Guido Guido Guido!

Yes, I'm quoting that lousy movie-musical "Nine." The Italian poet who came to talk to us in the ENS course today (and who will be talking for the next two classes) was named Guido Mazzoni. He talked about the history of poetry, specifically the big change in the second half of the sixteenth century that came with the arrival of the lyric poem. The lecture was interesting, but also funny. Every time he dropped a name (because they do that a LOT at ENS), the two professors would jump up and write the name on the board. Sometimes, they'd both jump up, and then argue for a few seconds about who would write the name. It was cute. The most interesting part of his presentation was when he was talking about all the different ways you can read "I" in a poem or novel. If he had been talking about novels, I bet he would have referenced Jacques le fataliste. The only problem was that it was a little hard for me to understand Guido Mazzoni because of his accent. If I were actually French, it wouldn't have been that much of a problem. At Hopkins, I have professors who aren't native English speakers all the time, and their accents never stop me from understanding what they say, but since French isn't my first language, every now and then, the accent just threw me off. That said, I love the Italian accent when speaking French! It's so delicate-sounding - much better than dumb American accents.

After class, Lu and I went to the Resto'U for lunch. I got a great mini-pizza! And chocolate mousse for dessert. Then, I had to stop by CUPA and I taught some English. I swear, making 20 euros in an hour and a half has never been easier! And that's pretty much it for today. Happy Semaine de la Francophonie! Thursday, there's a party about it at l'ENS - I'm definitely going because I want to see if the ENS students know how to party. I mean, they all hang out on Rue d'Ulm on Saturday's to study, so what could their parties possibly be like? BYOB stand for Bring Your Own Books? Just kidding...that's not right - they're all French!