This thought donned on me as I walked to campus for my first class on Monday morning at 10am. Usually, for as long as I can remember at least, I’ve been the kind of kid that anxiously awaits the first day of school, so excited and nervous about the start of classes that I don’t really sleep the night before. Instead, I walked to class after a full night’s sleep, only just realizing that it was the first day of school. I wish my iPod would have turned out something particularly suited for the occasion, but alas it churned out techno, so I was at least pumped by the time I got to school.
I started my day with French syntax, which I luckily understood. Most of what we did was review from the intro linguistics course I had last year, but some of the differences in French sounds escape my ears. Hopefully I’ll become more attuned to the difference in sounds, but until then, I’ll content myself with practicing my phonetic transcription. Since French classes only meet once a week for the equivalent number of credit hours, I sat in linguistics for three hours before my hour break between classes. I met some of the girls at the café for a sandwich and coffee where we talked about our classes, and everyone seems to be faring well so far.
I walked into my second class about the modern form of the novel with Chelsea, and the professor was right in the middle of the lecture; he explained that he decided to move the start time of the class up an hour. I would have been irritated, except he was so enthusiastic and entertaining in lecture that I was just completely absorbed. I didn’t completely understand everything that he said, and I missed a number of jokes, but overall my comprehension was decent in that course as well. After class, since our program directors suggested introducing ourselves to our professors, so they might be able to help us with the language barrier, we went up to the professor and introduced ourselves. His response to the fact that we’re American? “Oh, well that’s not your fault.” Based on his jokes during lecture, I assume he was joking, but I’m not sure he was entirely. Interessant, non? Should be a good class, and I can’t imagine there’s any real prejudice, but it was interesting enough. Anyway.
After class, I went with Chelsea around to several different bookstores to try and find the books on the list, but it looks like we’ll be sharing for this first book, Pierrot mon ami, since we could only find one copy. The rest of the night was fairly quiet and I did some more work on my grad school applications before turning in.
Tuesday morning, I was more than ready to wake up and get out, because it was the first chance I’ve had since I’ve been here to go to the open market in town. I went to three different stands and got fresh green and red peppers, tomatoes, heads of lettuce, an avocado, clementines, pears, potatoes, and more that I can’t even remember, all for about 20 euro. When I came home, (I laid out my spoils and tried to take a picture with my webcam, but it didn’t save!) I put together a salad and made a sandwich with the fresh baguette I picked up for less than a euro on the way home. I haven’t had vegetables in so long, let alone fresh delicious ones that I cut up and put together myself!
Unfortunately I spent so long preparing my meal that I had to scarf it down in order to catch the bus to the other campus for my anthropology of the Maghreb (northern African and western part of the Middle East area-ish)course. Since majors are more strictly followed, without the general education course that we have in the states, the courses are held at separate buildings, so essentially different campuses. The Fac, where the literature and linguistic courses are held, is an older building with some cool graffiti everywhere, but it’s not really breathtaking or particularly special. This other place, however (I have yet to find/remember the name), is gorgeous. I went with one of the other girls, luckily, or else I probably would have gotten way lost. After waiting for fort minutes, the prof finally turned up; he thought class started half an hour later than it did, which still made him ten minutes late, but that seems about par for the course here. No one is really very concerned about time or in a rush. Still deciding if that’s a really awesome thing, or if I’m not such a fan.
After class on Tuesday, I came home to my still freshly stocked kitchen and caught up on more grad school app stuff. Carly and I made a run to Monoprix, the Kroger/Woolie’s-esque grocery store, for a few more apartment and food items. Once home, Carly and I made our first complete dinner in the apartment. The night’s menu: a salad with peppers and tomato, diced and fried potatoes, and crêpes with chicken, peppers, onion, tomato, and plenty of cheese. It was SO good!! After a mild food coma, I went out with Roz, Chelsea, and Carly. Tuesday seems to be a big going out night, since it’s apparently Ladies’ Night at most of the bars in town. Some of the girls had class, so we didn’t stay out late, and I was definitely thankful for that since the lectures have certainly been wearing me out.
Wednesday was a day of no classes, so I woke up with every intention of being super productive, except then I kind of failed at that a little bit. I was glued to my computer all morning, catching up on emails and giving my mom a list of things to do for my grad school apps since, surprise, there’s no online submission for any of my materials. Thanks, Mom, in advance for all the mailing and filing that’s going to be happening over the next week with all my applications. Seriously, it’s so appreciated! I also tried my hand at making an omelette, and while it wasn’t the prettiest thing I’ve made, it actually tasted ok. It’s so good being able to cook after about six months of not really having the opportunity to!
That afternoon, Roz and I met up to take care of more bank stuff and made our second stop at the gelato stand on Cours Mirabeau. I could get used to weekly/daily/hourly trips there. We strolled around the town eating our ice cream and talking about our courses before hitting up Book and Bar to do homework for a few hours. Luckily, I seem to only be taking one reading intensive course, and it’s going to be plenty to keep me busy during the week. I stayed basically until close that night and finally gave in and bought a French dictionary. Why I didn’t just bring mine from home is beyond me, but thank you Robert & Collins, you are a lifesaver.
