Bonne Année à tous! The year 2008 kicked off to a great start for Alliance Française, business is especially good for them that all classrooms are filled up on Saturday mornings. So full that our class have to be housed in a ’submarine’…
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To be exact, we are at Level 4 Seminar Room 2. Now, there is actually only one Seminar Room. But they are so short of classroom that they have to partition it into two rooms. The outer half which have access to the main door is given to the SIA group (because they are more ‘presentable’?). The inner half, through a small submarine-like door on the divider, is us!
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As we walked pass the SIA group, I couldn’t help but took a quick sweeping view. So did Evelyn and Allison. Then, we had this conversation:
- Ping: How come the SIA group look er…so-so only? Maybe they are the ground staff?
- Evelyn: Aiyah, they have no make up mah. I think they are the crew.
- Allison: …(no comments)…hahaha…
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Our class grew in size, despite the absence of Meng and Choon Hau (we miss you, please come back!). And, it grew younger too, with two new classmates (Louisa and Esther) who are undergrads, though there is one new classmate (Kevin) who is roughly our age.
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Manu asked us to write our new year resolutions in a piece of paper, anonymous, and have Kevin and Pui San read them aloud. Most of us hope that we do our French homework more regularly and continue to take French lessons. Some want to work less, travel more. Sounds like we are a very congruent group!
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The lesson’s theme was le bonheur. Qu’est-ce que le bonheur pour vous? Pour moi, à parti de être heureux, rester une bonne santé et avoir une famille, le bonheur signifie que je peux dormir jusqu’à je ne veux pas dormir, ne me lève pas par le alarm clock! 
The three new classmates were asked to sit in front of the class and answer our questions on this theme for us to know them better. I was just glad that I wasn’t nominated because my French is rusty from 2 weeks of total shut down.
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From the textbook, the French has a bizzare way of feeling ‘bonheur’. Some French just enjoy participating in a flashmob - a group of people who contact each other via mobile, and gather at one place at certain time and perform an act together. Manu described to us with enthusiasm. He personally witnessed a flashmob on Champs Élysées - a line-up of ladies and an opposite line-up of men opened up their umbrella in rainbow colours. They remained in their pose for 2 minutes or so, attracted crowd to take photos etc, then dispersed into the crowd. Manu said he would very much like to join the flashmob when he is back in Paris in June. He viewed it as an art, an act of expression.
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Manu tried to persuade us to form a flashmob of classe de Manu, to pose as statues at Orchard Road. He then asked the guys to mimic his signature sound - the forced inspiration hiccup sound (E-heeh-heeh) - which he always do to break the silence or distract us when we are working on the exercises he gives us. Ming Wei, Jonathan, Kevin, Albert all repeated after him and did quite well! Louisa was the only gal who attempted it. He asked the rest of us to go home and practice so that we can form a flashmob with that funny sound!
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Reminder:
Remember our new year resolution - do homework!
