Back to school

Those of you who knew me as a Linguistics major in Toronto probably know quite a few things about language that you didn’t ever feel the need to learn, such as the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants, the fact that the word Jeep comes from the initials GP standing for General-Purpose (as in General-Purpose vehicle), and, if you stuck around long enough to make it to second year, the difference between count and non-count nouns.

Firstly, to those of you who did stick around for that long… I’m sorry.

Secondly, I’m back in the saddle.

No, I’m not a Linguistics major again… the fact that I decided I never want to be a speech therapist has pretty much quelled my desire to ever take a class on morphology again (although I do sometimes read my old textbooks for fun… *Geek* [and proud of it]). I am, however, back in school–back at a desk, back to taking notes, and back to learning about count and non-count nouns (as useful to Lit majors as to Linguistics majors), only this time, I’m doing it in France.

One of my new classmates, the American Proust Fan, and I, spend a lot of our time extolling the virtues of being in France; just the fact that we’re here seems to make otherwise unfortunate daily tasks and problems seem like fun:

“Ugh… so much homework… but it’s homework in France!”

“I need to go grocery shopping… but I’m grocery shopping in France!”

“There are nine million people on the subway platform because of the grève… But at least I’m relinquishing my personal space on the people-mover in France!”

I don’t think that the rest of the Parisians agreed with me on that last one, as we spent two days last week staring down strangers uncomfortably. I rode for twenty minutes with my back enveloped by a particularly cushy woman, and another twenty with a very short man at an uncomfortable distance from my chest… but at least it was in France.

I don’t know if my excitement at being back in school, then, is due to the fact that it is (all together now…) in France, or if it’s just because after a year of dilly-dallying–four months “writing my novel” (aka watching all five seasons of Lost), six weeks in Paziols, two months in Spain, several more in New York working as a translator and trying to pretend that that was what I wanted to do–for the first time since middle school, I feel like I can allow myself to fully, unequivically love school.

I take copious notes in multiple colors. I raise my hand every five seconds. I reread my notes from last week before going to class. I wander the Francois Mitterand library and touch the spines of all the books, looking forward to weekends I’ll spend doing research for my thesis. I’m geeking out to the max… I routinely make fun of myself to the American Proust Fan, and yet I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Maybe it’s because I’m back in a place where everyone wants to learn. Contrary to undergrad, where the most important thing to most of my peers (and, let’s be honest, to me as well) was where we were going out on Saturday night, in a Masters program, suddenly everyone wants to learn as much as I do, and the professors take the opportunity to make learning a fun experience for all of us. I’ve spent the last week learning, amongst other things, about the much antiquated masculine version of demoiselle (it’s demoiseau). “Mais personne ne l’utilise, parce que ca fait bizarre.” I love the fact that that’s a legitimate reason not to use a word… “because it sounds weird.”

Oh, and for those of you who are still interested in count/non-count nouns… I’ll leave you with this: in Toronto, I learned about count/non-count nouns using water. In France, you learn about count and non-count nouns using wine and beer.

A wine, you see, is not the same thing as a beer. A wine refers to a type of wine, whereas a beer refers to a predetermined quantity of beer. A beer, therefore, means some beer; a wine does not mean some wine.

A wine, two wines, some wine, a glass of wine…

If you insist.

And while we’re on the topic of wine… this is a really simple, quick pasta sauce you can cook up at the last minute with an extra kick from a glass of white wine. It’s fast enough to make when you get home from school at 7:00 thanks to the grève. I bought a mix of frozen seafood from Picard (our frozen food chain), but if you prefer to use fresh, be my guest.

Spaghetti Fra Diavolo (serves 4)

400 grams of pasta

1 tsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced finely
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. chili paste or 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 glass dry white wine
300 g. tomato coulis
1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tsp. black pepper
400 g. frozen seafood assortment (shrimp, mussels, calamari)

Heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onion and salt. Cook until the onion is soft and slightly colored, about 7 minutes. Add the chili paste and fry until fragrant, about a minute. Deglaze the pan with the wine.

Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, then stir in the tomato coulis. Add the basil and black pepper, and allow to cook.

While the sauce cooks, bring salted water to a boil. When the water boils, add the spaghetti to the water and the frozen seafood to the sauce. Turn the heat under the sauce up to high, and stir in the seafood. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions, then drain. By this point, the seafood should be warmed through. Top the pasta with the sauce and serve (without cheese, please!) Feel free to drink the rest of the wine.