It's always the little things

So schools been coming. The classes really are not that hard - I'm basically back into junior year. Here it's called cinqieme. I've covered the math, the science, the geography, and so on - but the language barrier brings the classes right up to my level. Being a math nerd that I am, math is one of the classes I look forward to - I don't have to worry about understanding French quite as much because so much of the classes is numbers. I understand the material and after a short refresher remember what exactly I need to do for most of the problems. But the other day was stuck - I couldn't figure out how one graph had two intersections on the x axis, at 2,5. I was sure the instructions (in French) we referring to one point, but then why were there two numbers - 2,5? I sat there, totally lost, and finally called the teacher over to explain it to me.

I swear, I really did know that in Europe, 2.5 is written with a comma. Two and a half is not two point five, it's 2,5. I knew that little detail, but the change hadn't really settled in to my mind, fixed itself as the new normal way to do something.


Let me assure you, I remember now.