I got the results of my French competancy back yesterday - I failed again.
I just now took a closer look at the passage (again from Foucault) she had me translate. Over two pages, single spaced, there are 2 paragraphs and 12 sentances. Of these 12, 5 of them are questions! FIVE!!! This is *not normal* academic French. I'm sure it's not.
Oh, and of those 12 sentances, one of them is 94 (NINETY FOUR!) words long (counting the l' and s' separate, perhaps that's cheating, that would take it down to about 85).
THIS IS NOT NORMAL - please, tell me this is not normal! If it is, I'll do what I really felt like doing when I first heard I didn't pass - quit!*
Grrrrrrrrrr .........
*Strangely, my friend Anna and I had a discussion earlier that day about quitters and failures. Her fiance did everything he could to get kicked out of the College of Engineering (ie, no assignments, no attendance, failing every class). He did this because he didn't want to be in Engineering but he couldn't quit - he had to be kicked out. Anna and I would much rather quit something before failing. Both these personalities, of course, have failings, and they aren't completely separate but I still think it's an important distinction to be aware of (so you can control it, if nothing else!). |
