The last regular day of class is over, all that's left is exams. This semester went by faster than the others, despite our somewhat ornery and plodding grammar professor. Maybe it was the perpetual visa uncertainty, or maybe it was the actual acceleration of our thoughts and words -- the buffering rate of our brains now allows for more free-flowing information, life at full speed.
My ability to do things in French now includes:
-reviewing inheritance laws with the notary
-requesting medical co-pay reimbursements
-understanding most of a movie without subtitles
-reliably saying numbers using their ridiculous formulas like "60 + 17" for 77, or "four score and twelve" for 92
Things that continue to stymie me:
-when someone asks where I'm from => somehow always phrased in a way I don't expect
-the various ways to refer to "these" and "those" => object? person? masculine? feminine? singular? plural? relatively nearby or far away? There's a different word for every possibility!
-the pettiness of bureaucracy => part of a thick dossier of documents, we filled out three separate forms all with the same information in slightly varied order, just to identify witnesses for our wedding in July
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