Sunset over Asilah

This Thursday, I got the results of a presentation that I had been working on. The professor took me aside ten minutes before the class and walked me out to the little school courtyard. He then lit up a cigarette and proceeded to tell me how superficial and substandard my work was. Naturally, after the first ten minutes of critiquing I started bawling my eyes out because I had really done my best for this project, and there he was calling it “mediocre” and telling me that it had not been connected in any way with the conférence (conference class) or the cours magistral (lecture class).

However, I tried telling him (through tears) that this couldn’t be true because I go to every class and take notes and supplement my notes with those of other students, who are native speakers. Moreover, for the project, I had started working on it three weeks in advance: I had gotten a book from Paris since our school library is quite small, scoured our local public library for possible sources (there weren’t any), gotten a collection of articles from JSTOR, and managed to find two books on the topic from the school library. I had even maintained dialogue with him while working on the project. And when I had finished it, I had gotten a Spanish-speaking friend to correct my language mistakes on it before I presented it in front of the class.

After he had given me his evaluation of my project and left for class, it took me a few minutes to collect myself. I had never been spoken to like that before. I’ve heard that in Europe that professors are harsher and that they can be jarringly frank towards students. But none of my professors last semester had been like that. They were all bluntly honest, but never to the extreme that I felt so emotionally impacted by what they had been saying.

I suppose this blog for me is cathartic along with illuminating some light on the gritty side of studying abroad: there really are some days that you’re going to feel down, and that there will be no one there for you. My Skype wasn’t working that day, my cell phone had gone schizo, my three closest friends here had gone traveling over the weekend and hadn’t arrived yet, and it was too early to call home because of the time difference.

Pardon my French, but during study abroad, there will be days that feel like they have been sculpted out of la boue (and I say boue to be polite). And sometimes all you can do about it is take a deep breath, and then cry or go running or listen to loud music—whatever helps you release your energy—and tell yourself that today was just one day. Today was just one crummy day in life that wasn’t made for you. But you have to keep keepin’ on because there is still tomorrow. And even though the sun may not come out tomorrow every storm comes to its end one day.

Later this week, after class, I approached the professor about the presentation, and he told me that he had felt really bad for making me upset and that even though the methodology of my project may not have been perfect, he now acknowledged that I had put a lot of work into it. I also got my grade–it’s passing and fairly good. He said that with more work, I could master the French methodology and even offered another project for me to do. I don’t know if I’m going to do it because though it may beneficial for my grade I still have so much work to do in other classes–at least five more oral presentations, papers, and whatnot. I’m glad that we’re back on good terms but I’m just kind of confused right now. Guess that’s life.