stampin4fun: My First Week in Chicoutimi

Hello friends!

I know many of you have been wondering how I'm doing here in my French immersion program. I've been so busy everyday it's the first chance I have to post a little update with photos.

I left Sunday July 3rd for Chicoutimi. I got to see Kevin and the two youngest children in between my arrival home from Thunder Bay and leaving for Chicoutimi.

It wasn't enough time but at the same time I was excited for my French adventure.

Here's a few photos of my journey and arrival:

The plane from Montreal to Chicoutimi was completely FULL. Everyone looked like young and enthusiastic students.

By chance, the person I sat next to, was a student at University of Toronto and lived in Markham! Just 15 minutes from me.

When I arrived at the tiny airport, I heard my name being called among the crowd and that's how I was introduced to my host family.

Her name is Chantal and she said I could consider her like my "chicoutimi mom". I immediately felt at ease as she spoke slowly and I could clearly sense she was happy to have me at her home.

I was told I would be rooming with another student and when she arrived I was pretty excited that she was about the same age as me! She also has three children

(To be honest I was kind of nervous to be surrounded by 20 year olds...)

I totally felt like I was being completely spoiled compared to those who were assigned an apartment or residence who had to buy their own groceries and cook their own food.

I had a large, comfortable bed with a duvet blanket that envelopes me like a warm cloud.

I get dinner meals prepared for me every night. I've enjoyed everything from Pasta and chicken and Shepard's Pie and mini sandwiches.

One day Chantal even made two pies for us to enjoy together.

I was driven to school on the first day (I suppose to avoid the stress of taking the bus on the very first day of school)

The icing on the cake was when I came home one day from school and she told me she washed my clothes. LOL . Thanks "mom!"

The school experience has been a whirlwind. A typical day is class from 8:45 to 12:15 where we learn grammer and practice with written and oral exercises.

Then, the afternoon is some kind of activity. The afternoon activities are a little bit strange for me as some of them are great and practical Quebec culture activities (like we were divided into groups to research different activities in different parts of Quebec and give a presentation) and others are just meant to be fun activities to socialize. I lean slightly more on the introverted side so instead of the social games, I would rather be back at the house napping or stamping.

However, apparently all the activities are mandatory and I'm not the type to rebel against the rules so I still attempted to participate. Usually the best part is finding someone to talk to and hear their stories of why they are here studying french.

The best part of the program is getting to speak french 100% of the time. It is mandatory. We all signed a contract on the second day. Everyone is pretty respectful of this rule and we have beginners to advanced speakers in the group so it's pretty interesting. Depending on who I am talking with, I either have to repeat myself and speak slower or I am furrowing my brow concentrating while I listen to someone talk to me like a native because their french level is clearly above my own.

Here's a few pictures of what I've been doing during the social time or free time.

Finding my way around campus

Renting electric bikes

Meeting interesting people

On the far left is James. He is a monk (Benedictine order). This photo was taken on the day before we signed the french only contact. We attempted to talk to him in French but he was really really new in the language. He's American so he didn't get the mandatory french classes students in Canada receive.

I could tell he didn't really understand anything so we switched to English knowing it was the last day we could communicate in English. It was great hearing his story of how he became and monk and why he's learning French.

What's fun is that my roommate and I were saying we hadn't seen James at a recent social activity and we worried he had given up and gone home because I can't imagine being fully immersed in a language you don't even know. However, yesterday at the First Nations Grand Gathering excursion, we saw James and wowie... in one week his French has improved considerably. I could tell he could understand me when I spoke and he even responded slowly and correctly in French. I was totally blown away!

Way to go James!

Here's one of the social activities where we were divided into teams and were given the task of taking 6 photos related to our team theme. I was on the Harry Potter theme.

Here is our team leader Abdulaye.

Unfortunately our team wasn't very imaginative. We all just found sticks on the ground and held them up in the air in different locations on campus.

On the plus side I learned the French word for magic wand: Bagette Magique.

Trying to figure out the bus system and discovering that generally the buses don't run frequently at night. My roommate Fabienne and I were a little concerned at the bus terminal where we got to experience the type of clientele who hang around the bus terminal at night.

Fabienne is originally from Austria so she also doesn't have the foundation in French but this is her third time taking an immersion program so she can communicate pretty well but often she uses gestures and sound effects to get her ideas across.

Not a day goes by where I am not literally peeing my pants laughing at her imaginative story telling in French complete with gestures and sound effects to fill in the gaps where she doesn't know the French words.

As you can see from this photo, words are not necessary for her to convey how she feels about us being stranded at the bus terminal at night.