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so far this semester i have had no grades whatsoever which has felt rather surreal after the rapid pace of my first summer session. i've been staying 90-95% caught up with the work with occasional delusions of >100%. however, last friday i turned in a paper in english, took a quiz in french and today in english we had a quick quiz. time for judgment.
the results:
eng 486/shakespeare: have not received grades yet on the paper, but the quiz was really disappointing. she had sent us email over the weekend telling us we could have a character list with us for the quiz, but no plot summaries. well, i don't know why we even needed the character lists, because the quiz was all on plot and despite having read the play, i could not remember a lot of it. we're reading richard iii. it's part 4 of a series, it's a long play and half of the characters are named edward (they all die[1]). there were only 4 questions and i my answers ranged from winging it to halfway making stuff up for two of them. i'm not too sure about the last question either because i got rattled. ergh, on the bright side, judging from the syllabus, the quiz won't count at all. however, it does make me feel nervous about her testing style. i'm really mad at myself because i read the play and *still* sounded like an idiot.
french 102:
i did get back the quiz and got an 89%. i would have been a lot happier if i'd gotten just one point higher, but i'm trying to think positive and remind myself that we get to drop one quiz. also, a lot of what i missed were the 'little words'[2] which i knew i was having a problem with. lucky for me, that is what our next section is on, so i'm hoping to nail those sneaky little words once and for all. i also turned in my first composition and while i don't feel good about it, i can't feel bad either. it looks right. all the verbs are conjugated. everything we specifically learned, i have checked and i did not overreach myself on the vocab as recommended. i just hate writing at a 5th grade level. prof has been very reassuring with her insistence that we should not be trying to write at the same level that we can in english. that makes me feel better, but at the same time, i look at what i wrote and there seems to be nothing there. i think my proudest accomplishment is switching over to the international keyboard and learning how to make all those funny marks (on my home computer, sorry no snazzy accent grave here).
on the upside, and i'm trying not to get cocky here, my freak spelling gift seems to not be restricted to english. things just look right or they don't. it works pretty darn well for nouns, fairly well for adjectives and i'm starting to trust my instincts on verbs as well. going with a hunch on conjugations is not a sure thing though as my tenses are still a bit rusty from my long stretch without formal french lessons.
i continue to be fascinated by the process of learning another language. french sounds so strange and liquid and i have such problems with aural comprehension that it feels like pure magic when i can understand it. today at one point i had a moment when i could completely comprehend what was being said, and also hear it from the outside as gibberish, 'jhay boo' "j'ai bu" "i have drunk". such moments are rare and i do not try for them because i am trying to immerse myself as fully as possible so as not to break the illusion. but honestly, a class full of people saying 'jhay boo' does sound pretty silly.
[1] trust me, it's much cheerier than titus andronicus.
[2] un, une, des, le, la, l', les, de la, du...
the results:
eng 486/shakespeare: have not received grades yet on the paper, but the quiz was really disappointing. she had sent us email over the weekend telling us we could have a character list with us for the quiz, but no plot summaries. well, i don't know why we even needed the character lists, because the quiz was all on plot and despite having read the play, i could not remember a lot of it. we're reading richard iii. it's part 4 of a series, it's a long play and half of the characters are named edward (they all die[1]). there were only 4 questions and i my answers ranged from winging it to halfway making stuff up for two of them. i'm not too sure about the last question either because i got rattled. ergh, on the bright side, judging from the syllabus, the quiz won't count at all. however, it does make me feel nervous about her testing style. i'm really mad at myself because i read the play and *still* sounded like an idiot.
french 102:
i did get back the quiz and got an 89%. i would have been a lot happier if i'd gotten just one point higher, but i'm trying to think positive and remind myself that we get to drop one quiz. also, a lot of what i missed were the 'little words'[2] which i knew i was having a problem with. lucky for me, that is what our next section is on, so i'm hoping to nail those sneaky little words once and for all. i also turned in my first composition and while i don't feel good about it, i can't feel bad either. it looks right. all the verbs are conjugated. everything we specifically learned, i have checked and i did not overreach myself on the vocab as recommended. i just hate writing at a 5th grade level. prof has been very reassuring with her insistence that we should not be trying to write at the same level that we can in english. that makes me feel better, but at the same time, i look at what i wrote and there seems to be nothing there. i think my proudest accomplishment is switching over to the international keyboard and learning how to make all those funny marks (on my home computer, sorry no snazzy accent grave here).
on the upside, and i'm trying not to get cocky here, my freak spelling gift seems to not be restricted to english. things just look right or they don't. it works pretty darn well for nouns, fairly well for adjectives and i'm starting to trust my instincts on verbs as well. going with a hunch on conjugations is not a sure thing though as my tenses are still a bit rusty from my long stretch without formal french lessons.
i continue to be fascinated by the process of learning another language. french sounds so strange and liquid and i have such problems with aural comprehension that it feels like pure magic when i can understand it. today at one point i had a moment when i could completely comprehend what was being said, and also hear it from the outside as gibberish, 'jhay boo' "j'ai bu" "i have drunk". such moments are rare and i do not try for them because i am trying to immerse myself as fully as possible so as not to break the illusion. but honestly, a class full of people saying 'jhay boo' does sound pretty silly.
[1] trust me, it's much cheerier than titus andronicus.
[2] un, une, des, le, la, l', les, de la, du...