Madame Mim!
There is a character in the animation of Sword in the Stone , named Madame Mim, she is lovely and young and then in an instant, a haggard , baggy old woman, and at this moment,she is my teacher! Her real name is Geraldine, but in my mind I have named her Madame Mim! She is animated, she is articulate, she is adamant, she is kind, she is charming , she is whitty, she says WHAT'S ON HER MIND. She's MIM, I tell you! If ever I was accused of being animated and unpredictable, Mim has outdone me..AND I LOVE IT! When a cell phone rings in the class, the cheshire's grin appears on her face..go ahead, take that call, of course we have all been waiting for it! And when someone sheepishly enters the class 45 minutes late..she grins and welcomes them robustly..yes yes enter! and if there was even 15 minutes left, come and learn..no and if there were just 10 minutes left, even a morsel of information will help you..and if you are so late that there are just 5 minutes left,,,COME IN and at least say hello for that too is so important!!!
After 2 hours of Mim, we are all a bit ragged from so much wind of mim blowing us away! But I love it because in her heart..learning is everything, growing is what we do, and to NOT learn, to NOT desire to learn, is something that cannot be imagined. She, this Mim, is a delight.
And what about the students of Mim? Ahh they are an assorted bunch. I always feel like I am in sitcom in these situations. I am living 'Head of the Class' or 'Welcome Back Kotter'. There is the american student who has been in france for a year, who has yet to buy the books for the class, who reads the metro plan, goes to the bathroom, then drinks more water to then leave again. There is the chinese woman with such a pronounced french rrrrrr its amazing. She want to read aloud for everything, she wants the class to herself, she is tooooo noisy. Mim quickly put an end to all that. She writes on the board, This one does not take the time to breathe!!! hahaha and we all wonder...gee, Mim has got BALLS! The rest of the students are assorted whites, not unlike laundry. There is the starched white shirt, the off white sweater, the white t shirt with stains, you get the idea. And there I am, the eager student too chicken to raise her hand. ouf..hold on, I'm getting braver but I'm not about to catch the lovely wrath of MiM!
Yesterday for the first time I had lunch with the assorted whites. It was very very funny. Here we are, all grown ups, talking in painstakingly slowly constructed phrases because we are supposed to be chatting in french. We are 2 americans, 1 german, 1 swede, 1 brit and one italian. I assure you, even to gather this info is not easy..swede in french sound like schwed and geez what is that? So after all the grinding about, we spill into english. It becomes evident that everyone is wonderfully fluent in english, and this is the first time I am hearing ENGLISH spoken by some native speakers. Wow. It hit me like fresh water, all these words that I could understand in the core of my being..meaning EFFORTLESSLY!! The brit next to me..ah beautiful accent...my ears are dancing..it sounds so good! lol We quickly exchange bunches of info..it all flows..and then we climb back into the french buggy and bump around a bit. One of the girls gives a guy her number in french. zero-six, quarant-cinq, quatre-vingt- dix-neuf, soixante-douze, cinquante-huit. That took a good 5 minutes and you can see why! There we were, adults playing the game of language, and loving it.
After 2 hours of Mim, we are all a bit ragged from so much wind of mim blowing us away! But I love it because in her heart..learning is everything, growing is what we do, and to NOT learn, to NOT desire to learn, is something that cannot be imagined. She, this Mim, is a delight.
And what about the students of Mim? Ahh they are an assorted bunch. I always feel like I am in sitcom in these situations. I am living 'Head of the Class' or 'Welcome Back Kotter'. There is the american student who has been in france for a year, who has yet to buy the books for the class, who reads the metro plan, goes to the bathroom, then drinks more water to then leave again. There is the chinese woman with such a pronounced french rrrrrr its amazing. She want to read aloud for everything, she wants the class to herself, she is tooooo noisy. Mim quickly put an end to all that. She writes on the board, This one does not take the time to breathe!!! hahaha and we all wonder...gee, Mim has got BALLS! The rest of the students are assorted whites, not unlike laundry. There is the starched white shirt, the off white sweater, the white t shirt with stains, you get the idea. And there I am, the eager student too chicken to raise her hand. ouf..hold on, I'm getting braver but I'm not about to catch the lovely wrath of MiM!
Yesterday for the first time I had lunch with the assorted whites. It was very very funny. Here we are, all grown ups, talking in painstakingly slowly constructed phrases because we are supposed to be chatting in french. We are 2 americans, 1 german, 1 swede, 1 brit and one italian. I assure you, even to gather this info is not easy..swede in french sound like schwed and geez what is that? So after all the grinding about, we spill into english. It becomes evident that everyone is wonderfully fluent in english, and this is the first time I am hearing ENGLISH spoken by some native speakers. Wow. It hit me like fresh water, all these words that I could understand in the core of my being..meaning EFFORTLESSLY!! The brit next to me..ah beautiful accent...my ears are dancing..it sounds so good! lol We quickly exchange bunches of info..it all flows..and then we climb back into the french buggy and bump around a bit. One of the girls gives a guy her number in french. zero-six, quarant-cinq, quatre-vingt- dix-neuf, soixante-douze, cinquante-huit. That took a good 5 minutes and you can see why! There we were, adults playing the game of language, and loving it.
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