Quoi? C'est déjà octobre??/What? It's already October??

Bonjour tout le monde!! Hiya everybody…

I think it’s safe to say that I have been a very bad exchange-student-who-has-promised-to-blog-all-of-her-overseas-experiences-in-a-regular-fashion… But yes, I firstly would like to apologise to everyone…

Life here in Lille in the past 6 weeks or so has been sooo hectic!! I honestly just couldn’t be f’ed going into a state of meditation in order to write a meaningful blog. This is a shame, as I know, without a doubt, that I won’t be able to recall my experiences as clearly as I would have been able to had I blogged on a fortnightly basis or so. As they say, keeping track of memories is like trying to contain water in the palm of your hands.

However, the issue of my blog has been nagging me guiltily – and I HAVE been wanting to write this latest update so here we go :)

I would like to forewarn you that this may be a LONG blog… There is just soo much to discuss in many different areas! Should I employ the use of sub-headings? I think so.

WARNING RANTING AND STRONG LANGUAGE AHEAD

The university admin/French admin & service in general

Oh my god. How to approach this land-mine of a topic… Most other exchange students here who come from first-world countries will probably agree with me when I say that the administrative system here at Lille 3 IS SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!! I have literally ranted on and on for days to other students and generally anyone who talks to me about how stupid, difficult to navigate and inefficient the system is here. ~I have to warn, this rant about Lille 3’s admin system is closely related to what I perceive of the French working ethos.~

~side note: French working ethos. AS a general, French service workers etc will NOT go out of their way to make your life easier. Maybe because it’s because of their shorter working hours (another separate rant) or maybe it’s because they have a national staffing issue?? Or maybe it’s just because they’re French and surly, don’t expect that because you’re a client/customer and therefore contributing to the employee’s livelihood that you’re going to receive acceptable service~

I will tie in these concepts of French inefficiency/laziness/poor work culture & practices with my experience at Lille 3. For example: the exchange students all had to go to this big talk/introduction lecture for studies at Lille 3. It was held in a lecture theatre with a powerpoint presentation. This lecture contained SHITLOADS of useful information. In French. With no handouts containing the exact same information as the presentation. Do you KNOW how hard it is to comprehend important information as well as take notes in a different language??? It still bugs me so much to this day that the Relations Internationales  (RI) Office didn’t print out any fucking handouts with the exact same information as the powerpoint presentation!!! I shit you not, after the presentation, about 20+ students surged forwards and overwhelmed the RI staff with questions concerning what was just presented. Then the staff had the gall to look frustrated at us. I was seriously thinking “wow, you’re really stressed and you’re now swarmed by confused students who don’t speak fluent French. Maybe if you fucking printed out handouts we could then take that information home, use a dictionary and understand the material in our own time”. This is just one example of how I don’t think the French understand the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness. I can think of a maxim that loosely says “the harder you work, the less you have to do”. I think the French should bloody learn this! Had the RI office printed out handouts and distributed the information in both a written and oral form – then they wouldn’t have a swarms of students asking in broken French questions that had already been clearly addressed!! The RI staff could simply say “read the hand out and come back if you have a question that’s NOT addressed in the hand out”. So simple!!!!!!! So much duplication of effort here in France ugh.

I mentioned earlier that the French have a “fend for yourself” attitude to service work. This first presentation at Lille 3 is example of that. I.e., take your own notes – we’re going to give you jack-shit in terms of any useful handouts.

 I also mentioned that I was not happy with the fact the RI staff had the gall to look impatient and pissed off with the international students for asking them questions that were related to being bloody international students!!! For those who will spend an extended period of time in France – you will meet those employees who will make you feel like you’re intruding on them, even when it’s their job to look after you. This is especially true for secretaries. It’s horrible to be made to feel like you’re wasting a staff member’s time when really, they’re getting paid to attend to your needs.

