Jumping Fences

Recently I have started giving English conversation lessons to a French woman who teaches management in Toulouse. She is particularly interested in how theaters are managed. Her research centers around talking to people and gathering qualitative data, which is not valued very highly here, so she often meets resistance. She presents her work at conferences, and has to present in English sometimes. Her husband is a math teacher at my school, and he gave her my info, and she contacted me for lessons. It was quite perfect how it all worked out. So now, we meet about twice a week to speak together in English. Sometimes we discuss her work, and sometimes she asks me to talk about life in America. She has two adorable children, and I go to her house to give lessons, so I always get to see them :)

I had a lesson tonight, and as usual it was a learning experience for us both. Talking with her gives me a French perspective unlike any I've had before, and she always has funny and interesting things to say.

For example, tonight she told me about how she would jump the fence in high school in order to avoid a 30 min long walk around the school to get to the other side. This led us to a discussion about crazy things teenagers do and she said, "I want to keep my daughter from becoming too wise. If she's too wise, she'll do a couple really stupid things. But if she's kind of wise, she'll do more stupid things, but they won't be as "highly stupid." (as she put it) Her logic makes sense in my mind, but the way she says things is always unique, since English is not her first language.