How to get the most use out of a tutoring session

One of the parts of my graduate program which made me both terrified and excited at the same time was the tutoring component. I speak French relatively well, and in an average college-level classroom I am far above the rest in terms of my abilities. When I'm talking on the phone or sitting next to a native (Parisian) French-speaker I'm not so great. This wasn't always the case, when I spent my summers around Frenchies I would sometimes get asked what part of France I was from. (The accent was never perfect, so I was always assumed to be from some region with a slightly different accent..but not much.) I often was asked if my parents were French, or if I lived in France as a child. Definitely not. Add to this the fact that I before the program started I hadn't actively been speaking French for months, and you've got an interesting combination of a frustrated person who used to  be able to express herself. This being the case, I was not too keen on the idea of throwing myself into the mix where I would be wrong a lot (heck, when am I ever ok with being wrong?) and where I would have to ask for help because I wasn't the best one in the room.

 I was also scared of embarrassing myself as, I really don't have a lot of experience with French people. There were usually three or four people from France at camp, and then a couple of people from French-speaking Africa. Somehow I always ended up with the French-speaking Americans and Africans. I think I was still afraid of being wrong, of saying the wrong thing, of having to actually work to express myself. I was lazy and I used the vocabulary to express myself with people who understood me, and who could figure out what I was saying if I said something that was very much an anglicism. The West Africans spoke slower, it's a dialect that I can understand very well and I used it to my advantage to form close relationships with those people. The French....terrified me. They were The Fast Speakers, the skinny beautiful people who I felt like I could never relate to. Why would they want to be friends with this loud, large, American girl? So I avoided interaction at all costs. There were a few who slipped through my boundaries and I got to know them fairly well, but we never really stayed in touch after camp. With study abroad, I fully avoided France saying "I've already been there", when it was really a trip to Paris for 3 days with a group of other Americans...not really the France experience.

The point is, speaking to French people scared me. Then I figured it out. Here's what I've learned:

Don't be too quiet to learn
So for the first couple of weeks of tutoring I was quiet. I didn't ask questions, I didn't tell my tutor what I wanted to learn, I gave minimal answers to things that he asked me. "Je ne sais pas" and a shrug of the shoulders was relatively common. I didn't want to sound stupid, so I didn't say anything at all. This made our sessions feel painfully long and I'm sure neither of us were that excited about the weekly meetups.

Find a common interest
We didn't have anything to talk about except me, because he's getting paid to dig, to ask me questions, to figure out what will get me interested in writing and speaking with him. I feel SO awkward having an entire conversation revolving around me. Especially when I'm supposed to be the one doing all the talking. One day, about 2 weeks into tutoring he asked me, "What was your concentration area in undergrad? What did you specifically study about political science?" and I shrugged and said international relations, because that was my minor, but then it hit me. "I did take five courses in constitutional law!" I blurted out. Law, the perfect compromise between a business student and a student in international development. We started talking specifically about the differences between French and American law, hypothetical ethical questions, and discussed articles we found to compare the two. I learned so much vocabulary this way, and it's stuff I'll probably use because it relates to something I like to talk about. This was really the turning point in our relationship, somehow this pushed away my shyness and we started to understand each other a little more, in  the weird language that is constitutional law.

See things from the other side
The biggest thing blocking me from a great tutoring session was my innate fear in being wrong. My dad always makes fun of me for this, because it's so true. I'm afraid to make the wrong decision, whether it be what school I want to go to, or if I want chicken or tofu in my pasta. I was terrified of making a mistake and sounding stupid. Then one day my tutor sent me and e-mail with the subject "Help!!!!". He was trying to write something to a professor and needed help expressing his ideas. Since French-English translation is a no -brainer for me, I quickly threw something together and sent it back to him. Since then I've felt less scared about being wrong, because he showed me that he's on the other side of things sometimes too. I also realized that for me explaining things to him about English helps me understand concepts in French. He seemed more human after that, instead of just The French Tutor, he had a name and a life outside of our tutoring. This facilitated conversation so much easier. We started talking about weird cultural things in America and in France. He thought it was a hilarious that a guy could each chips and a sandwich in class at 11 AM, while I explained the difficulties with understand what our grammar teacher wanted from us.

