You make Ken Jennings look like a chump

It's been a while since I posted, but the last week has been hectic. On Monday I started my French classes; 4 hours a day 5 days a week. When I come home I'm exhausted and I have to work on my dissertation/work that I get paid for, so that doesn't leave too much time for blogging, but it is my duty!

My class has been going fantastically, I'm really enjoying it and learning a lot. After one week I'm stringing together grammatically incorrect rudimentary sentences, almost as if a 2 year old were drunk, but I've heard that's the first stage of learning, drunk 2 year old. My problem arises when someone understands what I'm trying to say/ask. As you can imagine, since drunk adults can barely understand what is happening, a drunk 2 year old has no idea. It makes me think of a story that I heard years ago about a family I knew who went to Spain. This family is 4 people, mother, father, and 2 children (an older son and a younger daughter). The son had taken a number of years of Spanish in high school and they were looking for something (I think it was the train station). His whole family said, "you took spanish, go and ask where the train station is." So he walks up to a man and yells, "WHERE IS THE TRAIN STATION?" His thought process behind this was that if he asks in Spanish the answer will be in Spanish and thus useless. I kind of feel this way in France, but I figure if I continue speaking in bad French it will eventually get better and I'll begin to understand.

So in my class I have three teachers, a nice woman named Luce on Monday and Friday, a slightly birdlike woman named Julie on Tuesday and Thursday and a man named Wassim on Wednesday. My classes with Luce and Julie went pretty smoothly the first week, my class with Wassim, however, was the scariest class of my life. There were 9 students sitting in the classroom when a middle aged man of Arab decent walked in. Now maybe this is simply some sort of socialization, but I found him incredibly intimidating, not frightening like I was going to die, but intimidating like I don't know what will happen if I don't speak French by the end of the day. Without saying a word he walked over to the board and wrote the letter "A." He turns toward the class and points at me, not knowing what to do I simply say, "Ah?" Wassim let out a little "oui," and pointed to the next student who also said "Ah," and the third student who said, "Ah," and so on. This continued for an hour and a half as he went through every vowel combination and consonant he could think of making us saying them with only the response of "oui," "non," some clicking sound that meant "non," or the occasional correction. I sat in this classroom with this man for an hour and a half was still not sure what his voice sounded like. I left the class during the break and immediately called Angela. I think my words were, "My teacher is the scariest man I have ever met, he could be a Bond villain." After the break we went back into class and he turned out to be one of the nicest teachers I've ever had, in fact, I think he liked me too because on Thursday I saw him in the hallways and he winked at me, is that strange?

These classes have also taken their toll on me in terms of sleep and fatigue. This fatigue caused me to do something I wouldn't normally do. I was sitting on the Metro on Thursday morning riding to school when on the same train car, about 15 to 20 feet away was Mickey Rourke. At first I didn't believe it, but then I started thinking, well he's a big star, maybe he's filming some movie in Lyon. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. I even created a scenario in my head in which he was staring as some sort of Jason Bourne type character, which is probably a terrible casting decision.

Well, a little known fact about me is that I think meeting celebrities is AWESOME, and I have a strange desire to meet as many as possible. I don't know why I want to do this, maybe I think that meeting celebrities will one day pay off. I'll be on "Jeopardy!" and it will be my interesting story.

Alex Trebeck: Christopher, you once met John Travolta, tell us about that.

Me: Well Alex, I met John, that's what I like to call him, in the produce aisle at Waldbaum's. He was squeezing honeydews and I was picking out Ruby Red grapefruits. I said to him, "Any good melons," and he said, "Not yet."

Alex: Did he eventually find any good melons?

Me: No but I found 4 delicious grapefruits.

Well, I decided that this was my "Jeopardy!" moment. I would become friends with Mickey Rourke and I could tell the story on "Jeopardy!"

Alex: So Christopher, you're good friends with Mickey Rourke, tell us about that.

Me: Well Alex, we met in the Lyon metro back in 2011.

Alex: Wow, Christopher you are the most interesting contestant we have ever had. You make Ken Jennings look like a chump.

Now, I realize there are two major glaring problems with this scenario that was playing in my head. First and least importantly, being friends with Mickey Rourke would not make me the most interesting contestant to ever be on "Jeopardy!" Second, and most glaring, my plan had two steps, 1) meet Mickey Rourke, 2) go on "Jeopardy!" It never even occurred to me that Mickey Rourke and I wouldn't become friends and/or I might not be able to get on "Jeopardy!"

This being said, I decided it was time to meet Mickey Rourke. The train stopped at Bellecour and Mickey got off the train, which was fortuitous because Bellecour was also my stop. I walked quickly to catch Mickey. As I gained on him I began thinking about how to introduce myself, should I say, "Hey I loved the Wrestler," maybe I could say, "How's it hanging Mick!" I even contemplated the ol' shoulder punch for a second, but quickly dismissed it, Mickey used to be a professional boxer, he might not be expecting to be punched. As I sidled up next him I said, "Hey Mickey" to which he turned to me and said, "Excusez moi!"