Having come to the end of my classes once and for all here in Granada and so being just a matter of weeks from the end of my YA once and for allI think I am now in a good position to be able to write this blog about studying on the year abroad. The study/work placement/language assistant debate is one that every languages student goes through when making their plans for the year abroad, and everyone has their own reasons for the decisions they make. I personally didn't want to be a language assistant as I really wanted to split my year between the two countries without having to spend my summers away if I didn't want to. Also, as a French intensive student my French tutor advised me that teaching would not be the best way to improve my French and strongly recommended that I studied. I think she was right with her suggestion as the language assistants spend most of their time in school pretending they only speak English, meaning they have to find other ways of getting out and practising, which of course is fine for some people, but for those like me that as I said on a previous blog seem to have regressed into their shells somewhat this year it probably isn't ideal. The other choice was to find a work placement, but I decided I didn't want to do this and was told repeatedly that placements in both countries would be very hard to come across anyway. So the decision was made that I would study.
When it comes to French we had Brussels, Geneva, Lyon, Rennes, Poitiers or Montpellier, the first two are specialist translation schools which appealed to me and so I opted for Brussels. Let's talk about that decision first, the main thing I'd not really considered when it came to Brussels was how international it is. I'd considered the bilingualism with Dutch but did my research and found that French was the dominant language in the city anyway. What I guess hadn't occurred to me was that with the presence of so many international organisations everyone spoke English, it didn't matter if you spoke to them in French because 7 times out of 10 they'd reply to you in English, usually thinking they were being helpful not knowing they were being quite the opposite. The other thing with ISTI was that because of the size of the school in comparison to the amount of Erasmus students they took on I found that I was in a lot of classes with just Erasmus students and it was very hard to integrate with the Belgian students and get any language practise. I signed up for a tandem programme and met up once a week with a Belgian girl where we would speak for the first half in French and then in English, but in honesty this probably was no where near enough.
As far as Lancaster is concerned we don't have a huge amount of choice when it comes to where we can study for Spanish. We can go to Mexico, Bilbao, Granada, Girona and Lleida. So, that leaves you with the choice of going thousands of miles away, to two Catalan speaking Unis, to the Basque country where you may be faced with a second language as well or Granada. I toyed with the idea of Bilbao but settled on Granada in the end. My concern about Granada was that it is known as a really big party city because of the amount of Erasmus students and that isn't really my thing, but this hasn't really been a problem, I've found it's been easy enough just to do what I want instead. Although there are lots of Erasmus students in Granada there is also a huge amount of Spanish students so I wasn't ever in classes with just foreign students. You do however have a totally free choice of what you take and there isn't really any guidance on what is too hard for Erasmus students so I have found that two of the courses I've taken haven't really been suitable and I'm sure that is going to show in my exam results- it's a good job that they don't really matter!
Studying does have its pros and cons. The good thing is that even if you're not speaking the language as much as you'd like you are hearing it, taking classes in it and writing in it all the time which has to be good practise. It also keeps you busy, for me I need to keep doing things so I don't feel too homesick, so having a good amount of contact hours and work to do outside of that time kept me going and it wouldn't if I'd been teaching for instance. The cons obviously are having to take exams, not really knowing what courses to take and the difficulty of integrating with native speakers. It is also worth considering your unis rules on exams, as far as Lancaster is concerned we have to take them and the marks count towards our grade for the year, but we don't have to pass them, this works in two ways. It is first and foremost a really good thing because there is no need to panic and stress about the exams, what happens, happens! The problem with this is that my motivation to revise is pretty scarce so I find myself half heartedly revising and just wishing away the hours until they are over, possibly not the way I should be spending my final weeks here, but that's how it is!
Sometimes I do wish I'd worked, it would have given me a different experience for the year and I might have felt like I'd achieved more, but the issue with that for me is that I'd potentially be totally alone and unsure of how to meet people, especially other students because it is important to have that sort of "homely" contact from time to time. I did however work for 6 weeks last summer in Valencia, I met all sorts of people and really enjoyed myself, but the work was boring because there just wasn't much of it so I spent a lot of time doing nothing. That's the hard thing about picking what to do and where to go, unless you know someone that has done the exact same thing before it is all very much unknown. I couldn't have spent the whole year, or even 6 months in that job, but it was good for the summer and to give me an experience of working in Spain.
