slight change of plans

Haven’t posted since classes started for a very good reason: I’ve been swamped academically. The Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières has a well-deserved excellent reputation with high academic standards. So what that meant for me as someone who was newly transitioning from the international school to the regular undergrad program with intelligent articulate native speakers of French … is that I was WAY over my head. WAY over my head. I haven’t studied French formally for years; my summer programs up here the past three years don’t count as they’re very informal and as much about Québec culture as the French language. So I’m down from 12 credits to six. That’s two classes. And that is what I can manage under the circumstances. Homework takes a LOT longer when you’re doing university-level work NOT in your native language.

The entire university has an interesting class schedule; all classes meet just once a week for three hours, with the same start times university-wide: 8:30 a.m., noon, 3:30 p.m., and 7:00 p.m. My Tuesday 3:30 p.m. class is “expression orale,” or public speaking, taught by a warm and gracious woman well-known around here who has been teaching here as an adjunct for 30 years and has been a regular program host on Radio-Canada for 18. She knew me from my summer program as she came to present to us every one of the three summers I’ve been here, and in fact chose me and another woman this past summer to be in a video she was making to promote the summer program. She told me before the first class yesterday that it’s just about to be released and that she would send me the link as soon as it comes out — which of course I will share and I hope you’ll watch even if you don’t understand what I’m saying!! My other class, Thursdays at 8:30 a.m., is “difficultés de la grammaire française.” I think you can figure that one out even if you don’t speak French. The professor is one of the elder statesmen around here; he joked on the first day of class that he has been teaching here since 1925. According to his resume on his web page, it’s really 1969. 50 years. Holy cow. This university actually opened in 1969 (big 50th anniversary celebrations ongoing) so that means he has been teaching here for the university’s entire history. He is known for being a great teacher but assigning a ton of homework. Yep. All true. One of the two classes I dropped was also taught by him. Absolutely no way could I manage both.

So here’s what I’m going to do now that my schedule has changed. It’s easy to get home; a six-hour drive, but an easy one. I enjoy driving, I’m used to driving between here and home, and my car is still relatively new and I take excellent care of it. So I’m coming home for long weekends, starting today. I am going to take advantage of that fact to sub at FHS on Fridays when they need me, and to go to FHS games and performances in person instead of following along on ScoreStream or social media. It won’t be exhausting; it will be refreshing. I will head for home when my Thursday class gets out and will be home by mid-evening allowing for a dinner break in there somewhere. I will be very grateful to sleep in my own bed Thursday through Sunday nights. I’ll bring my homework with me. I am pleased about the possibility of being able to continue my learning experience here in Trois-Rivières but being able to get back to my FHS community as well. This will work as long as the weather is decent. When the snow flies, I’ll have to revisit this plan. But it will work for now and I’m looking forward to implementing it.