We left off in the last post filled with excitement for our first Derija class. We've had a few HOT days in a row and as I mentioned we keep a low midday profile as we are true north-westerners and are used to existing under a blanket of gray clouds. The sun is too much for our pale delicate skin and we go from jovial to irritable in 0.5 seconds when it is over 70 degrees. Setting off into the early evening for our class we could immediately tell that it had been a scorcher. It was still well into the 80s...AT NIGHT! We arrived to our class and were surprised at how enthusiastically all of our Francophone classmates greet everyone when they walk into the class. I was convinced every newcomer was the instructor with their cheery 'BONSOIR!' Seattleites tend to just slink into class and quietly slip behind a desk and look at their hands until the teacher arrives. Not here! Everyone is super excited for class. We all had our little notebook and a pen. Everyone chatted in French except the two Americans who just chatted in American. When an administrator we'd seen downstairs came in all flustered, I knew something was amiss. Our teacher was 'malade' and he had to cancel the class, or we could wait twenty minutes and another instructor would come. There was such a flurry of French discussion and concerned looks you would think we were on the Titanic and the news of the iceberg just hit. Finally, it was collectedly decided that we would reschedule our first class. We all gave each other shared disappointed looks, and the language nerds marched off into the balmy night.
The next day redeemed all Institute Francais disappointment as we made use of our new library privileges. I'm a sucker for libraries. They are sacred spaces for me, and this one is a sweet little refuge with tons of natural light and little nooks for paging through magazines and books. When I initially asked in my sloppy French if we could use the library before classes actually started, the woman kept telling me something about the 'mediatheque'. I would ask my question again in a different way, and then she would again reply with something about this 'mediatheque'. Finally I asked, La mediatheque, c'est une bibliotheque, mais avec l'ordinateurs (computers)? She laughed and said of course. To be on the cutting edge of the digital age, libraries can't be good old libraries anymore, what with all the DVDs, CDs, computers, internet, and 'other' media....biblio is just as dead as print.
Look at the goodies we scored. You can check out exactly: 4 books, 4 periodicals, 4 comic book-like books, 1 DVD, and one CD or CD-ROM.
I just finished reading Patti Smith's incredible and highly recommended memoir Just Kids about (in part) her young adulthood in New York as a struggling artist who took inspiration from many French poets. In her honor we got this book of Rimbaud's poems that are illustrated in comic book form.
Another score is this children's vocabulary book that is for French speaking learners of Arabic.
I love the drawings and this one couldn't be more true. It makes me think of all the gardeners out there who are raking in the last of the big harvest before putting their beds to bed. We DO ENJOY FINDING AS MANY THINGS AS POSSIBLE!
As Ry started his beginning French class and wants to improve his aural skills, we got this book with accompanying cd about a skunk who loses his glasses all the time. Again, so many sweet drawings.
Last but not least: One of my favorite, weird, book-related hobbies is I LOVE to find notes, lists, messages, anything in a used book or library book. I was drooling over a book about Paris that has a lovely hand-drawn and labeled map of the Metro when this fell to the floor. A secret love note? The directions to something in Paris with heart doodles? I'll post a translation as soon as my Arabic speaking and reading friends report back with what this says!