Think about your tutoring before the session actually starts
As previously mentioned, I'm a bad procrastinator. I can't be bothered to start something until 12 hours before it's due. It's horrible, but that's the way I am and I'm trying to break the habit. Once I started actually thinking about tutoring before it happened, I came up with things I actually needed help with. It really made tutoring feel less like a waste of time, because he explained grammatical concepts to me that I wasn't understanding from class, and we were able to talk about stuff I was confused about in my other classes. Even if it wasn't necessarily language-related, discussing it with him in French helped my mind switch into "French mode", and I learned new vocabulary related to the field I'm studying. If you really put some time into deciding how to best learn, it can create an exponentially better experience for you and your tutor.

Now I find this component of the program so much more helpful! I feel as though I'm actually learning something, and I've also made a new friend in Madison. While I still want to go to France so that I can fully grasp the culture that I've missed out on, this has been a nice little "intro-course" to making friends a la francaise. I want to live the French experience for a few months, and now I've got at least a couple of friends that I can meet up with when I'm there!

The real work has begun!

So much has happened since I last wrote an entry. This is, in fact, why it has been so long since I last wrote an entry. Such things include, having one week to prepare a 30-minute group presentation, getting slightly sick, taking Leopold to the vet, networking events, homework, setting off the smoke alarm in my apartment for legit smoke in my kitchen, and lots of time out with people. The first thing I'd like to say is that things are getting awfully pretty around these parts. The weather has slightly warmed up, and every day as I walk to class I find myself with my dinky phone camera, snapping pictures of pretty trees and such. Note to self: buy a real camera before going abroad. It's going to be cold again soon, I'm sure, but for this week I am very happy with the weather. I've been spending a lot of time studying on campus, and...as embarrassing as it is to admit, as a graduate student I finally understand how awesome the library really is.

When I was in undergrad, I set foot in the library a total of about...5 times. Yep, less than once a semester. This wasn't even to check out books! Usually it was because somebody wanted to meet there, or our teacher told us that we had to have at least 4 sources from books. So...I would take my laptop, skim a couple of books, find a citation, and be done with it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a total bookworm. I have to stop myself from buying books for my Kindle for PC program because it's something that would distract me from my studies. My whole family is this way and I love that about us. The library just wasn't the place for me. Too many people waiting to shush each other...Then I found the business library. It all happened by chance, I had to meet with my tutor on Monday morning, and then we both happened to have class in the business building, so I walked over there with him. It didn't make too much sense for me to go home and come back between my classes, and I had some reading to get done. So...he showed me the library. I sat there and because there was no cat to play with, no other books to read, no kitchen in which to cook things...I got work done.

You have to understand, I am the Queen of Procrastination. Sure, I'll plan what I'm going to do as soon as I get an assignment, but actually doing it? The night before, if not the morning of, is usually my style. Turns out forcing myself to study is the way to get things done! Who would have guessed? So...that's reason number two that I haven't blogged lately. I've been too busy actually getting things done.

After a beautiful day of sun, I walked outside to see sailboats on a stormy lake

The presentation was really the biggest thing though. We had one week to put together a professional presentation about Doctors Without Borders that we were going to present to real live native French speakers. Our teacher called in some of his connections, so strangers that we hadn't met before, to come in and hear what we had to say. I'm really glad we did this project, as stressful as it was at times, it's so different presenting for people who are interested in your presentation than presenting to people who are sitting nervously waiting for their own presentations to begin. Plus, a week is a pretty decent chunk of time to pull together a presentation in most fields. I know my dad does proposals in one or two nights. Overall, it went really well. One of the audience members typed up comments on our individual sections that we presented, and he said that I had a really great style of speaking. It's definitely nice to know that all of those years on the speech team translated over to French. I was worried that my style would get lost in my struggle to say everything correctly. This makes me feel way more ready for my individual 15-minute presentation in a few weeks! Plus, I enjoyed working together with my classmates to compile everything, I really feel like I got to know some of them way better than I had before, and now I can say I definitely have pretty good buddies in the program.

