23 Surprises

I have a Kinder toy army. 

Kinder eggs are a godsend. As you can see above, I have eaten a few too many Kinder eggs (along with my Jif peanut butter from home). And I have managed to not get a single toy twice.

An inventory of my collection:

3 crazy-haired kids with removable modes of transportation on their backs

4 animal characters from the Dreamworks film Madagascar 2

2 bumper cars with stickers of ridiculous kids in costumes

1 regular miniature race car

3 animals (an elephant, a dog, and a cow with antlers?) with interchangeable body parts (meant to create chimeras) 

1 yellow pencil topper in the form of a face 

1 hockey-playing cat

1 wobbling tiger

1 red-bearded man on a fancy skateboard

1 meditating figure with a "computer" face that changes emoticons

5 pirates; 3 of which are human, 2 of which are monsters 

And yes, Kinder chocolate is excellent with peanut butter.

CIREFE Caféteria

I spend too much time in the CIREFE caféteria.

First of all, the French "caféteria" does not hold the same connotation as the English "cafeteria". Instead of being a location where you buy unappetizing lunch and eat at long tables with your friends, a caféteria is a space where you can sit and drink café. In other words, the CIREFE caféteria serves as a break room for students and teachers.

The CIREFE caféteria is actually a small crowded room with a few wooden benches and fewer stainless steal tables to set your tasse de café upon. There are newspapers ranging from the local Rennes paper to the national Le Monde available to read. The best part of the CIREFE caféteria are the automatic coffee and snack machines. You can get a candy bar or a soda for about 80 cents (except Coke for some reason is a euro). Or better yet, you can get a very small cup of coffee - regular, crème, cappuccino, macchiato, chocolat - for 40 cents. Unfortunately, the coffee only lasts for a few sips...but the price is right.

The CIREFE caféteria is also a place where French is rarely spoken. English-speakers, Chinese-speakers, and Spanish-speakers congregate together to take a break from their French. Americans are the worst. It's rather disappointing, but you cannot escape it when all your friends are laughing and talking as you sit on those wooden benches. The conversations they have are also of the most ridiculous sort. One afternoon, people were heating up over whether masculine and feminine words existed in English. Someone even tried to prove that the pronunciation of "the" entailed the gender of the word. (Of course that was stupid, for the pronunciation of "the" is dictated by the presence of a vowel or consonant following it.) Because these conversations are so loud and fierce, it's impossible to read or study to the point where you give up and let yourself become part of the discussion.

When Americans in the CIREFE caféteria are not participating in absurd debates, they like to sing and dance. Beyoncé's "All the Single Ladies" for example is popular. There are several people who have been working on learning the dance and will occasionally practice their moves in the small space, attracting attention from those passing by in the hallway and even those in the classrooms. There has also been a rousing chorus of the "Star-Spangled Banner" where even our friend from Saudi Arabia, who is probably more American than most of us, joined in.

All in all, the CIREFE caféteria is an unusual and unreal place. I don't know why I spend so much time there, but I know when I look back at my days in Rennes, the caféteria will always be a part of that memory.

Liz, being herself, in the caféteria.

En grève

"During the strike, there is no cleaning.

Do no put anything in the trash and leave this space clean.

Thank you for your understanding."

I have seen this sign every day for the past month, the amount of time the students of Université Rennes 2 have been on strike. Posted on the doors in the bathroom, in the hallway of the 4th floor of bâtiment E, in the CIREFE caféteria...we are reminded that times are hard when the students are on grève.

And it's true, times are hard. The university students here in Rennes treat their grève with upmost severity. Although revolt is part of French tradition, there must be something in the Rennais' blood that kicks it up to an obsessive level. One of the causes they are protesting is the proposed cut of jobs, due to the struggling educational budget, which would result in less professors and larger class sizes. Certainly, this is a grave issue...but I get the impression that the grève is producing less result and more nuisance.

As an international student at the CIREFE, I still have the ability to attend class. (And for what I'm paying, I would be quite upset if that weren't the case...) Yet, students at the regular university haven't attended class for several weeks. Instead, they come to the campus to block entrances to each building - except the restaurant, of course - denying students, professors, and faculty alike from entering. Every morning, I must identify myself as an American who only wishes to improve her French by being able to walk inside the building. When the students are not sitting and policing those who wish to trespass, they are busy building barricades. Like what their ancestors did during the days of the Revolution, they pile dozens of chairs and tables to blockade the doors, making it impossible to get through.

At least once or twice a week, the students also gather for an assemblée générale to discuss their progress with the grève and decide if they wish to continue. Crowding on the lawn right outside bâtiment E, the students yell through megaphones while others cheer or boo with great enthusiasm. It's almost like a sport, the hundreds of students screaming and shouting outside catches you off-guard when you're in class talking about the imperfect and subjunctive in hypothetical statements.


I don't know when this student strike will end. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasted for the rest of the semester. And the most shocking thing I've learned from this experience is that these students will still get their diplomas in the end...it's too expensive for the university not to allow them to graduate, despite their lack of participation in the classroom.

A reason to love St. Olaf.

Merzbau

We have a crazy art history professor. Granted that most art teachers are crazy, this one is especially crazy.

With students taking her class in French as a second language, she has a habit of repeating words for clarification. Her intentions are good, but for advanced students it seems unnecessary. In addition, the words she normally repeats are simple ones. Or English cognates. Standing in front of the classroom with a whiteboard marker in hand, back slightly hunched, lecturing on some 20th-century artist, she will come to a word...pause...look at us questionably...repeat the word...look at us again...and continue talking.

"Le artiste Schwitters est le roi de recyclage...recyclage?...Il utilise des morceaux de bois..."

Sometimes she will find a synonym for a word, or better yet, she will rephrase the word.

"Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais je suis en train de discuter le mot esclave...esclave?...esclavage!...Et je continue comme ça..."

It drives us insane, but in order to keep our interest during the 2 or 3 hours of class on Friday evenings, we have begun to keep a list of all the words she repeats.


Some of her greatest words have included:

escalier (stairway)
sourire (smile)
plage (beach)
hypocrisie (hypocrisy)
Judas (Judas)
sodomie (sodomy)
t-shirt (t-shirt)
Oscars (Oscars...the awards)
pauvre (poor)
copier (copy)
Père Noël (Santa Claus)

Or we draw pictures.

My doodle of out art teacher saying, "You must learn contemporary art for 3 HOURS! Hours? Hours?"

Although she is crazy, she is funny old lady. Especially when she plays aloud Schwitter's poem entirely composed with animal sounds, with the volume on high scaring those in the classroom next to us.