Courses

I was SOOOOO confused about how to sign up for classes when I got here. I thought I had to write my name on a list in order to attend a class. I thought it was a system from the dark ages but … I was willing to go along with it.

After much confusion, I finally realised that one cannot ‘sign up’ to classes here at Lille 3!! You have to look at the course guide (some were printed, some only available online, wtf?) choose the classes you want, go to the office of the UFR (i.e., the general faculty office), find the hours of the classes you want and then simply rock up. YOU SIMPLY ROCK UP.

Issue #1: When one is stressed, tired, busy and suffering from university administration culture shock, trying to write down the hours and locations of classes from a pissy little A4 sheet of paper whilst battling the 15 other students trying to do the same thing is FUCKING ANNOYING!! The university only released the hours and locations of classes 2-3 days before the official start of university!!!! What??

Issue #2: Because the university has allowed a free-for-all intake to the classes – teachers cannot anticipate how many students will attend the class. As you can guess – this leads to serious seating problems. My arse REALLY hurt from sitting on the floor for two hours. I suppose they are trying to give students the freedom to move around and try out classes in the first couple of weeks (as there is no roll for the teacher to call out before each class as no one signs up before the commencement of class) but there has got to be a better way!! (In order to finalise classes, one writes their list of courses down on a summary sheet and then hands that sheet into RI office.)

Something I had read about but not really considered when I left Australia for France is that courses here really do not have any structure or planning. It is at the individual teacher’s discretion to teach whatever they want and however they want. This means NO UNIT OUTLINES FOR EACH COURSE!!! This was incredibly – INCREDIBLY frustrating during my first couple of weeks at Lille 3. While I understand the argument “different universities around the world have different ways of doing things”, NOT offering your students a cohesive course program with academic goals and weekly tasks/dates of assessments is just pathetic. Just really really pathetic. Ugh. This makes life particularly hard for students whose French is a second language. If I had a unit outline, I could read up on all the topics in the forthcoming weeks, do some research and then be somewhat prepared for class the following week. With this current system of disorganisation and vagueness – I have no clue! I am constantly on the back foot with the my education and I have no choice but to wait til the next class in order to discover what the teacher will be covering. Also, not knowing dates of assessments is really annoying for trying to plan holidays!!!

I would like to take this moment to highlight how this lack of syllabi is an example of the French working attitude of “fend for yourself, we ain’t doing shit for you”. Of course, after what I had just typed about the French’s lack of organisation – you could argue “oh, why don’t you just ask the professor for more information?”. I would agree, but what that means is that I, the individual, have to do double the amount of work (i.e., taking out extra time to speak to teacher’s privately whilst knowing that they probably can’t be bothered talking to you) in order to receive basic information!! Back at UWA – the teacher gives you a unit outline and BAM that’s all you’ll ever need in regards to the course content organisation and assessment mechanism. Here – everything is vague and mysterious and it’s just tiring and pathetic to have to ask such basic questions.

God, it feels like admin at Lille 3 has this subtle sheen of “let’s make things difficult for you” and it manifests itself in various ways. I will give you an example that may seem a lil bizarre but is frankly very ANNOYING AND INEFFICIENT!! The ARCHITECTURE of this university is STUPID! For example, the RI office. Normally when someone walks into an office anywhere, for anything (in Aus) you walk into a room with a reception area where you can sit down on some chairs to wait for whoever you need to see. Usually there is a receptionist. Here at Lille 3 – there is only one door to the RI office where the two staff members sit side by side and the door has no window. This means that you never know if they’re busy or free. It’s like the architecture reflects the closed nature of the French service-work ethos! I have seen so many students get turned down grumpily as they’ve gingerly opened the door to the RI in order to just fucking find out if the two staff members are free or not. I hate that feeling of trepidation, like I’m hugely inconveniencing the RI staff by having to make them do their job. (RI staff are actually nice though lol). But seriously!!!!!!! The design of the building is so stupid!! This not-knowing if they’re free or not is so inconvenient for the staff and the students. Fark. It’s a small thing – but it’s small things like that that can really piss you off and make you realise that you’re not at home anymore… 

So I don’t like how the courses are run. I hate and scorn the deep inefficiency of the Lille 3 university structure. I often wonder how the university administration doesn’t collapse on itself. But what do I like?

