Meet RA Noah Pilz: Master of Eloquence and Pillar of Responsibility
Meet RA Noah, who is was so cool that Lina decided to go back for a second interview. He’s got more intriguing stories for you, too. Read on!
GTE activities and everyday life.
Meet RA Noah, who is was so cool that Lina decided to go back for a second interview. He’s got more intriguing stories for you, too. Read on!
At this point, Elaine had to rush off to an RA staff meeting. But it was really great to get to know her a little better.
Georgia Tech-Lorraine is a STUDY abroad program – and Lina has some tips on how to maximize your study time while at GTL.
While most people have lots of tips on how to travel, what should you do when you’re in Metz? Lina has some tips on how to spend your time OUTSIDE of class while in Metz.
1. Take a walk around Lake Symphonie.
Georgia Tech Lorraine is situated on a beautiful man-made lake, with some awesome paths in the surrounding area. You can feed the ducks and swans that commune there, enjoy some beautiful fresh air, and take in the beautiful scenery. If school is getting you down, there is no better way to clear your head than fresh air and lush foliage.
2. Go to the Gym
When I get especially frustrated, it really helps me to work out all of my internal aggression at the gym. Just a short bus ride away is the gym l’Orange bleue, open from 9am-9pm. Upon arrival, everyone greets you with a warm “Salut!” and even though I speak basically no French, I felt very welcome and happy to work out there. In addition to lots of workout equipment, the gym also offers lots of classes included in the price. If you talk to Katia Ménard-Pons, you can get an initial free pass, and then for 90 euros you get three months of gym visits.
Do you eat halal meat and are tired of eating fish in restaurants? Do you want something delicious and filling? Are you a fan of Turkish food? Well Mam Resto is definitely the place to go. Located close to both Cora and Aloes, Mam Resto has the friendliest staff, who were willing to work with our minimal french, and they were very happy to make us our pizza kebab, which was like all of the ingredients of pizza, and halal meat, wrapped in a tortilla. It was honestly the best kebab food I have ever eaten. It is an amazing way to forget you woes, and lose yourself in the tasty flavors of a delicious kebab.
4. Walk around downtown
Taking a quick bus to downtown Metz is always great. You can see the beautiful cathedral, walk around the amazing shops, visit some nice cafes and look at all of the local architecture. I love stopping at a street bakery, buying a pastry, and taking a walk through the busy streets.
Sam has made new resolutions – and not because of the new year! Why is he making resolutions now? And what resolutions are he making? All your burning questions are answered in his blog post.
Anybody who attends our wonderful institute can attest to the various levels of insanity Tech is capable of driving its students to from time to time. I’m far from perfect, and after struggling much more greatly this past fall semester compared to my first year at Tech, I decided that I needed to change a few things. Psychologists have confirmed that switching locations, or making some other big change is the best time to attempt to change your daily habits related to work or hygiene or really anything. So, in order to fix some of the things I didn’t like about how I operate on a daily basis during the school year, I took advantage of this jarring move to Europe to change two simple habits that I hope will make a big difference.
1. Sleep Schedule
Although this doesn’t really. directly affect work habits, I think that this one is the most important of all of the changes I made. So far, I’ve stuck to the schedule of going to bed between 9:00-10:00 in order to wake up at 7:00 every morning. This is something I don’t think I’ve ever done in my life up until now, but let me tell you, getting 9+ hours of sleep on a weekday is absolutely game changing. I wake up much more refreshed, often before my alarm even goes off, and with plenty of time in the morning to make a real breakfast if I want to (sometimes cereal is just the way to go), take an un-rushed shower, and even spend some time reviewing the textbooks for class. (That last one is often dependent on how long that un-rushed shower ends up taking).
After such a relaxed morning, I find myself almost never feeling drowsy in class, which is a far cry from the freshman me who would nod off in Calculus II almost every time. This leads to better focus, better notes, and an overall better grasp on the concepts taught in my classes. I also get more time to do class work after I get home now that I don’t nap from 3-5 everyday! All in all, it’s worth sacrificing your weekday nightlife in order to get enough sleep to make it through the day. Besides, almost all of us travel 3 out 7 days of the week here at GTL, where we get plenty of time to pursue a social life.