So what am I concluding? I'm not really sure if I'm honest with you. Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it? And maybe with it I'd have seriously looked into finding work placements that interested me and would be relevant to what I want to do in the future, but this time last year I didn't know that, and we had to make decisions in the November before we left! For any future YA students reading this, it is important to remember that YA decisions are all about you, don't feel influenced by what other people are doing, and why they are making that decision, because they're not you!
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Friday, 1 June 2012
Thursday, 17 May 2012
"These are the days of the curriculum vitae rather than the dolce vita."
Today I read a very interesting article on the BBC about an Italian university that is planning on teaching the vast majority of it's courses in English and English only. They believe that it will increase the international reputation in an increasingly global climate for higher eduction. I won't reiterate everything that has already been said in the article, you can read that yourselves, I just wanted to talk about it.
I understand that these days it is increasingly important for universities to open themselves up to the world outside their own country, but to me this decision seems to be a step too far. I totally understand the need for courses in English. We live in a world where English is used in many fields, I was in a class recently where all the research in this field of linguistics has been done in Britain/America and so the vocabulary is all in English. To be able to take this course the Spanish students have to show a certain level of English and I see that makes sense. I also understand that it makes sense for international institutions to teach a certain amount of business courses in English, and there are universities everywhere that have been doing that for a few years now. To me, however, an Italian university making the decision to teach the vast majority of its undergraduate courses, and all of its graduate classes, in English doesn't quite sit comfortably. By all means, teach some or even most of the classes that require English vocab and skills in English but why go the whole way? What about the arts, architecture, classics and other courses that arguably the Italians know more about than the majority of the Anglophone world? Are they not just risking diluting their own culture whilst striving to do the opposite and bring themselves up on the gobal scale? A good example from the BBC article was from someone comparing the use of languages to watching films. When you speak to someone with the same native tongue as yourself it is like watching a film in colour with surround sound, you get all the detail, everything that has been put into it, total understanding and the full experience. Speaking with someone in a language that isn't the mother tongue of one or both parties is more like watching a film in black and white, whilst it is still a pleasant experience and things can be learnt, culture shared etc it doesn't quite match. Why do this to the teaching of all courses? One way or another the teaching is going to be diluted, it's never going to match up to the way it was before.
As the title says (quoted from the BBC article) These are the days of the curriculum vitae rather than the dolce vita. This is the way things are moving. But I for one don't want to watch a pattern occurring and English "taking over" more than it is already going to, and that is coming from a native English speaker. I'm not sure if this is more a reflection on the Italian language than that of the English however, recently more than one English university has decided end the teaching of Italian, but that is a whole other story I'm sure....
I understand that these days it is increasingly important for universities to open themselves up to the world outside their own country, but to me this decision seems to be a step too far. I totally understand the need for courses in English. We live in a world where English is used in many fields, I was in a class recently where all the research in this field of linguistics has been done in Britain/America and so the vocabulary is all in English. To be able to take this course the Spanish students have to show a certain level of English and I see that makes sense. I also understand that it makes sense for international institutions to teach a certain amount of business courses in English, and there are universities everywhere that have been doing that for a few years now. To me, however, an Italian university making the decision to teach the vast majority of its undergraduate courses, and all of its graduate classes, in English doesn't quite sit comfortably. By all means, teach some or even most of the classes that require English vocab and skills in English but why go the whole way? What about the arts, architecture, classics and other courses that arguably the Italians know more about than the majority of the Anglophone world? Are they not just risking diluting their own culture whilst striving to do the opposite and bring themselves up on the gobal scale? A good example from the BBC article was from someone comparing the use of languages to watching films. When you speak to someone with the same native tongue as yourself it is like watching a film in colour with surround sound, you get all the detail, everything that has been put into it, total understanding and the full experience. Speaking with someone in a language that isn't the mother tongue of one or both parties is more like watching a film in black and white, whilst it is still a pleasant experience and things can be learnt, culture shared etc it doesn't quite match. Why do this to the teaching of all courses? One way or another the teaching is going to be diluted, it's never going to match up to the way it was before.
