A former professor at my wife's institution who now works for the NSF dropped by her office after a talk.

[NNadir]

4. If I was younger, I'd go. It's funny because...

...there were discussions about me going to France to live for a year or two back in the 1990's.

It didn't pan out though for various reasons. (Compared to my son, my French sucks, I can get by speaking, but my comprehension is weak for spoken French.)

I really didn't want to go, but I'd push for it today if I were younger.

When my son was in high school, he decided to take French, which I thought was kind of useless, but boy was I wrong!

He likes the language - and other languages as well, he speaks several - and in fact, he won the "French Award" in high school as the best student.

After his Freshman year as an undergraduate, they sent him to France on an NSF grant and he did OK, so he's prepared certainly to get the fuck out of here.