Laura 5 Justine Harvey 9AM

Cet semaine, Antoine et moi, nous allons parlé du multiculturalisme en France et en Les États-Unis. Moi, Je ne suis pas seconde génération américaine. Je suis quatrième génération américaine. Je suis très américaine! Antoine n'est également pas seconde génération français. La plupart de ses amis ne sont également pas. Il a dit Bordeaux est multicultural, mais à son ville natale il est la plupart du temps français. Nous parlons seulement en anglais chez moi et chez Antoine, nous parlons seulement français. Ma grand-mère peut parler japonais, mais je ne peux pas. Mes grands-grands-parents ont immigré du Japon, mais mes grands-parents et mes parents sont américaine toutes leurs vies.
Je pense France est un pays multiculturel. La plupart du pays sont multiculturel. Il depend de la région. Antoine est d'accord avec moi. Antoine pense Les États-Unis sont plus multiculturel que la France. Peut-être c'est vrai, mais je ne suis pas certaine. Antoine m'a dit il y a beaucoup des pakistanais et des caraïbes français en Bordeaux et il y a quelques étudiants de transfert dans son école il connait. Ils sont mexicains et japonais. Antoine pense les examens en France sont plus difficile que dans beaucoup d'autres pays parce que beaucoup des étudiants de transfert lutte dans leurs classes.


Nous allons parlé aussi qu'est-ce qu'être américaine et français pour nous et les stéréotypes des pays. Nous pensons américaine est au sujet de la liberté, capitalisme, beaucoup de travaille, et puissance. Les américains aiment les pistolets, secteur de pomme, et la liberté. Les français aiment des baguettes et fromage, ils sont égotiste, grossier, et gémissement.

Laura 5 Kathryn Ackerman 9AM

Pour le cinquième conversation nous n’a pas parlé quelque notre vies personnelles, mais ce que faisons cette semaine. Il était très occupé la semaine dernière et cette semaine parce que il allait beaucoup de fêtes! Je étais très jaloux parce que sa vie est amusant et plein de enthousiasme pendant que ma vie est simple et ennuyeuse parce que ma ville est calme tout le temps. Il a dit moi sur Gala dans l’université bientôt et comment tout le monde habillera élégamment. Aussi il a dit qu’il y aura Tombola à la fête et je pense que est très amusement parce que il a dit vous pouvez gagner une télé! Je espère il gagne quelque chose! Aussi il a une fête mardi prochain! Il est très, très occupé! Pourtant j’ai eu à la fête dimanche dernière avec ma famille comme ce était l’anniversaire de ma grand-mère. Ma grand-mère a quatre vingt deux ans maintenant et elle est anglais qui faire moi deuxième génération américain. J'ai dit lui je faisait toujours un lasagne de chocolat pour la fête que mon petit cousin aime. Mais nous sommes d’accord que ce est délicieux, mais très engraissement!

Laura 5 Kent Ho 10AM

Alberto et je ne pouvais pas parler beaucoup ce week-end, mais nous répondu à nos questions. Il n'est pas un seconde generation francaise parce qu'il est mexicain. Ses parents sont aussi mexicains. Il habite avec deus francais et une espagnol, donc il parle espagnol et francais a la maison. Il parle aussi anglais, et il parle tous les trois tres bien. Il pense que Bordeaux est une ville avec beaucoup de cultures differentes. Il dit tu peux voir beaucoup de gens de different pays et avec de formes de se habiller aussi differentes. Irvine a aussi beaucoup de gens de differents pays, mais parce que ce est une ville de college il n'a pas beaucoup de cultures differentes.

Laura 4 Rebecca Estrada 9AM

Ce week-end Paul et moi avons parlé au sujet du multicultarisme et un peu des questions que nous manqué la semaine dernière. Paul n’a pas des membres de la famille qui sont immigés, donc sa famillle entière est française. Tous les descendants de sa famille de qu’il connaît sont française. Quand je lui demandais s’il pense que la France est multiculturale, il m’a dit que c’est vrai mais pas beaucoup. Il m’a dit que la plupart des gens sont français mais qu’il y a des immigrés aussi. Paris est la ville la plus multiculturale et je suis d’accord parce qu’il est la ville avec la population le plus haute en France. Il attire la plupart des touristes et immigrés. Nous avons aussi parlé des sujets que nous avons manqué la semaine dernière de l’emploi. Nous tous deux n’avons pas de travail. Cette fois, quand j’ai parlé avec Paul, j’ai parlé plus en français parce que je me sentais plus confortable. Il était un bon appel sur Skype!

Multiculturalism

This time we have some problems with ours schedules, nevertheless we can make our video call.

