This week, I finally had to face up to something I've been dreading since the school year began: a thirty-minute speech, in French, comparing French and American law on a single subject.
I chose inheritance law, which has some really fascinating (for a law student, anyway!) differences. Essentially, the American system is almost entirely unrestricted -- in most states and under most circumstances, you can leave as much or as little to whomever you like. The French system, however, is described as a "hereditary reserve" system, which means that you are legally bound to leave a certain portion of your estate to your descendants. (There's a formula based on the number of children, but the details are where things really get boring. :)) In the past, this has meant that if a couple had a large number of children, the surviving spouse could essentially been left with nothing -- but there have recently been significant reforms to the law which provide some very basic safeguards to prevent a surviving spouse from being left completely without resources.
They say that when you're learning a language, it's actually a good sign when you have "bad language days", as it means that your brain is trying to process and organize what you're learning. Unfortunately, I had one of those days last Wednesday. I had written out a complete script, but somehow I couldn't seem to get my mouth to form the syllables in the right order. Fortunately, my professor was incredibly kind and helped me through a couple of the worst stumbles -- and, even more fortunately, that's the last thing I'll have to do for that class (other than attend the last two sessions).
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For me, the semester is really winding down now -- my classes are done on March 21, and I have only one presentation, six papers, and four exams left to go. Matt, on the other hand, is still just at the beginning of his semester (we have really different calendars this semester -- he's on a fairly traditional French schedule, but my program has a special condensed calendar). He decided to transfer to the Sorbonne for this second semester, and really seems to be enjoying it. Perhaps that has a little to do with the view in the picture below -- he tells me that's what he can see through his classroom window!
