DATE: Friday, October 24, 1997              TAG: 9710240063

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: JENNIFER JACOBSON, COLLEGE CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

HELP! I'M AN AMERICAN STUDENT IN A FOREIGN LAND

Ever wonder what it's like to be a student in a foreign land? Jennifer Jacobson, a Virginia Beach native, can tell you. Jennifer is spending a semester at the University of Strasbourg in France. When she's not too busy studying and learning the language, she'll let us spend a few moments with her in the Alsatian region.

WHEN I STEPPED off the plane in Luxemburg, I flashed my passport to customs officials and gathered my bags. After 24 hours of flying and zero hours of sleep, I was not excited about spending a semester of college in France. And I was not alone: Other students with whom I had traveled also complained about the horrible airplane food, the turbulence we had endured, and our heavy bags we had to schlep to the bus that would take us to France.

For all our whining, we reached the bus, only to hear the driver eloquently say, ``Si vous en avez besoin de faire pipi ou caca, il faut mieux le faire ici a l'aeroport.'' In English, ``If you have to go to the bathroom, you'd better do it here in the airport.'' (Perhaps a little something is lost in the translation.)

Those were the first words I heard in the language I have been studying since high school - the language of love and high culture and at one time the language of kings.

My name is Jennifer Jacobson, and I am a displaced American. I miss my country and my culture, and I wonder what my friends are doing at Haverford College, a small liberal arts school sheltered in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Every day I ask myself why I came to Strasbourg, a city in the Alsatian region of France, near Germany. I'm an English major who is far from fluent in French. There are times, though, when I catch glimpses of the people and the city, which two countries have fought over for hundreds of years, and know that I've made the right decision.

I'm finally parlez-vous'ing without my college professor holding my trembling hand. French men and women bark at me when I fumble for the correct change. I can't pay for an item fast enough, and I'm always mistaking centimes for francs. (Centimes are to pennies as francs are to dollars.) They don't know that math is another foreign language I have yet to master.

As much as I complain about the random street vendor, the people here don't fit the stereotype of the French as cold, unfriendly souls. When I speak the language, their faces light up with hearty smiles.

Like Monsieur Neiss, my French literature professor at the University of Strasbourg, told the group of American students seated before him: To know a country one must understand its people, not just its monuments.

I am practicing what the theatrical man with thinning hair preached on that first day of class. With each word I make a sentence and with each sentence I make a friend. A language barrier that stands between a young American and the French people slowly is coming down. ILLUSTRATION: COURTESY OF JENNIFER JACOBSON

JENNIFER JACOBSON IS SPENDING A SEMESTER STUDYING IN FRANCE.

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