Today my colleague at worked asked about the number of post-secondary degrees I have earned and it led to a discussion of European universities. (I completed a Licence ès lettres humaines at the Université de Nice back in the mid-70s.) I think that most Americans assume that European universities are better than their American counterparts. I don't know about now, but thirty years ago, I found French college students to have had a broader exposure to information, but a more restricted ability to analyze. That was my only edge in the classes since I was working in a language I had only begun to learn five years earlier.
One day in a class about the development of Romance languages from Latin, we were taking a test. I noticed that the girl next to me kept watching me. Finally I turned to her and whispered, "What??" She expressed surprise that I was taking the test without using any cheat notes. Interesting. The most intimidating class was one in which each student had to present an oral report and the topic that I chose came up as the second report. But at least I could just sit back and breathe once it was over.
BTW the parrot has nothing to do with the narrative. It's just a cool photo that my son in Australia took. They have parrots flying around wild there.
3 comments:
Parrots?!! Flying around wild?? Wooowww. That's like making pudding from scratch. Didn't know it could be done. What a gorgeous bird.
I'm a firm believer in the go-first-and-get-it-over-with-theory, myself.
Cool bird. Does it speak French?
Je ne sais pas, Jonboy.
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