Dismissed

So I just about got myself kicked out of my French Phonetics course… thankfully, I put on a good “I’m sorry, please forgive me” face so the professor let me stay (under the condition that I don’t miss one more class for the rest of the semester… that’ll be a bit of a challenge), but it was really close!

Basically, this phonetics course meets every other week—for one hour a day, ever day. There’s been 3 weeks of courses and so far, I’ve only made it there 1 full week. But I have good excuses! The first week I missed the last 2 days because I went to Amsterdam for my birthday. The next week I had to deal with my visa—I spent 2 days at the Préfecture, waiting in line for 6-8 hours a day so that I could finally get the stupid slip of paper that allows me to stay in the country legally. And the following week I went to Barcelona for my business trip. See? Totally not my fault.

So on Monday, the professor approached me as we were leaving the classroom to head to the language lab, looked me up and down and said, “Who are you?” Now there’s something about teachers in France—they are total bitches, extremely rude and SO scary! I froze. She basically went off on me, saying that I haven’t showed up for weeks so I obviously don’t want to be there. And then she just said, “Au revoir!” and dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I hurried after her to try to explain in my broken French and begged her to let me stay.

The next day was the same thing—I was on pins & needles, wondering if she would ask what I was doing there and kick me out. When I didn’t know the answer to a question she would say, “Well if you showed up for class you would know”, she asked for proof from my job for my absence, and she wanted to call my other professor to find out if I’d been slacking in my Grammar course as well (I haven’t been). Finally today, three days later, she smiled at me as she was leaving class at said, “A demain, Stacy?” (See you tomorrow). “Bien sur!”
I think she was happy because today, every time she called on me, I knew all the answers :o)

It’s the first time I’ve walked out of class and felt like, ‘Ok, I’m not getting deported’. Thank God! If she really kicked me out I would lose my visa. Umm, yeah… it probably would be a good idea to actually start attending class, right?