Post-classroom visit
It’s a belated French Friday post, only because I was meeting a class of 8th graders yesterday.
Which was ouf.
Last Friday, I left you with two French expressions. Dan used the services of Google and suggested “Get the pill” for “Se dorer la pilule” and “This is a pick of ouf” for “c’est un truc de ouf.”
Thank you, Dan for trying. Really, that was cool. But I cannot give you an A. That’s Google’s fault, really.
Google, can you hire me?
* Se dorer la pilule doesn’t mean to get the pill but to get a tan, also simply to relax without doing anything.
Get the pill would be “Prendre la pilule” and it would also be said in reference to the birth control pill.
On the other hand, we don’t have the exact equivalent of the vivid American expression: Take a chill pill.
* Ouf is Fou, only written backwards. Fou in French means crazy.
C’est ouf means it’s crazy.
Un truc is a thing.
C’est un truc de ouf means it’s a crazy thing.
So, yes, meeting with the kids yesterday was ouf, in a very good way.
C’est ouf!
Following your advice, I went with a selection of photos depicting France and Paris. One one girl had been to Paris, so all of them enjoyed my personal Normandy selection. And they smiled when they saw me at their age.
As expected, the addition of music was a great idea. I played music while the students settled in. Then I picked classic French songs and extracts of contemporary songs from singers and bands and played them during the presentation. Even the teacher could not sit still when she heard some French rap.
Since the main characters of my novel eat at different cafés, I added a few slides about typical fare that Parisians and French eat at their favorite cafés.
And I wore my special T-shirt 🙂
The kids loved my last slides about the Chandeleur. Eating crêpes on February 2 is yummier than waiting for a groundhog to see or not his shadow.
So after the school visit I rushed home to prepare my batter. When my four children lived at home I doubled and sometimes even tripled the recipe and we ate crêpes for dinner. Now my husband and I have a couple for dessert and eat the leftovers warmed up for breakfast.
But when I arrived we changed our minds, so I made a regular batter.
The batter, my mom wrote on her recipe, should not be too thin and should not be too thick. That’s the reputation people from Normandy have: undecided 🙂 But her crêpes batter is the bomb.
First crepe is like a first draft. Necessary.
Better
My husband added a sunny-side-up egg on our crepes
We ate until there was no batter left 😦
I wish you all a fantastic weekend!
If you are a football fan, enjoy the Super Bowl. I know of a few diehard Patriots fans around me. It’s in my nature to cheer for the underdog. Although, on Super Bowl I will be found in a park or at the movies, which are pretty quiet on Super Bowl.
Just saying 🙂
Evelyne Holingue 
I like crepes and those look very good. Thanks for correcting Google. Those expressions make sense now. I’m glad things went well at school. I’ll be rooting for the underdog as well this weekend.
Thank you, Dan for stopping by. I LOVE crepes 🙂
And meeting kids is always such a treat.
Google translation can be useful. My kids use it 🙂 I must say that they often contact me in doubt. But whenever it’s a little bit out of the box, it doesn’t work.
Enjoy the Super Bowl!
That sounds like a wonderful visit with the kids Evelyne, I’ll bet they were fascinated by your visit. And the crepes look great 🙂
Thank you for stopping by, Andrea. I enjoy meeting with children of all ages, but middle school students are old enough to ask more and I like the challenge. They were interested to discover my native land and witness its evolution through visuals and music.
The crepes were the cherry on top of an awesome day.
I’m looking forward to five more school visits next week. This time with high school students, some taking French, some not. Should be great.