 I started with telling to Zarha how was my trip to Paris this weekend, I told her a little bit of what I did and where I was; then we started to talk about the multiculturalism in USA and France, she told me that in the university she can find people of a lot of nationalities. She’s from Iran and she’s happy because in California she can find Iranian supermarkets and restaurants, so she can have access of different products of her country; she also know people from Iran that are studying at the same university.

I asked her if she want to stay there after finishing her PhD and she answered me that she thinks that there she has more jobs opportunities and for her isn’t a problem make her life there, the only thing that she doesn’t like about California is that they have two seasons, and she misses the snow days that she had in Iran.

I told her that for me France is also a multicultural country, because you can find people from everywhere, especially in the big cities like Paris, and also here in Bordeaux.

                                          View of Paris from l'Arc de Triomphe

My partner is Venus. She's a second generation american : her grandmother is from the island of Haiti and her mother is Haitian.
She's able to speak AAVE (meaning African American Vernacular English), and a little french.

She's not as well traveled as she would like to be. She has not ventured outside of the United States.
However, she has lived in 5 different states around the United States : Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, and California.

She told me that The United States is a very multicultural country : it's ethically diverse and has so many different types of food, music, dance, cultural artifacts, language and belief systems...  

She also told me about her campus. It is historically renowned for its technological innvoations, its class structure, and its location. Some of the most enlightened minds have taught class or presented seminars at her school. The campus is boring though. It was built into the shape of a circle to prevent any type of student protesting.
She finds her courses wonderful : the majority of her studies is focused on the School of Social Sciences, and Psychological behavior.
Her life at University is quite ordinary. According to her, Irvine is quite sterile and it's more a family town. There is not much to do around her but study, workout, and focus on her work. Thus, she does not have to worry about being distracted and she can maintain an excellent grade point average.

She is a research assistant in the School of Social Sciences, and she works as a teaching assistant for a class on campus.
She tries to find a balance between her work, her studies and her personal life. She takes care of herself : she eats a very healthy plant-based, vegan diet. It gives her the energy she needs. Plus, she enjoys going to the gym as well as practicing yoga in her spare time at home.

Laura 5 Venus Green 9AM

son campus est dédié uniquement à la vie de l'école, il n'y a rien d'autre que l'école et le restaurant universitaire. Dans son école, il ya une salle qui leur permet de rencontrer des étudiants de la "maison", où il se retrouve parfois dans la soirée pour célébrer.
Noémie a de la classe toute la journée, généralement de 8h à 18h, et elle a une heure pour déjeuner. Ce est un rythme de travail très importante, surtout depuis que nous avons beaucoup de devoirs.
Le système éducatif est basé sur les notes: les enseignants notent devoirs 20 points. Si elle ne le fait pas au moins 10/20, elle ne peut pas passer l'année prochaine.
Après l'école, elle va sortir avec mes amis, elle va au cinéma ou regarde la télévision. elle joue parfois les sports, mais elle ne est pas très athlétique.
elle ne travaille pas le long du parcours, bien que je le voudrais. Malheureusement, je ne ai pas assez de temps.
Ces dernières années, elle avait plus de temps. Elle travaillait à l'école primaire. Elle aidait les enfants à apprendre. et elle aimait ce travail d'étudiant.
Elle vit avec son petit ami. Ce est très agréable de ne pas vivre seul, Elle aime le trouver quand elle a fini mes cours de jour.

Laura 4 Venus Green 9AM

elle est française, née en France. Sa mère est née au Portugal, mais arrivé en France à l'âge de 5 ans et a la nationalité française.
Le français est sa langue maternelle, elle parle anglais et un peu espagnol.
elle ne parle pas encore couramment l'anglais, mais elle souhaite devenir bilingue et prévoit de stages à l'étranger.
elle aime voyager, elle rêve de visiter l'Australie, les Etats-Unis, Amérique du Sud ... Malheureusement au moment où elle n'a eu l'occasion d'aller dans les pays en Europe (Angleterre, Portugal, Espagne, Croatie, Pays-Bas), ainsi que la Tunisie.

La France est un pays multiculturel. Beaucoup de gens, il ya plusieurs décennies ont quitté leur pays pour se installer en France où la vie était plus agréable. Ce était en fait mes grands-parents là-bas 45 années.

