Teaching a class at La Sorbonne (16 February)

I just noticed I skipped something rather important: my class at La Sorbonne! After all the talk about my prep work and Madrid vacation reward, I failed to mention how the teaching actually went!

Well, I shocked and astounded those students, but in the end, I think they'd agree that they learned something. That's what was so surprising. My American methods were so strange at first that they just sat there with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Now, perhaps it was warranted. I did open with: "What is math?" They didn't answer. I asked again. Still crickets. One student actually looked back at the professor, who just shrugged. So, I treated them like American middle school students. I wrote the word "math" on the board and asked them what words came to mind if I said "math." They started giving me some terms: "numbers, theorem (they didn't know what this was, but knew it had something to do with math), infinity, etc."

It turns out the students responded very well to the "brainstorming" and from that point on, were more likely to answer my questions. So, I asked them fun questions. For example, when discussing a book called Exercices de style (which every French person has essentially read), I asked if they had skipped the mathematical variations. Then we tried to figure out why. When discussing a theorem, I asked what their last math class was, and why they stopped. I think they were surprised to realize that they don't know what math is, and that the math you do in high school is not real math at all. The longer I talked, the more they answered, and the more intelligent their answers became. In the end, they clapped and a few asked me if everyone in America teaches like that, if they can study in America, and thanked me for what they said was their "best class ever." The professor told me my research is original and asked me where I learned to teach like that. When I told her it was from teaching languages (that's clearly where the brainstorming web idea came from), she didn't really know how to respond.

Anyway, at 25 I taught a class at La Sorbonne. Not too bad at all! Next up, the Séminaire ALGORITM and the Séminaire Perec!

Also, this is where I taught. Right? I know!

Madrid

Once again, I have fallen drastically behind in my blogging. And apparently I have a second reader, so I really should get back into the zone (yes, I'm talking about you M. George Orrimbe, whose name comes from George Orwell and Rimbaud and is also serendipitously the verlan or backwards French slang language for Rimbaud). So, here I go!

After my 16 February presentation at La Sorbonne, I woke up at 3am to get in the cab share I reserved to make it to Charles De Gaulle airport in time for my drastically early flight. I barely got any sleep at all, but was very happy to be woken up by a phone call from my friend Melissa back in Princeton! Since it was only 9pm in Princeton, she figured it was the least that she could do. And I really appreciated it! Then, after a lovely conversation with the cab driver, I arrived at my terminal with plenty of time. In a few short hours, I was finally getting off the plane in Madrid, something I should have done YEARS ago.

Short backstory—five years ago when studying abroad in Paris, I was supposed to go to Madrid, then meet my friend Emma, travel to Granada with her (she was living there for the year), then the two of us were going to go back to Paris. Thanks to a poorly timed volcanic eruption in Iceland, I was stranded in Paris, got to tour Emma around (whose flight wasn't cancelled), but never went to Spain. As you know, I even made it to Iceland before I finally set foot on Spanish soil!

I spent just under a week in Madrid and got to know this lovely city on foot (my friend Glenn lived in city center, which was all walkable). Glenn and his roommate Sam were very welcoming and I got to have tons of stimulating conversations about language learning, math, and traveling. It's great being in good company! There were a few problems—the bed was broken and Glenn's father was a chain smoker, but never opened the window—but it was a nice reward in any case for having taught an hour and a half long lesson at La Sorbonne! I even saw The Lion King in Spanish (El rey león) and learned that I have a strangely passive understanding of Spanish. Guess that's the next language on the list! And Hebrew, of course.

Here are some pictures of my trip. While I didn't like Spanish food (at least what I had in Madrid), thought that Madrid was the most boring European capital I've ever seen, and will perhaps one day trace the lung cancer I'm bound to contract to being locked in an apartment filled with Panamanian cigarettes, Madrid was still a place to see. And now I can no longer say I've never been to Spain!

Chocolate con churros! And a good read!

Where I saw Picasso's Guernica! 

Awesome modern art that they actually LET you take a picture of!

Some good old Salvador Dali 

Cervantes, the father of Spanish literature, represented in his hometown (just outside of Madrid)

The glass palace

Cocido, a Madrid specialty

It's just chick pea stew with lots of meat 

The Lion King. Where I saw the same dumb show for the 11th time in a language I don't even know. It was also a surprisingly white cast. Seemed a bit racist. I'll write an entry about it on my other blog eventually.