So I had this paper for my sociology class that was due today. It was VERY detailed, argumentative, analytical type of paper-- which is great. I love argumentation and anaylsis. But what sucked is we had to cite specific things from the texts used in the course. Wonderful idea, but I'm just curious as to how many students had enough insight to say themselves while reading Wallerstein's World-System's Anaylsis, "Hmmm... that's interesting. I should stick a post-it note here in case I ever need to write a paper using this exact point in an argument defending why World-Systems Theory offers a better perspective on global poverty than Modernization Theory. Yes, I shall do that now." I feel especially for any poor soul who neglected to read the book at all and merely relied on lectures for all their information. *cough cough* Actually, I skimmed Wallerstein's book and was able to have a complete understanding of his argument just based on lecture. It's weird but that class has come naturally to me. Of all things, honestly. Why couldn't math have been my gift? Something of actual use... don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this class. It was actually my favorite, next to French and Communication Theory (yeah, yeah, save it). So this paper is worth a considerable amount of our grade, and in retrospect, it devoured a considerable amount of my time. To be precise, I spent a little over seven hours (that's right) working on it. No, I'm not making that up. I wish I were. I want those seven hours of my life back...
Nah, that's alright though. I'd like to think that I would have spent all that time preparing for my French oral exam that was this morning, but knowing myself so well, I would have divided that time (rather unequally) between French and Final Fantasy. Heh, heh...
I think the French oral exam went fairly well though. At least, much better than last time, as my partner agreed. I had gotten up really early so that I could go to the library to print out my collosal paper, and afterwards, I did some last-minute cramming of vocabulary and grammar. Our professor said he did a good job, so that works for me. Although I felt retarded when I couldn't spit out the conjugated form of jouer ("to play") for the longest time. Eh, c'est la vie!
Now, my priorities are really on the final exam this Saturday. All written, with a bit of listening comprehension -- as I found out this morning, much to my dismay. Listening sections are by far the hardest parts of foreign language tests. It all comes at you so fast. With Spanish it was one thing, but I've learned that it's 10x more difficult to comprehend spoken French. For one thing, half of the tenses (depsite being different pronouns) are pronounced the same, making it difficult to determine who the subject of the sentence is. That, and the last half of nearly every French word just goes unpronounced. I mean, how the hell do they get "grossis" (a rough English pronunciation-- think of "gross", only with a slight "sees" sound on the end) out of the word "grossissent" (the actual French word)? I mean, clearly there are like five more letters on that word, but for some odd reason the French decided they weren't going to actually pronounce those. Alright, fine, that's your call. But imagine how much ink the French would save if they only wrote down letters that they actually deemed necessary!
But I do love the language, despite its estranged means of grammar. J'adore le français! I just hope I still "j'adoring" it after "ce week-end."
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