The French Don't Doodle

FYI: that image was snagged off Google Images, but it's really close to my doodles. :-)

So, let's say you're in a 50-minute lecture. The professor is in front of the class blah-ing and blah-ing about something you could really care less about. You're there for the credits, right? As your mind begins to wander, so does your pen. It sneaks over to the margins of the paper you're taking your "notes" on and begins aimlessly drawing. Before you know it, you've got aliens, spaceships, holiday-themed drawings, your name in bubble letters 50 times over, flowers, hearts, faces, stick figures, drawings of people drawing people, the list goes on. I know I tend to gravitate toward aliens (no pun intended...oh, who am I kidding? pun intended!). Usually ones that look like your typical upside-down teardrop-shaped heads with those freaky giant black eyes that slant down. Then, I take it so far as to draw a spaceship, also your typical UFO, with a beam of light coming out of the bottom to bring the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" to life. I remember during class one time last year, I drew this very elaborate drawing with aliens and spaceships that almost took me the whole class period to complete (I did have 75 minutes, though). It was all kinds of awesome. I had written phrases and drawn aliens abducting humans and all sorts of stuff. I was really proud of that doodle. I even showed it to my friends after class.

Needless to say, I'm a doodler. A HUGE DOODLER. And that's just in classes that last 50 minutes. Think of the possibilities you would have in 90-minute lecture, a two-hour lecture, even a three-hour lecture! I'm telling you, those possibilities are endless. And here in France, I'm lucky enough to have classes that last that long. And usually, here's how it goes: I pay attention for 30 minutes, doodle for 30 minutes, nod off for 15, take notes for 30, doodle for 30, etc. Now, don't worry, I'm kind of exaggerating here, but you get the point. I'm a doodler.

And in my classes I've noticed one very strange thing: The French don't doodle. None of them. Not even a single one. I make it a point to sit by different people in my classes to peek at the way they write their notes. The French people are serious, oh, are they serious about note-taking. You'd think they were receiving grades based on their note-taking. They ALL carry little pencil cases, boys and girls alike. Those pencil cases are filled to the brim with pens in 15 different colors, styles, and shapes; they also carry around white-out like their lives depended on it and almost all of them have a ruler. Now, I found this quite strange during my first few classes here. At home, you're lucky to have one nub of a pencil or a leaky pen floating around in your backpack for note-taking. Hardly anyone is organized to a T like the French are when it comes to note-taking. At IU, I've seen a ton of kids just sit there, staring at the professor without writing a single word down. I've also seen the kids who are always fumbling for a writing utensil and then someone hands one over. Us Americans are just not that serious about note-taking. Don't get me wrong, I like to have good notes. I usually do the typical headings with bullet points. Not the French. They write down the title of the course, then they use a different color pen and get their ruler and perfectly underline it. Then, once the actual note-taking process begins, they write certain things down in one color and other things in another color. Among these notes a few perfect underlinings are thrown in just for good measure. If they accidentally cross an L instead of a T, you better believe they whip that white-out out before the teacher has even had time to move on to the next word.

With the seriousness of these French note-takers, it makes me question my own note-taking abilities. During the course of the class, I'll momentarily look down at my notes and look at the notes of the girl or boy next to me. Mine look like a heap of letters that may contain a few words somewhere in the middle while the Frenchie's notes are so pristine and precise I could glean a thesis for the whole class by glancing in the middle of the page. I'm serious, the French take note-taking as seriously as the class itself. Therefore, they don't doodle. Me, I'd rather have a jumbled page of notes I'll have to decipher at a later date along with cute little doodles around the corners. I think it gives it character. I'm not a cyborg that has been manufactured for note-taking, I'm a simple American girl with a wandering mind.