red currant mixed in..... it's as amazing as it sounds. :)
2 comments:
Oh Sam! You are so thourough! Your trip to Avignon is going to be amazing!
lol Thank you James! Sometimes I can be a little TOO thorough so thanks for reading =]
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