French Grammar--Revealing Stuff

I was all amped up to blog about one of my husband's newfound daily hobbies, but when I requested permission to use the topic as blog material, I was promptly yet politely refused.

He seemed to think that I would exaggerate the situation and possibly make it seem far more outlandish that it actually is.

Ummm, yeah, duh.

Not sure what else is off-limits, so moving forward I will just think twice before asking for permission. After all, I don't want to rob my readership of riveting material! But no matter, there is plethora of ridiculousness swimming around in my noggin. Instead I will avail you to the goings-on in my French class, since that is one of my new daily activities.

I can start by saying that perhaps you too have heard some sterotypes that Americans are incredibly ethno-centric people? Meaning that we primarily only care about and are knowledgeable about our own culture?

It sounds like a pretty bad thing for which to be "known," but it really is right up there with other popular generalizations such as the fact that Americans all wear brand-spanking new running shoes to walk around Paris and also were not sent the memo that a jean-on-jean outfit (I am talking to you, Texas) is actually not a good look.

Anyway, we are known for only speaking one language, assuming everyone knows how to speak English, and that the entire wolrd is up to date on all of our cultural and popular culture events du jour--even whilst we may not know squat about those of other countries. In short, this reputation is why we are unfortunately stereo-typed as being ethnocentric.

More unfortunately: you can rest assured that such stereotypes are being held intact by yours truly over here.

Proof? In class, we did this exercise on the utilization of the conditional and how to turn expressions of wish into expressions of regrets. That sounds like a snoozer, but I was actually really happy to finally know what the hexagon I could do with the conditionnel, as it has been unclear to me for approximately ten years. Anyway, in order to hammer the proper usage and construction of these expessions into our heads, we were presented with a series of six pictures, each of a different man. We were to then use the pics as inspiration to conjure up possible regrets these fellas may have had during their lives.

As a side note: it had not occurrred to me that my class might possess sexist undertones, although in retrospect, I wonder why no women were featured. I will now be on the lookout for other subtle signs of male-domination in class.

So, upon being faced with the pictures of these men, I immediately started scribbling away imagined regrets I ascribed to their lives. A little more background on the pics: there were two bald, foredboding and rotund-ish men, both wearing suits. There was a man in sports attire sweating like a hog. There was also a nearly unrecognizable representation of Prince Charles (one that I think he would be none too pleased to know was floating around French grammar classes in Paris--or anywhere, really), a shot of George W. Bush, and one of Superman.

It was only revealed to me after I suggested that one of the regrets for one of the balding men was that he did not wield more power in life, that I was notified that he was the former president of France, Jacques Chirac.

So yeah, I think being president of a country that is a major world power is sort of on the "success" map. But whatever.

Since my foot was in my mouth for a while after that gaff, I thankfully did not have to publicly admit that it had not occurred to me that featured alongside three "known" personalities (to me), must also be three known personalities.

Being an utter ignoramus, I somehow thought that the teacher had presented us with a melange of famous and unfamous folks. Not so.

The sweaty guy is apparently the most famous football player in Italy, and the other balding guy is Berlusconi, the current Prime Minister of Italy.

That said, did I mention that the girl with whom I was working on this exercise was Italian? Yeah, good thing that did not make the situation more embarassing. Why did I only recognize the two Americans and the English Royal? Though I have heard of Berlosconi and Chirac (soccer dude was out of luck--not the foggiest recollection of ever having heard of him prior), I had actually never seen pictures of them. Are you cringing at my obliviousness? I am TOTALLY ethno-centric. How sad.

Blame the media in the U.S. Or blame me.

Anyway, I am American, and I am an idiot. Et voila: my personal slogan for my life in France.