As the title says (quoted from the BBC article) These are the days of the curriculum vitae rather than the dolce vita. This is the way things are moving. But I for one don't want to watch a pattern occurring and English "taking over" more than it is already going to, and that is coming from a native English speaker. I'm not sure if this is more a reflection on the Italian language than that of the English however, recently more than one English university has decided end the teaching of Italian, but that is a whole other story I'm sure....
Monday, 14 November 2011
"Essex girls" "bimbos" and "cougars". Standard translation class really...
What began as a very normal English-->French translation class soon descended into something quite different. We were looking at a text on Cornwall, all very thrilling, about the poor economy, it's rolling hills and ragged cliffs... when somewhat from nowhere the teacher starts explaining to the class about "Essex Girls" and my head drops onto the table in shame. Especially as the train of thought that got us there was:
Bar work-->Young women-->Bimbos-->Blonde-->Essex Girls
(This later lead onto the teacher questioning the use of the word cougar in modern day English and also now French it seems)
I wasn't aware the Essex Girl stereotype had crossed the channel, well isn't that good news everyone?! I hope all you The Only Way is Essex fans are pleased with yourselves!
In other news my year abroad tutor still has not emailed me back 3 weeks down the line, I am not impressed...
Tonight is all about procrastination. I should be essay writing, or doing exercises on the subjunctive or... well anything but what I am doing. Instead I am researching what on earth I should be studying after my degree to get me where I want and also trying to find myself somewhere to live in Granada. Joyful times I assure you.
Bar work-->Young women-->Bimbos-->Blonde-->Essex Girls
(This later lead onto the teacher questioning the use of the word cougar in modern day English and also now French it seems)
I wasn't aware the Essex Girl stereotype had crossed the channel, well isn't that good news everyone?! I hope all you The Only Way is Essex fans are pleased with yourselves!
In other news my year abroad tutor still has not emailed me back 3 weeks down the line, I am not impressed...
Tonight is all about procrastination. I should be essay writing, or doing exercises on the subjunctive or... well anything but what I am doing. Instead I am researching what on earth I should be studying after my degree to get me where I want and also trying to find myself somewhere to live in Granada. Joyful times I assure you.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
A weekend in Luxembourg- we did a lot of walking!
Walking. This seems to have been the theme of our weekend, and don't get me wrong, I enjoy wandering round and discovering places but I have a limit, and I think my legs have found it this weekend as they are no longer functioning at full capacity I must say....
The journey to Luxembourg city from here isn't too bad, just over 3 hours on the train. It all went swimmingly, until the little screen on the train started saying "Terminus Arlon" (a town in Belgium...) and we started worrying just a little! Luckily it must have meant that Arlon was the last stop in Belgium as the train soon continued onto Luxembourg. Phew! We arrived in a rather cold Luxembourg in the early afternoon and headed off to the hotel to dump our bags. After filling in a form that seemed to want to know everything but my inside leg measurement we got into our room. We decided that the best thing for us to do first would be to go to the tourist information centre to get ourselves a map (as you will later learn it obviously wasn't good enough...). Seeing as it was still mid-afternoon we wanted to wander over to the European area and see everything over there and it made sense to get it over and done with first as it was on the other side of the city. So off we went, in the direction that according to our map and the signposts would lead us to the area with all the EU institutions in it. After a while we were faced with a long path, leading uphill, through the trees. For some reason this didn't strike us as odd, I just remarked that they must send the tourists the scenic route as presumably all the people that work in the EU institutions don't walk this way! So up we went...it didn't take too much longer for us to realise that we clearly weren't going to get there that night. The problem was this being abound 4.30-5pm in November it was starting to get dark and we were on a rough path, through the woods and round an old fort, with no lights. Brilliant. The choice being either to turn back where we'd come- hardly a short distance, or continue we decided to march onwards. Eventually we ended up at what you could loosely term as civilization. I hesitate in calling it this as there seemed to be no people, shops or anything of the sort. By now it was too late to be heading for the EU stuff and about time to be searching for food. Problem. Luxembourg is basically on 2 levels, the high town and the low town. They aren't very well linked-other than by a great many stairs and you'll have a job locating them. So this is how we spent a large part of our first evening in Luxembourg, trying to "escape" the Ville Basse and get back where human life could be found. We managed this - via an epic flight of stairs and a series of rather steep hills. Nice relaxing welcome to Luxembourg.... Food was soon located, and you know you're in a posh expensive restaurant when they take your coats and give you some pea-mousse thing whilst you look at the menu. It was a fish restaurant and all the food looked (and tasted) very nice. We did feel a bit like (bad pun coming....) fish out of water though as we were most certainly the youngest people in there.