Other things that I enjoyed in the past week or so: the Farmer's Market on Saturday! It was so nice to take some time to walk around downtown, I haven't done much of that since I moved here. Everything for me has really been on the West side, VERY East side, or on Campus. It was cool to just walk around the Capitol and enjoy Madison. I really like this city and I could see myself living here for awhile. (Which is good..since I'm going to be living here for awhile...) In other news, the Poldmeister (that's Leopold, for those of you who don't make ridiculous nicknames for my cat) has to get a tooth pulled. Don't worry everyone, as far as we know, Weird Tooth is safe for right now. (I know you were all very concerned.) It's actually the tooth right above WT that's giving him the trouble, so I took him to his new vet and she said it's probably got to go. He did well, except for when the vet's cat hissed at him (He didn't hiss back. Yay! I can get a dog in the next 15 years!)  and he doesn't seem too traumatized by the situation. Special thanks to Riss, who wrangled him into his carrier, took out my trash, and picked me up from school so that we could make it to the vet in time!

I set off my smoke alarm the other day. Remember that apple pie I baked, about one blog entry ago? Yeah, turns out some of that gooey deliciousness had dripped down to the bottom of the oven, unbeknownst to me as I wasn't the one who put the pie in. (*cough* Sean *cough*) I was pre-heating (PRE-HEATING!) the oven one day last week, went into the living room to do some reading, and heard the smoke detector go off. That's a pretty standard occurrence around these parts. I'd be lying if I said this was the first time it had gone off when pre-heating the oven to anything 400+. So I ran into the kitchen to turn it off and saw...actual smoke. Yep. That leftover pie dripping was now a big, black, charred mess on the bottom of the oven. So I opened the windows, turned off the oven, etc...even though it was still freezing outside and the next morning I scraped the oven floor with a butter knife trying to get everything off of there....I still haven't used it. Mostly because I haven't been home for meals in awhile or they've been stovetop things, but also because I'm not excited for Smoke Fest 2011 part II.

Forgot to mention that last night I went to a forum on the United Nations Millennium Goals. There were two speakers who interested me, one discussed their initiative toward eradicating world hunger, and the other talked about how gender equality can aid in achieving all of these goals. Both presentations were very good, though they each only had about 20 minutes to talk, and you could tell there was a lot more to say about everything. Afterward, I went and introduced myself to the woman who spoke about gender equality. She also specializes in human trafficking (something that I like to research), and she often takes her students to Tanzania to study. She said I could contact her in the future if I was interested in doing research with her..so that's cool. Though Tanzania isn't really in my concentration region, she said she does study West Africa a bit too.

So, that's what's been up around here! I'm looking forward to returning to the land of Not Cheese, Just Smelly Dog Farts this weekend. It will be nice to relax after such a busy week!

TROP DE POMMES

Anyone in the market for some apples? Need apples? I've got apples! This weekend Sean (my wonderful employed boyfriend) came into town for a very very very short visit. When we first started dating, we spent a lot of time chilling at home watching TV, before realizing that it was the most BORING waste of the limited amount of time you get together in a long-distance relationship. Since then, we've been better about brainstorming fun activities before we see each other so that the entire visit isn't "What do you want to do?" "I dunno, what do you want to do?".

This weekend was packed to the brim with fun, but the main event was apple picking on Saturday. We went to this place called Eplegaarden in Fitchburg. No, that's not a typo, it's an apple/other plants orchard that plays off of the Scandinavian American culture found around these parts, particularly Norwegian. Given my strange fondness for everything Norwegian (an ethnicity that I do not have any familial tie to whatsoever), I thought it would be a great place to spend the morning. (For the record, Sean thought all of the "Norwegian" written on the signs was waaaay too cheesy, and that's coming from a man who likes his cheese.) We planned on heading out to get to the orchard right when it opened around 9 AM, but a sudden craving for pancakes threw us off course for a couple of hours. We arrived around 10:30 and headed over to the information booth, excited to start picking apples. Seeing as we aren't super savvy when it comes to apples, we found it helpful that they give you a sheet with the name of each apple, a description, and a list of whether it can be used for "baking, eating, sauce" or all of them. We knew we wanted to make apple pie and also give apples to our friends to snack on, so we went with Cortland, Red Cort, and Spartan apples. They let you walk around and taste test, so don't exclusively go by what the sheet says. The type we originally thought we'd enjoy turned out to be not to our liking.

