Au Revoir Victoria!

November 7th
Today this project of mine is due.
It is sad I know and I am sure you will all miss my very brief time here on blogger covering the french related happenings of my life.
(If you think a world without me is intolerable you can always follow my regular all the time blog here)
So I debated how to properly say good bye and it was determined that a french themed fair well picnic would only be right...unfortunately the other ladies in my class are too busy with exams so this will be a picnic of one...
Too make it truly french we were going to style it after the Beret Baguette video we watched for homework one day...only it's really cold outside so we were going to do it in my friends living room. Remember party for one here and I live in a low ceilinged basement sweet with few windows. I try my best!
First I must dress as a french hipster from the early 1900s, careful to throw in some stereotypes. I've got my mime stripes, beret and scarf. (Side note: the beret and scarf are actually from Normandy so there's some true authenticity in this blog post!)

Then I open the wine...only I don't usually drink wine because I really don't like it. Luckily, instead of going out and buying a bottle I would never drink, my friend Julie who I mentioned earlier brought me back a juice box of wine from Italy this summer. A genius idea really to have wine juice boxes in a nation of wine drinkers...though I suppose I lose authenticity points for it being Italian wine...I try my best.

Also since I do not drink wine I have no wine classes...only margarita glasses from Mexico. Oh well, the wine will still taste like wine.

Now that we have our wine! 

We are in need of some super classy, Frenchish, finger food! I know usually their appetizers would be much classier with a lot of attention to detail and care in each morcel...but I am a poor student on a budget. So we've got Grapes, sesame crackers, baked garlic and baked brie!

Delicious!

So there you have it! My final post to my french project blog. I hope you've enjoyed your time reading, perhaps I've inspired you to begin your own blog and the random occurrences of your life! Who knows where we will go from here but if we never meet again,

Joyeux Noël! And good luck with all your life adventures!

Cecilly <3 

Merci Monsieur Lazhar

November 29th
So I didn't think I was going to make a post about this even though our teacher told us we could use it but I am because this movie moved me in so many ways.
In class today we watched a movie called Monsieur Lazhar.

The movie starts off sad and only continues to pull at your heart through to the end. 

It deals with troubled children, suicide, child abuse, guilt, feelings of abandonment, the difficulty of immigration, the threats and dangers in other countries that immigrants fear and escape from, the loss of loved ones. So many important issues in today's world that often aren't addressed and when they are, are certainly not addressed in this way.

It begins with a child discovering his teacher had hung herself in their classroom and through out the movie the recurring question is why? On this I would have to agree with M. Lazhar. Why? Why would a teacher choose to take her life in the class room where the students that love her would find her? Why would she ruin their perception of life? But I have often heard that suicide is the most selfish of acts an individual can do. In that moment there is no consideration or stray thought for anyone else in your life. Just the over whelming desire to be free from whatever it is that has made you miserable.

It isn't often that you find a film or book or any form of documentation on how children deal with loss and death of the ones they love and it was very interesting to see how the teachers in the school handled it. To the audience, M. Lazhar is the only one looking at the situation realistically. The only one who actually cares for the students betterment, to help them understand that it isn't there fault and at first you wonder if this is just a culture gap between the Canadian culture of Quebec and the Algerian culture that he comes from. But then it is made clear that M. Lazhar isn't actually a teacher. He's just a man off the streets who needed a job, who hasn't been taught in how to deal with situations like this, doesn't know the proper teacher etiquette in these situations. 

But it is also because of his caring and his attempts to help them that the children feel comforted, they learn, he tries to help them understand.

This is where I think the resemblance can be drawn between the teachers in Entre Les Murs and Monsieur Lazhar. They don't seem like real people when they're teaching their classes. They have to uphold a level of authority and professionalism and they don't connect with their students. I find that really sad but also I can think back on all the teachers in my school experience and the ones that I like most were the ones that cared.  They weren't just a robot rattling off facts and assigning homework. They would take the time to get to know you, come to your concerts, bring treats for the class. 

Maybe how teachers in the education system are selected is flawed but in the case of these students and I think many inner city schools the kids need a teacher like M. Lazhar...even if he is just a man off the streets at least he has their best interest in mind and isn't always worried about the reputation of the school. 

Cecilly <3 

The Trials of a Ballerina

November 26th
Hello my french project blog followers.
Today, is a very sad day.
As it is almost the end of classes it is also the end of so many things I love. Like ballet classes at the Ian Stewart.
I know I'll be able to continue on with them next semester but for the next 3 weeks as I wait for my exams to end in Victoria I will have no one to practice pointing and flexing my toes with. No one to show me how to do proper grand jettes and no one to catch me when I get too dizzy because I still can't spot my pique turns to save my life.
Yes, for the next 3 weeks I will have to do ballet alone.

Now you're wondering why I am posting about this here because true dance history majors know that ballet started in the Italian Renaissance but ballet to me is something inherently French. And there are different styles of ballet, the most commonly taught being French.
I think we can send out a big thank you to King Louis the 14th of France for this. He was a huge lover of ballet and it was because of him that Jean-Baptiste Lully became such a famous, and for a long time, the only, composer of music in the court.
Louis himself spent at least an hour every morning in a ballet lesson and the members of his court as well as the rest of France quickly made it part of their daily lives as well.
Though the ballet in Louis time may not have been as extreme and rigid as it it today it was still very difficult.
I mean if you ever have the chance to go look up the feet of a ballerina, DON'T! It's disgusting! Broken toes, ingrown toe nails, bleeding/blistered/bruised! SO GROSS!
This intensive ballet spun off into several other forms of dance. Contemporary and lyrical for example use many of the characteristics and fundamentals of ballet but are rooted more in natural and flowing movements, often impersonating trees or leaves in the wind.

On a side note if you ever have to go to a dance competition and have to sit through the lyrical section, be prepared for a lot of really emotional dance pieces set to the sappiest hit song at the time dance teachers can find.
This isn't even a song, it's just strange! (link)

My ballet class was not so intense of course. Most of us were new comers to the ballet scene so walking on point shoes and great graceful leaps will have to wait a few years. That of course does not mean it wasn't hard!
For my ballet class we learned a combination from the Beauty and the Beast ballet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znJQiVzN6E4
It's called the Bluebird (the first girl to dance in the video)
It was very hard! Especially since I have very poor balance on a regular basis! Doing all the kicks and turns had me resembling a goose flying in the wind. Not very graceful, hardly any control but some how I made it through and I had fun doing it.
(Our teacher assures us that next semesters variation for the Vikes presentation day will be easier.....I can hope!)

Cecilly<3