Of punctuation...

(This was written at 5:28 on Friday evening)

Okay, everyone, it's official: I am officially getting adjusted to French life. Having sauté (jumped) the hurdles of jetlag, guérit (healed) from the first heel-ripping (literally) days of exploration, goûté (tasted) the culinary ambrosia that is French cuisine, and trouvé (found) people to eat with in the all-too-reminiscient-of-elementary-school-cantine (cafeteria), I can now say that I have truly begun to experience Parisian life.




But none of these things was the tell-tale sign of entry into this new phase of existence. What was it, you may ask. Well, yesterday evening when I tried to do some revisions on an essay on my laptop, I started typing as if I was using a French clavier (keyboard). Having become accustomed to the computers at work, I experienced difficulties in readjusting to my own. Who would have guessed?




For no, French keyboards are not the same as American ones. Au contraire, mes amis, they are one of the most frustrating and under-acknowledged methods of torture that was encountered by an American émigrée. For not only are the accents not made with the CTRL key, but commonly-used keys--such as, but not limited to, A, M, N, W, Q comma, period, apostrophe, exclamation point, and all numerals--are in completely the wrong places! Talk about irritating! Especially when Princeton requires its students to create a password involving at least one numeral. Thus, it is highly significant that, after three weeks in France, I have managed to overcome 12 years' worth of muscle memory, begun on those oh-so-fondly-remembered now-dinosaurs in the Ben Franklin Elementary School computer lab. Oh, that is not to say that even now, using the Conservatoire computer, I don't encounter difficulties; in fact, je me suis trompé (I made a mistake) with the w in this very sentence (yes, the one a few keystrokes ago). But, all in all, I am beginning to be able to not have to look at the keyboard again when I type. Ahh, it's a wonderful feeling of liberation.



Almost as liberating, in fact, as the weekend, which it will be in exactly two minutes (don't worry, there is currently no work to do at my post at the consultation desk).