They sell 10 pound bags for $10 and 20 pound bags for $19. Let me tell you...20 pounds of apples doesn't seem like a lot when you're looking at the bag, but I gave apples to at least 5 people AND made a pie and I still have about 10 for myself. We also got a basket for raspberries for us and one for his brother and sister-in-law. Eplegaarden gives a list on their website of dates when certain apples are in season, as well as the other produce available for picking at that time. We missed the pumpkins by 2 days! We may go back when he comes to visit at the end of October. (What would I do without some pumpkins from a farm like Sonny Acres every year?) Anyway, we were pleased enough with the option to pick apples and raspberries.

The picking itself was fun! There were about 15 different rows of apple trees that you could walk down, and some that were roped off for later in the season. The only problem I had was that many of the apples were pretty high up in the trees, and they don't let you climb the trees at all or jiggle the branches too much. (An understandable set of rules) I felt bad for all of the little kids, because I wasn't sure they had enough apples to reach, but none of them seemed too upset about it. We had fun taste-testing the apples and trying the find the best ones for us (ie: Boyfriend-guy) to pick from the trees. It really does seem like a great outing for all sorts of groups. We saw other couples, families, and groups of friends. I think there was even a day care of some sort there. The raspberry picking wasn't quite as fun as the apples, because you're really just standing in front of the same couple of bushes for five minutes or so, picking all of the good ones. After a couple of minutes though, I got competitive and tried to find all of the really good berries before Sean could fill up his basket. They got kind of smushy on the bottom, so if you pick raspberries, expect that your hands will get stained! Overall it was a great way to spend a sunny fall morning. We made pie that afternoon and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the apples! Trop de pommes!

A year passed...winter changed into spring. Spring changed into summer.

Summer changed back into winter, and then winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn.

If you don't understand what I'm quoting, you're probably anyone else besides my dad.

Dear crockpot, you are so good to me during these hard times.

I am absolutely baffled by the weather in Wisconsin. I really never imagined it could be so different from Chicago. If I can drive here in 2 and  a half hours from the city, how can it REALLY be so different? Well...it is. Evidenced by the fact that two days ago I wore a sweater and was, uh, sweating and yesterday I wore long sleeves and pants and was freezing. In Chicago, especially downtown, the cold is caused by the wind. Here it's not so much the wind, it's just actually cold. I have compiled a short list of things that I've encountered in Madison this September that have surprised me.

1. Ugg boots and shorts. (Note: No tights, topped with a sweatshirt.)
2. People waiting at a bus stop, one in flip flops, one in a parka and knit cap.
3. Contemplating turning my heat on in September.
4. Gloves. In September. (Am I making my point clear enough?)

IT IS SO COLD HERE! When I first started the program, I went along with the other Northerners, re-assuring our colleagues from the south that they would get used to winter. We told them that it's really only a few weeks of brutal cold and then it feels fine. I gave them advice on what to wear. WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR? (Seriously Northface? You're going to charge me that much to stay warm? I still dream about this.)Today is apparently going to be a high of 58 F. We've already had lows past the freezing point. If anyone feels like sending a nice little care package up to Madison, WI, please send gloves so that I may type my term papers without my fingers freezing and breaking off.

Anyway, long, cold rant aside, things are going well. I'm contemplating switching my concentration area from international development to business/marketing. It just feels a lot more versatile to me. I can still work for an NGO with this sort of experience, but if my plans change and I want to work for a corporation (and trust me, my plans have started to change even in the past four weeks), I'll have some business experience and seem more useful to a company. There are a lot of people in the program with a concentration in international development who seem on the same sort of wavelength with what they want to do, and I guess I've been realizing that's not really what interests me.

City Cat finds creative way to stay warm while hiding from neighbors.