Saturday-
On Saturday we had to head to the European area, after all the mess of the night before we had worked out where we'd gone wrong and how we'd ended up underneath the bridge we'd actually wanted to be crossing. As it turns out it is probably for the best that we'd not made it there the previous night as there was a lot to see, it took us a good hour or so to walk round and wouldn't have been so good in the dark. The geek in me wants to go and see the rest of it in Strasbourg now seeing as I've seen the European Commission and all the other bits here and now (here comes the list...) the European Investment Bank, European Court of Justice, European Court of Auditors and the European Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg. I'm pretty sure we also saw where the main translation centre is too. I've been looking into all the types of translation jobs they need in the EU, I'd love to translate for the Court of Justice but that would involve some form of Legal qualification which I don't have, well I can dream can't I?
After this we did a hell of a lot more walking! I've put some photos on Facebook but for those of you not on there I'm about to stick them on Flickr too so I'll give you the link, just give me a chance to get them up there.
2 observations about transport in Luxembourg- there are loads and loads of Audis, especially in the European area where at least I'd say 1 in 3 cars were Audis. Also Luxembourg, despite being tiny seems to be the European Capital of busses or something, there were hundreds of them, often with the very useful destination on the front of "Luxembourg".
After exhausting all the views and monuments of the city, writing postcards and drinking expensive (but very nice) coffee we went to the restaurant next to the one we'd been to the night before. Whilst we were looking at the menu outside the waiter from the other restaurant came past and said hi, 2 young female students were probably a rare occurrence for that place, must've been easily recognisable or something! When we were inside we were offered the English menu and caused some confusion when we asked for the French, and one of the waiters clearly wasn't sure as he insisted on speaking to us in English each time, although the others did at least stick to the French. When we ordered the waiter asked me if I was sure that was what I wanted, did I know what it was? I thought I did having read the English version of the menu outside but evidentially it was a different thing entirely. What I was ordering, the internet now tells me, was part of a pigs large intestine.... yuuummmmm :S I'm glad I didn't go for that in the end then... As the exciting, party-animal, Erasmus students we are, we then returned to the hotel, got into our PJs and watched Danse avec les Stars.....
Sunday- To round off our trip we headed to the Museum of the History of Luxembourg City, presuming that the museum would be some what relative to the size of the city itself, it was surprisingly big though but a nice way to spend our last morning before heading back to the station and returning to Brussels.
I know I've already told you how much we walked, but seriously, my legs really really ache now. I've had my exercise for the week. Maybe I don't need to climb the stairs every day?!
My Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bexnobes/
The journey to Luxembourg city from here isn't too bad, just over 3 hours on the train. It all went swimmingly, until the little screen on the train started saying "Terminus Arlon" (a town in Belgium...) and we started worrying just a little! Luckily it must have meant that Arlon was the last stop in Belgium as the train soon continued onto Luxembourg. Phew! We arrived in a rather cold Luxembourg in the early afternoon and headed off to the hotel to dump our bags. After filling in a form that seemed to want to know everything but my inside leg measurement we got into our room. We decided that the best thing for us to do first would be to go to the tourist information centre to get ourselves a map (as you will later learn it obviously wasn't good enough...). Seeing as it was still mid-afternoon we wanted to wander over to the European area and see everything over there and it made sense to get it over and done with first as it was on the other side of the city. So off we went, in the direction that according to our map and the signposts would lead us to the area with all the EU institutions in it. After a while we were faced with a long path, leading uphill, through the trees. For some reason this didn't strike us as odd, I just remarked that they must send the tourists the scenic route as presumably all the people that work in the EU institutions don't walk this way! So up we went...it didn't take too much longer for us to realise that we clearly weren't going to get there that night. The problem was this being abound 4.30-5pm in November it was starting to get dark and we were on a rough path, through the woods and round an old fort, with no lights. Brilliant. The choice being either to turn back where we'd come- hardly a short distance, or continue we decided to march onwards. Eventually we ended up at what you could loosely term as civilization. I hesitate in calling it this as there seemed to be no people, shops or anything of the sort. By now it was too late to be heading for the EU stuff and about time to be searching for food. Problem. Luxembourg is basically on 2 levels, the high town and the low town. They aren't very well linked-other than by a great many stairs and you'll have a job locating them. So this is how we spent a large part of our first evening in Luxembourg, trying to "escape" the Ville Basse and get back where human life could be found. We managed this - via an epic flight of stairs and a series of rather steep hills. Nice relaxing welcome to Luxembourg.... Food was soon located, and you know you're in a posh expensive restaurant when they take your coats and give you some pea-mousse thing whilst you look at the menu. It was a fish restaurant and all the food looked (and tasted) very nice. We did feel a bit like (bad pun coming....) fish out of water though as we were most certainly the youngest people in there.
Saturday-
On Saturday we had to head to the European area, after all the mess of the night before we had worked out where we'd gone wrong and how we'd ended up underneath the bridge we'd actually wanted to be crossing. As it turns out it is probably for the best that we'd not made it there the previous night as there was a lot to see, it took us a good hour or so to walk round and wouldn't have been so good in the dark. The geek in me wants to go and see the rest of it in Strasbourg now seeing as I've seen the European Commission and all the other bits here and now (here comes the list...) the European Investment Bank, European Court of Justice, European Court of Auditors and the European Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg. I'm pretty sure we also saw where the main translation centre is too. I've been looking into all the types of translation jobs they need in the EU, I'd love to translate for the Court of Justice but that would involve some form of Legal qualification which I don't have, well I can dream can't I?
After this we did a hell of a lot more walking! I've put some photos on Facebook but for those of you not on there I'm about to stick them on Flickr too so I'll give you the link, just give me a chance to get them up there.
2 observations about transport in Luxembourg- there are loads and loads of Audis, especially in the European area where at least I'd say 1 in 3 cars were Audis. Also Luxembourg, despite being tiny seems to be the European Capital of busses or something, there were hundreds of them, often with the very useful destination on the front of "Luxembourg".
After exhausting all the views and monuments of the city, writing postcards and drinking expensive (but very nice) coffee we went to the restaurant next to the one we'd been to the night before. Whilst we were looking at the menu outside the waiter from the other restaurant came past and said hi, 2 young female students were probably a rare occurrence for that place, must've been easily recognisable or something! When we were inside we were offered the English menu and caused some confusion when we asked for the French, and one of the waiters clearly wasn't sure as he insisted on speaking to us in English each time, although the others did at least stick to the French. When we ordered the waiter asked me if I was sure that was what I wanted, did I know what it was? I thought I did having read the English version of the menu outside but evidentially it was a different thing entirely. What I was ordering, the internet now tells me, was part of a pigs large intestine.... yuuummmmm :S I'm glad I didn't go for that in the end then... As the exciting, party-animal, Erasmus students we are, we then returned to the hotel, got into our PJs and watched Danse avec les Stars.....