Laura 2 Rachel Kennel 9am

Ma partennaire s'appelle Clara. Elle parle l'anglais meillure que je parle le francais. Elle a vingt deux ans, comme moi. Elle a un frère aîné aussi. Clara est de la ville Marseille, dans le sud de France. Elle dit les gens de  le sud de France sont amicales. Elle a un degré biologie, et elle étudie les sciences de nourriture. Elle a étudié l'anglais pour 10 ans, plus que j'ai étudié le francais. Quand nous avons parlé, j'ai trouvé nous dansions, mais nous n'avons pas le temps danser maintenant parce que nous etudions tout le temps. Elle n'a pas visité les Etas-Unis, mais elle veux visiter San Francisco. Elle et moi sommes très similaire et j'ai aimé parler avec elle. 

Celia

Hello!

Nicholas and I missed each other for the second week in a row : last week, he had too much homework ( and he turned 24, happy birthday !!!!) and this week we changed the day of the Skype call but it wasn't a good idea...
Thus, even if it's an "out-dated" (I don't know if this expresion is correct...) topic, I just wanted to share a picture of my "little house" : I live alone in this apartment and I think it's quite spacious ( but as a result it's a little messy).

Living with someone would cost less money but I like having this space just for me : ).
And to go to the school, it takes me 5-6 minutes with my bicycle to go to the streetcar and then there are only two stations before arriving, so it's not very far.

Little talk with Ian

Today, we didn't talk a lot because he had to work early. He told me that he had some problems in French with the conjugation so we talked about the differences between pronunciation of infinitive and imperfect and it was not easy to explain to him.

Last time I talked to him, I told him that my boyfriend's name was Axel so he told it to some people in his school and they found it really funny because nobody is called Axel there. 

We also talked about movies and books and I know that Ian watched the last Hunger Games and that he found it really good and now I really want to see it too. He has to read a book of Albert Camus for his French class and he likes it but he finds it difficult to understand and I completely agree with him ! So, if even for me it's difficult, I don't imagine what it is for him. 

I hope we will talk longer next time :) 

Laura 4 Justine Harvey 9AM

Cet semaine, Antoine et moi, nous avons parlé de notre études. Antoine va à l’école public pour l’ingénierie. Son spécialisation est le chimie et physique. C’est son première année dans l’école d’ingénierie, mais il a étudié à un classe préparatoire pour deux ans. Dans son deuxième année, il doit voyager à un pays qui parler anglais, alors il est heureux qu’il peut pratiquer son anglais avec moi. Il est très bon à parler anglais! 

L’école n’est pas un université typique; il concentre plus sur des experiences que le travail du livre. En outre, son école est un école public, alors il n’est pas très cher. Il paye seulement £700 chaque année. C’est le rêve pour les étudiants à UCI! 

Fourth call with Quinn ( + finally figured out how to blog ! )

   Last Friday, Quinn and i had our fourth Skype call at around 7 p.m. in France, which was around 9 a.m. in California.He actually went to college just after the call.
   We talked about the multiculturalism in our respective countries/schools and he told me that there are lots of foreign people/students where he lives, and that most of them are Asians, coming mainly from Korea, China or Japan.We then talked about how his family was settled in America for at least six generations (he had to explain to me what was the meaning of being a "second generation American" because I didn't know what it meant). Apparently, he has Irish origins, as lots of other Americans. However, he told me that in his family, they only spoke english. We also talked about how the situation was in France regarding these topics.
   We plan on doing these Skype calls every Friday or Saturday, for these are the most convenient days to do these calls.

   As it is my first post on the blog, I should also post an introducton of myself, yet I can't upload what I want (photos, music tracks, videos) from my appartment because of my bad internet connexion, so this will have to wait a little.

first (big!) talk with Rachel

Sunday in the evening, I spoke with Rachel during two hours! We really had a good time, it was an enriching experience.

Regarding her student life, Rachel is not studying a specific field, her subject is about women: what are their places in our society, feminism… Her topic is also political. She doesn’t know yet what job she wants to do in the future specifically, and apparently her studies can lead to many different kind of jobs. However, she’ll probably work for a political organization.

Concerning our timetables, they are totally different! When I said to Rachel I had most of the time more than eight hours of courses a day, she was surprised and very sorry for me! She even asked me when I had the time to sleep! Indeed, she told me that her hours of courses per day varied depending on the day: for instance, she has three hours of courses on Monday, five hours on Thursday… but on the whole, she usually has less hours than me. We both have homework to do and it takes us a lot of time.

Rachel’s parents help her financially but she has a student job in order to pay her hobbies, her trips and so on. She is not living with her parents anymore and she has a roommate. Her flat is not in her university campus but it’s not far from it and she can easily go to the university by car.