I met one of my neighbors yesterday. Apparently Leopold has THREE neighbor cats that he didn't even know about! She's a med student and another girl is a vets student, so I guess if Leopold needs an emergency Weird Tooth Extraction I know where to turn. The girl was nice, she came by to see if she could use my parking space, since I don't have a car and she's had to find street parking all the time. (Which is IMPOSSIBLE on Badger Football days) Wishing her luck because that parking space is RIDICULOUS to navigate, I said sure, as long as the Boyfriend Guy isn't in town. SPEAKING OF WHICH....

THE BOYFRIEND GUY IS IN TOWN THIS WEEKEND! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. It's not even a 48 hour visit, but it's a visit nonetheless. We're going to go apple picking and grocery shopping and have a few meals with friends. Hopefully I'll remember to report back on the apple picking.

Ok, I'm going to stop writing now because the whole reason I woke up early was to finish the insane amount of homework given to grad students.

Obviously, classes have started!

Warning:

I'm busy busy busy now, hardly a moment to do my laundry, let alone write a blog entry! Ok, I know there are people out there who do a lot more than I do and still have time to blog. Things are finally shaping into a schedule around here, although I have yet to figure out when I'm going to do minor things such as homework and cleaning. There are still boxes here and there, but for the most part I've figured out how things should be set up. Thanks to some lovely donations from my awesome basically sister, I now have a desk and a lamp in my living room! (Believe it or not, my living room has a ceiling fan, but NO light fixture. It gets really dark in here.) After several angry calls to AT&T, my internet service finally seems to be up and running, with a $5.50 credit to my account no less. Yes, Leopold and I seem to actually be settled into our little 1-bedroom.

As for the homesickness, well...I don't really have time to be homesick anymore. Yesterday was my first day working at a French bakery, and boy was THAT crazy. (We'll see how  long I last there) The difference between grad school and undergrad has become apparent in the amount of homework that we seem to accumulate every class period, and also there's that whole "trying to be social" thing that's being thrown into the mix. I'm coming to learn that graduate school, working, and socializing aren't really a great combination. I don't know how some people do it! Although I will say that even in undergrad I wasn't well known for going out and partying on "Thirsty Thursday" or showing up to class drunk. I'd like to think I know where to focus my priorities and have a difficult time getting distracted from them.

Funny, we don't look related...

Yes, that's me...busy busy bee. Since starting classes, something that my Dad has been trying to tell me for the past few years has really smacked me in the face: I am becoming my mother. Why has this suddenly become so apparent? I make lists now. Let me explain, ever since I was a little kid, I would wake up during summer vacation, or on days when my mom had to go into work before she could talk to us (not very often, by the way) and there it would be on the kitchen counter- The List.
We each had one with our name on it and a set of instructions of things we had to get done during the day. When all three kids were in the house, I always kind of liked it because, as the youngest, my list was clearly shorter and easier than those of my siblings. When they went to college, it made me mad because I was the only one getting a list of chores to do. Through the years my mom has become more efficient in her list-making. When she goes out of town for several days, the lists are typed up with some money for pizza on the bottom. After adopting the strategy of saying "oh, we didn't see those lists you put on the kitchen counter", she began taping them to the refrigerator door, a strategy which I find to be GENIUS in our household. Nobody gets through the day without opening the fridge in our house.

The point is, now I make those lists. I write them on notecards and tape them to my desk, so that any time I sit down to go on the computer, there they are. Staring me in the face. Reminding me of all the other things I should be doing. (They're staring at me right now, reminding me that my parents will be here in a little over an hour)

...So after writing about how my lists were staring at me I needed to get up and finish them! Then I was distracted by the arrival of my parents and you know how it goes...I have once again rambled for far too long and now I should stop, for fear of writing an extremely long post with no pictures that no one reads. Today was a good day! Mommy and Daddy came up to see me and they brought with them groceries, and cookies, and Panera. If only they could have stayed to do my laundry, my day would have been complete. haha

Next entry will be an update on all of my classes and my work, I promise!

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Feeling a little homesick today. I'm not really sure what I'm missing exactly, the city, my family, having someone to see every morning and every night....I guess it's a little bit of everything. It's hard for me to justify my love for working internationally when I feel homesick. It makes me wonder if I'm really cut out to work somewhere so far away, and if that's really what I want to do. I love languages, I love learning about other cultures, and I love being able to help solve problems in any way that I can. I just wish I was able to take my whole family with me.