-I like my French language classes. Well-taught and interesting…

-I like the language resources centre… It’s a separate department dedicated solely to helping students learn languages. I.e., there are language exercises and other learning sources available on computers as well as loads of movies etc. It’s a language laboratory and students can use it as much as they like! In fact, I have to do 6 hours of work with the centre as a component of my French language class. I think that’s super cool :) A language centre like the one here in Lille 3 is what UWA is sorely missing.

-I like the sports program!! It is essentially free… I paid 10€ for the semester for the privilege of attending as many sports classes as I like and as often as I like! So I’ve been doing volleyball and pilates and I have been LOVING IT!

Language skills

Well, it’s safe to say that my French has picked up A LOT. In a day I will conduct 98% of my conversations completely in French – and that’s with the other anglophones here in Lille!

I believe that I have achieved my goals in terms of language. I am still not fluent at a professional/academic level, and when other students speak too fast or when professors use big words – I simply won’t understand what they’re saying. Having said that – feel free to have a general conversation with me in French!! I am definitely capable of handling that now which is very, very satisfying. I have found also that since I am using French on a daily basis – certain grammatical points I have never understood before are starting to make more sense now – especially reflexive verbs!

Sometimes I still feel sad that I’m not fluent and that I can’t understand EVERYTHING all the time… but then I remember how far I’ve come along and that I’m only here for one semester. :)

Tip: get drunk in order to speak lotsa French without inhibitions! I was pissed the other night and my American friend introduced me to this random French guy who wanted to hear my Australian accent… The French guy spoke English with a British accent so in my drunken state I couldn’t help but imitate the British accent… Furthermore, I couldn’t speak English properly! It was bizarre! I was using English words with French constructions (e.g., putting the adjective after the noun, e.g., “I am speaking English British” instead of “I am speaking British English”). After that I somehow began speaking my bad English in a French accent and then started speaking in French entirely by mistake. In other words, after drinking booze it was easier to speak French than English. God I love alcohol :D

Social life

I love my Erasmus friends! It’s wonderful meeting people from Brazil, Spain, Portugal and America :D I’ve made acquaintances with some French students but it can be pretty hard maintaining the relationship as we only speak in classes… 

I wouldn’t say I go out partying/drinking every night but usually at least once a week :)

Travels

Unfortunately since it’s been a number of weeks ago that I’ve done a few weekend trips, it’s hard to remember in super great detail how each trip was. I have been to Bruges (very pretty, some pretty hilarious moments lol), Amsterdam (what a trip) and yesterday I went to Calais for the day (amaaazzing!)

Calais was super chillaxed. I saw England from the beach. So happy :)

Next weekend I will be going to Amsterdam again so I can do an AWESOME countryside tour! I’ve always wanted to see the dikes of Holland and ergo how a country can exist partially underwater! Also, windmills and clog factories here I come :)

I have a study break coming up after that weekend so I’ve made plans to be in Sarajevo for a few days (simply cannot wait… I’ve heard it’s an amazing city). During this break I will also visit the Loire valley to do a guided tour of its chateaux (castles) as well as some wine tasting :D. I will also go to Versaille during the pause as well! It is so satisfying to finally get to tick off these locations off my list :)

At the moment, I will have to admit that there are some aspects of this exchange that have left a bad taste in my mouth: that being the French working ethos and the lack of persistent and natural friendliness of the Australian people. Overall though – I am just loving life… Everything is new, different, fresh and I feel as if I am really living :)

Until next time (which I hope is not too long away)

Jessica