We both have a big brother. Rachel’s brother is 25 years old and is living in Madrid. She visited him once and it was during a very important football match. She saw the Real Madrid’ supporters in the street, wearing the tee-shirt of the team and behaving like nothing else existed but the match! It made her realize how important football is in Europe whereas it is not in USA.

Rachel also came to Paris, in fact she had a French penpal at that time that received her. Unfortunately, she didn’t get on well with this person, which made her having bad prejudices regarding French people (she thought French people were rude). I’ll try to prove that French people are not always rude!

                  Rachel has a boyfriend, like me, and it was fun to discover that they meet the same day than my boyfriend and me! We also both love dancing: she made ballet (I did too!) and tap dancer, but she doesn’t have the time to practice dance anymore. 

We also have in common the love of food! I told her my grandparents were Italians and that I was so happy and lucky to eat my delicious Italian grandmother’s meals! Rachel is also lucky because her best friend, living in San Fransisco, has Italian origins too and share Italian meals with her. Rachel said she appreciate French gastronomy but, as there is no surrounding French restaurant, she never eats French food.

To finish, while I was speaking with Rachel, I was thinking to myself “me, speaking English, with my French accent, it’s just destroying my ears! “! So I told her how it was sensual to hear a boy speaking French with a stranger accent and how it might be nasty to hear French people speaking English! She tried to reassure me and said it was nice to hear English speakers with a French accent!

Now, I know how to blog: here I am !_Clara

My name is Clara and I’m twenty two years old.

I have studied cellular biology for three years, now I am studying food science and technology in order to become an engineer. Regarding sport, I like running and dancing.

I come from Marseille, a lovely oceanfront city in the south of France, in the region of Provence.

This is how "La Provence" looks like: a splendid region that inspired a lot of painters

Marseille: we name the church "la bonne-mère", it's the symbol of the city.

What I love to do, is going to the "Calanques", a magic place were you can have a rest and enjoy the sun, the sea and the cicadas singing! It's just wonderful!

the "Calanques "of Marseille

What I like the most is probably sharing a drink with my friends, travelling with them, and go shopping!

My friends and I at Barcelona. From left to right: me, Marie, Manon, Pauline, Juliette, Julie

My friends and I at Roma. from left to right: Juliette, Manon, me, Pauline, Marie

Antoine Brège, French student in ENSCBP

Hi !
I'm Antoine, and this are few words about me :

I come from a little city near the beach called Andernos-Les-Bains. It's not so far from Bordeaux (only 45km!) but the everyday life is a bit different. Indeed, Bordeaux is quite a big city full of life and activities whereas Andernos is a sea-side resort... but still famous for its oysters ! It's also a cute place to live !!

I've been studying in Bordeaux for 3 years and I'm now graduating at the engineering school ENSCBP. To enter this school, I studied 2 years in a "Classe préparatoire intégrée" which consists in getting the scientific basis you will use and develop in the school. Mine was a little bit different from others in France since we didn't have a competitive examination at the end of the course but mid-term and final exams.

Concerning my extra scholar life, I enjoy spending my time listening or playing music and my favourites kind of music are reggae, dub, funk and jazz. I play the keyboard in a band called Jafly (check it out on Facebook if you want to see and hear more : https://www.facebook.com/jaflyofficial) and we are used to giving concerts in Bordeaux.

I have already spoken twice to my exchange student : Justine from Irvine University. We discussed about our similarities and differences of our everyday life at school and in the country where we live. She likes playing video games (so am I) and I had the honor to meet her cat !! I'm glad that she speaks enough slowly for me to understand, and I hope she understands my English... which sometimes does not sound as I would like to !

Student life

Hi my name is Samantha, I’m an exchange student from Mexico and I’m currently studying at the ENSCBP in Bordeaux.

My partner from Irvine University is Zahra, she is an exchange student from Iran, now she’s doing her PhD in electric engineering.

About her student life she told me that her schedule is always changing, and even though she doesn’t have to go to many classes, sometimes she has to spend a lot of time in the lab, one day she stayed 20 hours!! Because of her always-changing schedule, she doesn’t have time to practice handball (her favorite sport), and she really misses it.

My student life is a little bit different, although I spend a lot of time in the school, my schedule is almost the same (from 8:00 a.m. to 17:50), but we always have homework to do, so we have to be organized with our timetable.

About the costs of studying there, she told me that she has a scholarship but normally the price is 30000 dlls for one year, here in France we pay (as exchange students) 210 euros, which is almost 10 times less, and in Mexico the price is even lower, we pay less than 200 dlls for one year.

Bordeaux is a really nice city to live, it’s full of life and it has a multi-cultural population, it’s really charming and you can always find something different to do.

                                             "Fête foraine" in Bordeaux