The Diary of Queen Mothy |
The End of French Strife written @ 6:12 PM on January 16, 2002 Well, today was the first day of semester exams. I had Journalism first period. Wasn't bad. Hume gave us about 50 fill in the blank problems, and then we had to interview his schizophrenic personality to write a news story in the inverted pyramid format. My story ended up being, like, four pages long or something on how Ginger the cougar escaped from the Cincinnati Zoo. It was laughable. Then I had my photography exam, which was a huge waste of time. There were about 120 common camera sense multiple choice questions, and the entire exam took 20 minutes for me. Luckily that class was only semester long, so I'll have mental health next semester to fill in my third period gap. Get something constructive done, you know? You know what that means? No Internet surfing third and fourth period anymore. *sigh* Then I had art class before lunch. I swear, my artistic mojo is spiraling downward, downward in oblivion. I hope maybe I'm just doing too much and adding too much pressure on myself that it impairs my eyes and my hands-- but I'm really concerned. I'm so afraid to make artistic decisions for fear of displeasing my teacher, and it shouldn't be about pleasing my teacher! Oh my God, how you people must be sick of my artistic ramblings. Hell, I'm sick of them... My last exam was AP French. Uuug. First I had to finish up the speaking portion of it, which was telling a story in French. I suppose I didn't do so bad. Oh, it *was* bad, but not so bad that I didn't pass. Then I had to write an essay pretending on how I was transported from a different time period to the 21st century, and then explain what I thought about the modern world. It was the last piece of French I ever had to write, a solid two-page essay. And you know what? It felt good. I confronted my teacher with my golden drop-a-class form (the Golden Ticket, I called it), and I explained how I had to drop this class because my art was suffering and I wasn't doing so great in the first place. She didn't seem all that surprised that I was dropping the class. She's a very nice lady. I really like her. It's just that her class was too hard for me to handle. But I still feel kind of bad; I've never dropped a class in my life and I feel as though I'm taking the lazy way out. But then when you really think about it, I don't need French anymore to graduate and it's simply not important enough to me to get myself to really concentrate on it. My art is suffering, mentally I'm suffering, and if I could have my seventh period free to work on my art, it would make me feel so much better. Madame Cope was very understanding about my dilemma. She said, "You know, you do what you have to do. I understand. In cases like that, you have to look out for yourself and your interests. You're about to go to college and make a career for yourself, and if it's such a pyschological bearing that it's making your other work that you need suffer, then I say just forget about it and do what you have to do." "I really did learn a lot," I said. "It's just that my art... I can't do this anymore. It's become too much." "I know. There's no doubt in my mind that AP French is an extremely difficult class. I know you work hard but you have other things to think about too," she answered. "I just feel bad," I said. "I've never dropped a class in my life, and I feel like I'm just taking the eay way out--" "Don't worry about it. Don't take a class to please. You don't have to please anyone. Not me, not other people, no one. You seem like a very nice girl and always wanting to please people and make them happy. It's not necessary here." And it was here that I smiled. She was right in a way. "I want to thank you though," I said. "I really did learn a lot. I'll stop by some time." "Please stop by some time," she replied eagerly. "You know, just to see what we're up to and continue some skills if you want." "I will." And I believe that was a promise. And she signed my Golden Ticket, and I felt elevated. I felt like chains had been broken but I had made peace with her and the subject of French. I'm sure I will regret having dropped the class later-- and maybe I'm already feeling it now; we've always had such interesting conversations in the down time in French class. I mean, sure, I didn't understand what she was saying half the time, but they were nevertheless interesting conversations, and they always made the class much more pleasureable. In the end, I completed 4.5 years of French. I remember my first French I teacher, Monsieur Kulp, who loved to speak German, and I still don't think very highly of him and his grading procedures, but I understand why he graded the way he did: it was to force us to learn. And in some ways, I learned more from him than I ever did the second year I took French I as a freshman. (I would have taken French II except the school didn't offer it to freshmen). Madame Burkholder was too interested in pleasing the students. And Madame Cornett for French II taught me much as a sophomore. In fact, I learned more than my first two years put together, and she made sense out of the language. It was too bad when she left. As a junior, Madame Bowman worked to keep us talking and programming our minds in French III. She made me feel as if I could handle AP, and for some reason, even though I got Bs and Cs in her class all year long and I had to work my ass off for those grades, she thought I was ready. But she also taught me respect for the language, something I had very little of at the time, and to work harder. All these teachers I had for one year a piece, and my mind has learned to think in different ways and to see patterns in logic. They taught me hundreds of words, idioms, commonly used phrases, how to pose sentences in correct grammar, French culture, verb usage, and Lord knows what else. There was so much, and I've come a dreadfully long way from "Parlez-vous francais?" But for the half of year that I spent with Madame Cope? I learned more in five months than I did for almost five years.
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
Latest Entry | Archives | Diaryland |
Profile | Diaryrings | |
Guestbook | E-mail Me | Leave a note |
Art Work (Coming Soon) | Genealogy (Coming Soon) | The-Last-Unicorn.net |