Sunday- To round off our trip we headed to the Museum of the History of Luxembourg City, presuming that the museum would be some what relative to the size of the city itself, it was surprisingly big though but a nice way to spend our last morning before heading back to the station and returning to Brussels.
I know I've already told you how much we walked, but seriously, my legs really really ache now. I've had my exercise for the week. Maybe I don't need to climb the stairs every day?!
My Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bexnobes/
Monday, 7 November 2011
My 30th blog post
Well here it is, my 30th post, milestone eh? Somehow we've arrived at the second week of November and I have little to no recollection of where October disappeared to...
Before I tell you what I've been up to I'm going to have a little moan about Ryanair and their lack of geographical skills (which frankly, for an airline, is rather worrying). They fly into an airport that they call Brussels, but it isn't Brussels main airport. Indeed it isn't even in Brussels, no, it is an hours train journey followed by a 20 minute bus journey away! That's about the same length of the flight back to England! Very annoying! Especially as I'm flying from there to go to Madrid and I have a friend flying in there in December. Cheers Ryanair! Your flights may be cheap but the costs add up afterwards don't they?!
Sorry, now I've had my little Ryanair rant I'll continue...
Where did I leave off? I reckon the last thing I wrote about was probably going to Lancaster? Since then I've been spending time with my grandparents as well as trying to cram in some work. We visited Bruges for a day and also went to Antwerp. We also went to the EU Parliament visitor centre which I did in English this time to pick up the things I missed when I did it in French. Also discovered a room which we missed last time and that I actually think was one of the best bits because it explains how the parliament actually works etc.
It has actually dawned on me now that I only have 2 clear weekends in which I can do any work because for all the others I am either away or have someone visiting. Basically I need to put my foot down and get cracking with it now. The ISTI work is going to have to take priority and DELC 310 can take a back seat, but I really don't want it hanging over me in Spain...
Today I need to get some planning done for my Law essay, although not too much as I've not had the go ahead for my topic yet, and then I have a couple of classes to go to this afternoon. Then I'm off out for a meal with my grandparents.
I leave you with a photo of a common scene across our days out this week and another to bear in mind:
Before I tell you what I've been up to I'm going to have a little moan about Ryanair and their lack of geographical skills (which frankly, for an airline, is rather worrying). They fly into an airport that they call Brussels, but it isn't Brussels main airport. Indeed it isn't even in Brussels, no, it is an hours train journey followed by a 20 minute bus journey away! That's about the same length of the flight back to England! Very annoying! Especially as I'm flying from there to go to Madrid and I have a friend flying in there in December. Cheers Ryanair! Your flights may be cheap but the costs add up afterwards don't they?!
Sorry, now I've had my little Ryanair rant I'll continue...
Where did I leave off? I reckon the last thing I wrote about was probably going to Lancaster? Since then I've been spending time with my grandparents as well as trying to cram in some work. We visited Bruges for a day and also went to Antwerp. We also went to the EU Parliament visitor centre which I did in English this time to pick up the things I missed when I did it in French. Also discovered a room which we missed last time and that I actually think was one of the best bits because it explains how the parliament actually works etc.
It has actually dawned on me now that I only have 2 clear weekends in which I can do any work because for all the others I am either away or have someone visiting. Basically I need to put my foot down and get cracking with it now. The ISTI work is going to have to take priority and DELC 310 can take a back seat, but I really don't want it hanging over me in Spain...
Today I need to get some planning done for my Law essay, although not too much as I've not had the go ahead for my topic yet, and then I have a couple of classes to go to this afternoon. Then I'm off out for a meal with my grandparents.
I leave you with a photo of a common scene across our days out this week and another to bear in mind:
Monday, 19 September 2011
First day of classes
I say first day of classes but what I mean is that I had 2 classes in the afternoon. After wasting time going into ISTI this morning thinking I was going to get some forms signed/given back to me so that I can get my hands on that lovely Erasmus money (one day in the next decade...) and not actually achieving this I was just about ready to get stuck into my first class when the time came around. Problem one- 50% of the class were English Erasmus students, nor exactly the way to practise French! Problem two- "Hello Class my name is Matthew Langlesley, I'm British and I will be taking this class..." and so he continued, in English. An easy two credits would be one way to think about it but by the end of the hour I'd decided it would be a really boring class to stay in and on top of that he clearly didn't want us English students there. So back to the drawing board with the timetable it is then!
