Leigh Graves Wolf

When I got home this evening, I opened up Facebook and this post from my (incredible) high school French teacher Madame Moulin had (thankfully) risen to the top of my feed:

With out having to go to Google Translate – the post reads:

“This morning, my blog is in French.  It’s for all my old students who I miss so much. Read it, have fun, remember your (mistakes, nope, had to look it up) silliness from past years, correct my mistakes.  Fifi, who is cold.”

I followed the link to the post: http://www.the-write-note.blogspot.com/2014/01/je-suis-heureuse-et-reconnaissante-jai.html
You should follow the link too and read before continuing – if you don’t read/speak French, you can (and should) use Google Translate to get the gist of the message.

Just as Mme was paralysee de froideur – je suis plein de larmes.

To give you an idea of the profound impact my French class had on my life, you need to start in 1994.

(On a side note, the video was made in my TV Production class, which also had a profound effect on who I am today. I know I keep using the word profound, it truly was.)

Madame, or Fifi la Folle as she was lovingly known, instilled a deep passion and love for the language.  So deep, that though I never had the chance to travel to French speaking country until 2009, 15 years after graduating from Fifi’s class, I was able to communicate and function (fairly well) in business and social settings.

As I was searching for the link to the video above, I came across a post I wrote a few years ago, called Moments (please take a minute to read): http://www.leighgraveswolf.com/2011/06/30/moments/

Fifi, in your post to us you said:

Comme professeur, mon but n’était pas seulement enseigner une belle langue; c’était toucher les vies, créer des liaisons, apprendre de vous, mes élèves. Vous étiez mon prof, et vous me manquez.

Translation:

As a professor, it was not my goal to just teach a beautiful language, it was to touch lives, create connections, learn from you, my students. You were my teacher, and I miss you.

Fifi, I hope that you can see that you were there that day with me in Rouen, not just because I could order un verre de rosé after work, but in the way I approach my own teaching, learning, and sharing.  I am beyond grateful that I have the opportunity to share that with you here.  Merci infiniment for continuing to teach, learn and share.