The Wheels on the Bus Go Round 'N' Round

Excerpt from Journal entry 28 Septembre 2009:

"My French language teacher is ridiculously good looking. I woke up at 7 am this morning, flustered and nervous for a reason. I got ready and as I was walking, no, sprinting, to the metro, I wondered why I hadn't invested in that jet pack I saw in the Innovations pavilion at Disneyland. I forgot to buy metro tickets because my Navigo pass expired, so I stood at the kiosk for about 10 minutes trying to decipher the French instructions, which, for some reason, on that morning decided to look like hieroglyphics. Exasperated, I just purchased one ticket instead of a carnet to save time. Bolting past the entrance, I recalled what my friend said to me the other day. 'They would never have stalls that narrow in the US. Only in France do they disregard the fat people to try and weed them out.' So true. So true. Once I sat down on the metro, I realized that I had forgotten to pack my lunch. Merde. I was going to starve through a 6 hour day. For some reason a clip from Beauty and the Beast popped into my head, you know the part where Belle refuses to eat with Beast and he says, "Fine. Then you can just STAAARRRVEEEE!!! If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat . . .AT ALL! RAWR!" Anyway. So I decided to kill some metro transfer time and exit Rennes instead of St. Suplice because I'm a moron. I didn't know where I was once I got out of the sortie, I somehow wound up in a 3 way intersection -- none of the roads were the ones I needed to be on, by the way. I wasted upon 10 minutes wandering before I finally came upon Rue Cassette and then did a flamboyant dance of triumph in my head. Once I found my classroom, 3 American students were already conversing in really bad French and I surveyed the potential friends. Meh. As I was silently beating myself up for not being as cool, a frazzled man walks through and opens the door. C46 oui? Alors, voîlà, bonjour! Hot French teacher had flippant dark brown hair, scruff on his face, the bluest eyes, black rimmed glasses, and snazzy European garb. He spent the better half of the class teaching us how to pronounce his name. Ghee-yo-m. Guillaume. He then pointed to each individual student as though we were a preschool choir, repeating the symphony that was his first name. Instead of do - re - mi, it was ghee - yo - m. After a healthy dose of French patronizing, he offered me the honor of pronouncing his last name. I got it right, thankfully, otherwise it might have sent him on another tangent regarding the inadequacy of Americans. "Welcome to the French language," he'd say. You make no freaking sense, Guillaume. The butchery is both ways apparently. He finally decided it would be improper to introduce himself and not allow us to get to know each other (imagine that), so he decided to start with, who else? Me. Damn it. I timidly said my name, where I was from, and that I was a girl. Guillaume was not amused. He asked me what I studied and after that went from student to student, scrutinizing every linguistic mishap. He spent the rest of the class period making fun of me. He's kind of insane. I'm pretty sure he just killed our actual professeur on the street and came in disguised like one, much like Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can. It might explain his attractive exterior, but nevertheless, he's more than likely gayer than an Oscar Wilde action figure."