I'm now going to be taking 2 literature classes when I'd intended not even to take one but I like the tutor, we had him for another class today, and I'm doing my best to avoid Spanish because it will totally confuse me!
Found out this week just how varied Unis can be with Year Abroad work. We have to do an essay (between 4000 and 8000 words depending on if your working etc) and those of us studying have to have at least 22.5 credits that go towards, all be it a very small part of, our degrees. Some unis don't set any written work, some very little, some you have to take 30 credits but they won't count for anything, some let you take as much or as little as you want... End of the day-Lancaster students seem to have more work to do than everyone else, typical!
That'll do for tonight!
P.S To all DELC students- I miss Annik and Birgitte and Anne and their efficient replies to emails, I won't take DELC for granted again lol!
I'm now going to be taking 2 literature classes when I'd intended not even to take one but I like the tutor, we had him for another class today, and I'm doing my best to avoid Spanish because it will totally confuse me!
Found out this week just how varied Unis can be with Year Abroad work. We have to do an essay (between 4000 and 8000 words depending on if your working etc) and those of us studying have to have at least 22.5 credits that go towards, all be it a very small part of, our degrees. Some unis don't set any written work, some very little, some you have to take 30 credits but they won't count for anything, some let you take as much or as little as you want... End of the day-Lancaster students seem to have more work to do than everyone else, typical!
That'll do for tonight!
P.S To all DELC students- I miss Annik and Birgitte and Anne and their efficient replies to emails, I won't take DELC for granted again lol!
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
"Do you have any friends in Brussels?"
Last night whilst watching Friends (yes, bad French student...watching TV in English) with my flat mate and her boyfriend she asks me a question (again in English, I'll get better, I promise...!) Now all I really heard of what she said were the words do, you and friends so excuse me for presuming that she was asking me if I watch Friends. So I proceeded to tell her that yes, indeed I do, and in fact I probably know all the words as I used to watch it after school all the time. She looked so confused and I wondered why, until she said "my question was actually do you have any friends in Brussels!"...oh dear, doesn't bode well for my French if I can't even understand English!
This morning Mum, Dad and I went to the Atomium, after braving my first solo trip across town on the tram. We spent the morning there (I'll steal some of the photos off of Mum at some point). In the afternoon we went to see the Manekin Pis, Mum and Dad were dissappointed at the size, take that as you will... Afterwards I headed off to meet James and Jenny from Lancaster and a girl I met on the internet called Nikki, coming on Erasmus from another UK uni as well as her friend Vera from Portugal. We even attempted French for a bit, even if just for 10 mins before digressing back into English! Off to ISTI tomorrow so maybe we'll get going with things, at least I hope so.
Tonight holds another proper tea with Mum and Dad and some essential Waterloo Road viewing on the BBC (Which I won't be able to watch the rest of unless someone can tell me a cheeky way of watching it without iPlayer?) before heading back to my flat.
Night all :)
This morning Mum, Dad and I went to the Atomium, after braving my first solo trip across town on the tram. We spent the morning there (I'll steal some of the photos off of Mum at some point). In the afternoon we went to see the Manekin Pis, Mum and Dad were dissappointed at the size, take that as you will... Afterwards I headed off to meet James and Jenny from Lancaster and a girl I met on the internet called Nikki, coming on Erasmus from another UK uni as well as her friend Vera from Portugal. We even attempted French for a bit, even if just for 10 mins before digressing back into English! Off to ISTI tomorrow so maybe we'll get going with things, at least I hope so.
Tonight holds another proper tea with Mum and Dad and some essential Waterloo Road viewing on the BBC (Which I won't be able to watch the rest of unless someone can tell me a cheeky way of watching it without iPlayer?) before heading back to my flat.
Night all :)
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