2. Attending Every Class
At GTL, most classes require attendance, so this is a given for a lot of us students here. But typically in college many big lecture classes don’t keep track of who shows up, and some don’t even have things like quizzes to try and enforce attendance. For most of my college life so far, the temptation to be lazy and skip classes has been too great, especially when the professor is not exactly the best at teaching new material. However, I’ve decided to change that here, and the results, I believe, will show in both my academics and my psyche.
I’ve taken classes where, despite what the professor says during syllabus week, it is not really necessary to attend every lecture to succeed in the class. But I think that, as a student, there is more to it than that. When you attend all of your lectures for the week, you just feel good about yourself. I found it easy to slip into the mindset that going to class didn’t matter the more and more I failed to make it. It starts with just missing that one class that doesn’t take attendance and where “I learn better from the book anyway.” But I think all humans are a little OCD and there’s something about breaking your record of perfect attendance that just makes it easy to start missing your 8 AM when you wake up tired in the morning, or missing your 12:00 class because you haven’t eaten lunch yet. However, if you can manage to maintain the idea that you will attend every class and that it’s important, I mean, you’ll probably attend every class (kinda obvious I know). In my experience it’s been either zero or a lot, and this semester I’ve resolved to stick with zero.
If you’re a student reading this, I would welcome you to give these things a try, they’ve really helped me so far this semester. If you’re a parent, good luck making your college-age kids listen to you, even if you do like my advice. If you’re a faculty member, I’m not sure how much you can get out of this (I hope you’re showing up every to class everyday) but either way thank you for reading, I’ll catch you next week.
What’s it like to live in a country where you don’t know the language? Sam reflects on his difficulties – and triumphs – in pursuit of food in Metz.
As many of you know already from my last anecdotal blog post, I, Sam Burke, know very little about the French language. This past week has been basically a sit-com called “Watch Sam Struggle Ordering Anything!” However, I am definitely getting the hang of certain phrases that have to do with ordering food. I recently learned the magic words “Je voudrais…” meaning, “Can/May I have…” Ever since then, I’ve gone full broken record, starting pretty much every single thing I say to the employees with that phrase. I’ve also been eating a lot of pig lately as the word for pork in French is the same as English but with a “c” instead of a “k.” On Thursday, when I finally got the courage and fake accent to go out for the first time and ask the cafeteria worker if I could, in fact, have the pork, it ended up not being pork at all, but rather beef. Still, they understood me, handed me a lump of beef, and for that, I am quite proud of myself. I wouldn’t say I am fluent, but I do feel confident enough to order pork that may or may not be pork!
It definitely seems like most of my interaction with the French language has been centered around food. I’m just a hungry American trying to climb over the – quite formidable – language barrier so I can get a bite to eat. I feel successful, yet highly incompetent when I go out shopping and say only three words to the cashier while checking out: “Bonjour,” “Carte” (a.k.a. credit card), and “Merci.” Oh well, I’m learning, and at least I got my food.
Despite how intimidating the French language can be, especially when the group of people I go out with never seems to include any French speakers, I’ve found that there are always people there who are willing to try to help. For one, even those who don’t speak English will gesture and make hand motions to try and help you understand what they are trying to say. But also, a lot of French citizens speak quite good English, and many of these people are willing to meet you halfway (or 3/4 in my case) when they see you struggling with the language.
Just this last weekend, I was with my friend at the train station bus stop trying to figure out how to get home in a way that didn’t involve waiting for an hour for a bus to come. As we were talking and trying to make sense of the bus map, a middle-aged French gentleman must have overheard us and chimed in to our conversation, explaining (in perfect English) exactly what line we needed to take and where to get off. He even helped us identify the stop as it was approaching so we could signal the driver to stop. Little acts of kindness like that go a long way, and have definitely helped to shape my impression of France as an incredibly hospitable and gracious country, and inspire me to try to pay it forward, so to speak, and help any visitors to America I may encounter if the opportunity presents itself.
I now leave you with the ever-so-interesting segment, ‘French Word Of The Week’!
Habit (noun): clothing, outfit Example in a Frenglish conversation- Joel: “Hey, that’s a nice habit!” Sam: *Dressed to the nines and biting his nails* “Is that supposed to be sarcastic?” Note from the editor: The French don't pronounce the letter "H" as we do in English, so it will probably sound more like you coughed on the first letter, and they don't say the last letter generally, so it'd be pronounced more like - "abee."
The professors at GTL are pretty wise – and have some thoughts for you on how to survive at GTL. Lina, our new blogger, has compiled a few of the recommendations in her new blog post.