Good morning! I’m writing this after a lovely breakfast I had with Andrea (assistant director of Accès and Alex’s wife in case you forgot) at a café near the Accès office. I absolutely love espressos in the morning…anyway, I’m in a good mood. We had such a pleasant conversation, and she’s always so willing to spend time with others. Even though it’s a little bit chilly outside still, it feels like spring because of the tulips and the magnolia tree outside the café. Wait a sec—so I’m in Starbucks right now, writing this—and they offered me “une petite boisson gratuite” JUST NOW! You know what that means? They just gave me a free drink! It’s a vanilla coffee with caramel, little crumbs on top that taste like nutmeg, and plenty of cream. I asked why and they said it was a bit left over while cleaning the machines and they didn’t want to throw it out. How marvelous! My day just got even better! Cool!!! Anyway, I had a final for one of my classes already. It was a phonetics class that lasted half the semester. We never had any homework in it because it was a large lecture class. We learned the rhythm of French words, syllable stress, and we also practiced pronunciation symbols with words. I’m not sure how to describe it well…but the test was easy and short. Our prof, Madame Madeleni, was really fun. You could tell she loves her job. In my general French class (it’s just called “français B2” where B2 is my level) we had a midterm type of test. We read a passage and answered questions about it. Kind of like the reading section on an SAT test, but in French! Not awful, but not super easy. I have a test for a French society class coming up. I didn’t have to study too much for these tests. All you have to do is really pay attention in class. Still, classes are tiring! So for fun, I helped Ida make strawberry jam one morning. I washed and cut up a bunch of strawberries. She does it every year, and she’s good at it! So now we have jam for our morning tartines (that’s the French word for a piece of toast with a topping, like butter, jam, Nutella…). Last weekend I also helped her stain the outdoor furniture. She has some chairs with wooden arms, a table, and two wooden flower boxes. We sanded the grime off and painted on the stain. She did most of it, getting up at 7am to start, but I offered to help because it kind of reminded me of something I’d help with at home (yes, Dad, that means I’m offering my services to you and Grandma!). I also went to my first opera! The show was called Beatrix Cenci. If you look it up, you’ll find that it’s a pretty serious and depressing spectacle, but I did somewhat enjoy it. It amazes me that people have voices like that, and the live orchestra was very good. And the opera house Opera national du Rhin, was just as beautiful inside as you would imagine an opera house to be, with a huge chandelier and red comfy seats. I mentioned before that I’m doing research while I’m here. It’s something I came up with on my own, and it’ll help with my anthropology major. My adviser from Susquehanna U is mentoring the project. I know Strasbourg is in the Alsace region, but I didn’t really know what “Alsatian” meant other than that it’s part of France’s and Germany’s history. I’m reading up on Alsatian history, and I’m visiting museums in Strasbourg. It’s a little hard to find time for all of that though, especially since I’m also interviewing people who identify as Alsatian. Two of my professors grew up here and are Alsatian, and I asked Ida and Alex if they had any friends or other connections. It worked out well! I’ve talked to six people already, and hopefully I’ll find several more. I just tell them the goal of my research (to draw a conclusion on what “Alsatian” means culturally and to discover how it's different from just being French), that I’m a university student studying anthropology in the United States, and I ask them some questions that I came up with. Since the interviews are always in French, I ask to record them, because my French isn’t perfect! The interviews are kind of difficult actually. But I really enjoy it. I like asking questions where people get to tell me about culture from their own perspectives. And they’ve all been very nice. The strength of the Alsatian identity is sort of fading, so the older people especially seem to really love talking about it with me, a young person. It always feels good when the people you interview support and are made happy by your research and questions. Not that I have a ton of experience with that yet, but it’s still encouraging. I kind of just jumped into this whole “what does it mean to be ‘Alsatian’” project without overthinking it. It’s way too easy to get freaked out when you realize you’re in charge of a project where the data collection isn’t in your first language…plus figuring out how to track down people you need to talk to…I did procrastinate in the beginning of the semester, so research in Strasbourg is only taking place over the last two and a half months, but I did the right thing. I’m ready now, and I needed the first couple months to get used to being here. I guess I do pretty much feel like I know the city now. French words! en plein floraison=in full bloom
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AuthorHello! I'm Elda, a French/Anthropology major and Applied Language Studies minor studying in Strasbourg for a semester. Archives
May 2019
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