Do you speak ebonics?

Haha!  I got asked this question today by a classmate from India and this probably shouldn't be my first post on this blog because it is not totally indicative of my experience thus far.  But I have been meaning to start this blog for the longest time and today I finally decided to just go for it.   I have been in France for about 2 weeks now and so much has occurred in that short span, so I will start with today, go back to a few interesting things that have happened in the past two weeks and go forward with this.  I'll try to make sure I hit the things I think you are wondering about like; do i love it? how are the people? how am i coping with the language? and of course most importantly...the men???  lol.  we'll get there...

So today, I'm sitting in class right before a lecture starts and D (who is another black girl from Seattle) is updating me on the recent development with this lebanese dude who is sort of coming on to her...she's in a very serious relationship so this whole thing is all quite humorous to us. Anyway I'm listening intently to this gist when I feel a tap on my back and I turn around to answer, he goes "can i ask you a question"  really seriously and I'm like sure shoot...and he's like "do you speak ebonics?"....YEAH!  He seriously asked me this, and I'm just like, "well do I look like I speak ebonics?"  I guess he realizes at this point how ignorant he sounded so he had the shame to look apologetic and went on to explain that he likes it and he wants to learn, as if ebonics is a language you learn like you would learn chinese. And I'm like sorry I can't help you there maybe you can go and try to learn on the internet. I thought I was done with this ignorance, until he asked if D could speak it, and thats when I just had to cut this pointless conversation short.  I thought it was just interesting to note how 'unpolitically correct' people are outside of the U.S.  Its not like any of us project that kind of image that we are ebonic-speaking kind of people, D is this oreo-type girl, who went to culinary school, lived in France before and is very articulate in class. And I don't exactly think I come off as an ebonic-speaking kinda person. I figured he just wanted to talk to us and he thought something like that would break the ice and score him cool points...I don't know.  But I was definitely cracking up over that for about 10 mins into the lecture, and he's been looking really sheepish everytime I've spotted him since then.  LOL.  

Sooo just so you know, this will be a very interesting, eye-opening experience, in more ways than one.  Its culture shock many times over because although we are in France, my class is populated by so many different nationalities, I think its about 50% french and the rest are people from all over.  But I absolutely love it, and I'm glad I made the choice to do this. I'm learning so much about myself, the world, where we all come from, where we are all going, and where my place is in all of this.  So if I don't bore you, hopefully you'll join me as I continue on this journey...maybe not physically, but I intend to try my best to put a lot of what's happening into words on this blog.  Wish me bon voyage!