I am using this neat "app" called Duo Lingo to brush up on my French! I studied French for five years, but that was fifty years ago! This very interactive app is game-like and fun, and I am stumbling and occasionally sailing through it. Why am I doing this?
I am not teaching this semester; my one class was cancelled due to no enrollment! It was a section of Modernity, and it was scheduled from 2-3:15 T-Th. Other years I have taught it from 11-12:15, and it was always full to overflowing. The other afternoon session was cancelled too. Apparently the seniors who needed to take it got there first to register, and the juniors decided to wait until the fall. Athletes can’t do those afternoon sections… who knows? ( I will be back in the Fall, teaching two courses) Adjuncts don’t get sabbaticals, even though I’ve been teaching at the Mount for 18 years.
But I am glad for this one. The cancelled class has turned out to be providential for me. For several years the community has invited me to make the annual International Retreat, but they ask so late that I had always already committed myself to teaching. Not so this time around! I’m taking extra time there, too, before and after the eight day silent retreat, which runs from March 7-15. The Motherhouse in Paris is at 140 Rue du Bac, around the corner from le Bonne Marche. It’s a huge old complex; once the chateau sized mansion of some aristocrat, after the Revolution, the Daughters moved in in 1810. So I plan to see the museums and neighborhoods of Paris, and do some writing as well. I hope to post some notes about this trip on either my blog or here.
So I have been working on DuoLingo pretty religiously. I'll be staying at our Motherhouse. People have told me "Don't worry: everybody over there speaks English!" I reply: "Not the French Daughters of Charity who live at our Motherhouse!"
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