I miss the certainty I had before I graduated, the fact that I had a job and that I knew how to go wherever I needed to go. I miss my family. I miss walking to the park with the kids I babysat for.

 I miss my DOG. I miss looking out my window at the sailboats on Lake Michigan and eating the lunch special with my boyfriend at our favorite sushi place. I miss talking about the constitution with my dad on Sunday afternoons, watching crappy tv with my mom, and laughing with my brother about everything.  I know I was supposed to come here, and overall I'm really happy with the decision that I made, but being in a new place is hard.

I know this is normal, I've been keeping relatively busy but sometimes you just remember what you're missing. Moving is hard, whether it's across the globe or just a 3 hour drive away. I have people here who are just as close as family, but I'm missing the ones I left behind. Last night was fun, I got to spend it with one of my best friends that I've known ever since I was born. I love being able to see her on a daily basis and Madison really is a great place to live. I'm happy here about 98% of the time, the other 2% consist of worrying about finding work/getting work done and missing people. 

I guess it doesn't help that the boyfriend-guy has been back at school now for a few weeks. I knew things would get harder once he left, but after three years I'm also fairly used to this whole long-distance thing. I guess this is the first time I've had to make such a huge life transition since we've been together. The title of this blog is "Forever Wandering", and I do have this love of travel and wandering to new places, but do I want to be wandering around forever? It's something I'm going to have to think about anyway.

Getting to knooooww youuu, getting to know all about youuuuu....

I don't know if anyone else had quite the obsession that I did with "The King and I" as a small child. For as politically incorrect as that film is, I feel like my elementary school education was weirdly based around it.

He was really an integral part of the unpacking process.

Anyway, this week has obviously been one of new experiences. Léopold has adapted nicely to his surroundings. He enjoys the spaciousness of our apartment, and especially the abundance of windows. To show that he is pleased with this move, and in honor of my course of study he has added an accent aigu to his name. I've also met a lot of new people! They're not strangers, really, just my weird francophile clones that I've never met before. To be a PFMPer...it seems to be a breed of it's own. It takes a certain type of person to pursue a master's degree in French Studies, and it takes another person of a completely different breed to do what we want to do. We're not really studying French, or French literature...we're  learning how to conduct business in French. While we all want to go different places and work specifically in different areas, the fact that we were drawn to such a unique program automatically means we have a lot in common. That being said, we seem to all be getting along well. While I'm ever so grateful of my little built-in community of support here in Madison, it's nice to know that the people I will be studying with for the next year are also fun to be around. We also all have weird things in common. Lots of us are affiliated with Lac du Bois in some way, we have several students from the South, and lots of us are in long-distance relationships.

Liking French itself is something a little strange in these parts, although I have been surprised by the amount of French culture and activity in Madison. I figured I would more often be in touch with my German roots than any sort of French here in Wisconsin. (Ok, so the interior of the Memorial Union is decorated as a beer hall. No surprises there.) There are, in fact several French restaurants and festivals that celebrate la France et la Francophonie. (de la France à la Francophonie...c'est bon le fun, c'est garantie..) I've personally been experiencing a lot of French culture simply by being in the program, but have been so busy that I haven't yet been able to experience these pieces of French in Madison.

I have been able to experience full-on native French culture in the form of our tutors! The program requires that we meet two hours per week one-on-one with a tutor to practice our French. We met them for lunch on the Union Terrace this Wednesday and they were all so nice. As usual, I was super shy at first, but now that I've gotten to know my tutor a lot more I'm excited to work with him and get to know the other tutors better. I know this is going to sound weird, considering my background speaking French, but I always feel so strange throwing my French out there with native speakers. It happened every year at Lac du Bois, and when I first arrived in Senegal. Last night we had a wine and cheese reception at the director's house and I felt much better about my speaking abilities than I had the first couple of days and I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with the program overall. I think this will be a very valuable year and a half for me.

This weekend consists of barbecues, barbecues, and more barbecues! More later, A+ tlm!