Rendez Compte de l'essai Francais

Translation: "Wasn't someone taking some exam?"

I am happy to report that I think that the French test went well, though I can't say a whole lot for the experience itself. We were all crammed in this little room and we're given these desks, which, I'm sorry, might as well have been built for a hobbit, in which to write out our translations. Also, we were required to write in pen, which is odd for a translation assignment, since you are constantly changing words and phrases etc. At the end of the testing period, I realized that my sheet looked about as clear as Lake Michigan. In fact, for a moment I wondered if I had actually written in English or simply copied the French from my test sheet as is. Remembering an awful experience in which I had to rewrite three essay questions due to poor handwriting (the Marquette entrance exam), I quickly grabbed another blue book and recopied carefully.

But all in all, I finished the translation, it made sense, and anyone should be able to read my writing - these are good things. So, for all who prayed and thought about me: merci beaucoup. (Translation: "you guys rock".)

One side note that you might find a bit entertaining as these are the kinds of things that just happen to me. We were given a slight hint about a week before the test of where the passage we needed to translate would come from, Dictionnaire de Spirituality. The prof who was picking the passage told another person that the passage would be from a major theme in the Old Testament. So, I chose the section on faith, "Foi" copied the article and translated a bit of it each night.

The morning before the test, I was translating the article and stopped short of the final section of the article in order to give myself a break. The name of the section, now blazoned in my memory, was: La situation de la foi. When I opened my test, my heart sank as I saw those same words at the top of the passage. Miraculously, I had chosen the very article that was on the test. Somewhat less than miraculously, I had translated every part of the article except the part that was on the test. Quelle chienne!