En train de m'installer

SO. As I’ve told most of you, the coming few months I’ll be doing a student assistant position next to studying at uni. I will help a Dutch teacher, Madame Pascal, with her Dutch studies. Last Monday we had a little rendez-vous, which sounds romantic, yet this is the French word for an appointment.
She is perfectly nice and very helpful and got me looking forward to the day I’ll be starting to help her out. We went for coffee and she gave me a heads up about what will happen and what is expected of me. I will basically be “soutien”, which is support/help. I'll be supporting students with Dutch grammar (which is actually kind of silly if you’re not brought up with it)…there are so many things and rules we take for granted. For example the “ch” as in “gracht” is in fact terribly difficult to master if you’re French.

Anyway. I also have to do little exposés about Dutch culture, at which I’m totally at liberty. Little presentations about Friesland and other provinces…typical Dutch stuff. It’ll be lovely I hope. And if my “students” give me sh*t, I will just take out my ruler and show some Dutch authority, Cartman style.

Tuesday was not as lovely though. It was the day of the general journée d’accueil for Erasmus students. I will spare both you and myself in leaving behind details, yet it came down to this: you had to pencil yourself in if you’re supposed to register with the Arts and Languages faculty, yet I’m doing law courses and therefore I thought I had to register with the faculté de droit et gestion. That was wrong since my studies at home are languages I had to in fact register with the first …but no worries for I realised and fixed it in time.

There was also the meeting you had to arrange with your coordinator…with whom you arrange the modules you’ll be doing and “stuff”. This was nuisance prime cause numéro un. Nobody seemed to know who that was and the teachers (I think to merely get rid of me) told me to address myself to various people, all of whom denied their coordinatorship. Being totally confused and lost, I decided to just e-mail the person I thought I needed to contact and she in the end told me who really actually was my coordinatrice: Madame Pascal.

Although a lovely person, a complete and utterly misinformed one. Yes, she didn’t even know herself and this should give you a picture of my frustration and lack of feasible registering. And I had to find this out..in French. I think my French is pretty ok..yet if the occasion rises I struggle and people look at me as if I were either an imbecile, or from Saturn. Yet, it is these little stories that stimulate your learning and in retrospect it gave me and my friends a laugh..after having calmed down of course. Plus other Erasmi have had similar situations, the which makes me feel slightly less incompetent.

Other than this, my week’s been very nice. The weather is gorgeous and I have found a group of people that I feel comfortable with and who are very cool :) It’s litterly partying every night, which is so unlike me but for some reason I find myself “me coucher” way past bed time. And of course tonight’s no exception!

Bises chéris