The rest of the night was calm, even though our next-door neighbors, two German girls and a French girl, invited us over for a party they were having. I was still so exhausted that I ended up passing out early so I could wake up for my four hour class that started at 9am Thursday morning. Wow, was that painful. I was really looking forward to the class, Theater of the 1950s, and the texts we’ll be reading sound really interesting since they cover theater of the absurd, a bit of surrealism, and other movements that I know I like, but this woman straight read notes at us for four hours. The ten minute break in the middle went by so quickly, and when she tried to write names on the board, she realized there wasn’t chalk there (all the other professors have brought their own chalk and markers) and instead sat back down and continued reading, the search for a writing utensil apparently over. I may or may not follow through with that course, but there are a few other interesting theater courses that I might be able to try instead, so here’s to hoping!
On the way home from uni that afternoon, I stopped at the office to check my mail and received my second first letter from BRoy! I was so excited to receive mail, especially from my roomie, so I went straight home and wrote her back before my night class. Expect your response shortly, B.
That night, we had my favorite class so far, Oral Expression. The class is only offered to students in our program, and there’s no outside class work. The focus is on getting us to get used to talking. Held in a little theater, the prof told us we’ll be doing a lot of improve-type work and to get used to thinking on our feet. I’m terrified of speaking in front of big groups like this, so it’ll be really good for me, plus it’s another chance to get to speak more French. All good things!
I crashed fairly early again Thursday night, and woke back up for my second 9am class, Methodology of the University. From what I could gather from the first class, this course is basically meant to show us what the French university is like, down to what kind of paper we should have when turning in assignments and how to head our papers. It’s gotten a lot of groans from everyone so far and while it’s definitely not my favorite course so far, I’m hoping it’ll be useful in helping me avoid some teacher-student faux-pas in my other courses!
After class, I met with one of our advisers at the program to set up internet with Carly. Unfortunately, it could take up to four weeks to install! Believe me, once it does, I’ll be eating up Skype and posting more and more pictures to this blog. Right now, it could take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes to load a webpage, and at least 5 minutes per blog photo. But I’m being patient and will be all that more appreciative of Wifi (pronounced wee-fee in French, how cute!) once it’s installed here.
Roz came over after the meeting and we tried our collective hand at making an omelette for lunch. This one may have been even worse looking than the first, but it tasted pretty delicious if I do say so myself! Full of omelette, we marched over to the Office of Tourism to get information to plan our spring break to ITALY! We were distracted momentarily by all the advertisements for the shows playing in and around Aix. There are so many musicals coming up that I want to see, it’s unbelievable, but we decided to save that planning for another day. We walked up to the desk and asked for travel information, though the way I tried to pose the question may not have been so coherent. She stared back at us like we had four heads. We tried again, and she told us that they didn’t sell bus tickets, and circled where we needed to go on the map for that pass. After struggling through a few more questions, we found out that they don’t actually help with any international traveling at the office, nor do they sell bus tickets. I asked in the politest way I knew how what it was that they actually do there (except I felt more like one of the Bobs from Office Space asking the Jump to Conclusions guy, “So, what is it exactly, that you do here??”). Then she pulled out two maps marking all Cezanne’s houses and other Cézanne-historical places that you can see on a walking tour. The shows that we saw advertised all over in the entry way? Nope, they don’t actually book those either. Mission: unaccomplished.
So, we decided to resort to the internet to do our own booking and research. While Roz ran up in her building to get her computer, I looked at the maps, trying to figure out if people actually visited all 34 places on the Cézanne walking tour which, by the way, are in no particular order whatsoever: not numerically, not by year that Cézanne visited, not in order of importance to Cézanne, as far as I can tell. I was also having the worst time reading the captions and was feeling particularly awful about my French since the woman clearly couldn’t understand me, and now I couldn’t even read the map. Then I realized it was in Italian. Whoops.
Once back to my place, Roz and I set to work on planning our week-long Italian excursion and have so far booked a flight to Sicily, where we’ll stay a few days until our overnight ferry to Naples! Beyond that, we have some ideas and are super excited, but no concrete plans as of yet. More on that as it develops. Can’t wait till the end of February.
We parted for dinner and met back up to go out for Friday night. We hit O’Shannon’s first where we met Carly and some of the other girls. The three of us sat outside on the patio where two French guys asked to sit with us. Though slightly intimidated because of all the warnings we’ve been given, I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly these guys were. We sat talking with them for a few hours, talking about the states and some of our travels. After an hour or so, we girls decided we wanted to dance and told the boys we were leaving for one of the clubs, but we were stopped. Apparently, the boys always make the first move to leave, so we rewound a few steps. Then the boys told us they had decided to move on, but would show us their French dance moves at Le Skat (the club we said we were going to) later if we were going there too, and they left.
We didn’t see them later on, but met up with another group of French guys that some of the girls have gotten to know and danced for hours at Le Skat, where they play live music along with some music from a DJ. I lost it when they played Party Rock, and because they played my song, it turned out to be a pretty perfect night.
I woke up late Saturday and braved my first load of laundry in France. I packed up my little suitcase and went down the block to the laverie where I was thoroughly confused by the signs and instructions. After pressing the wall of buttons like some kind of monkey, I read the part that said to put your laundry in a numbered machine first and then deal with the money and buttons. So I did. Except I forgot our laundry soap, so I quickly paid for a cup of detergent and dumped it into the first slot I could find. I realized when I went back to dry my clothes a half hour later that I’d put the powder into the part for pre-washing. My clothes smell fine, so they definitely got washed, I just don’t know what I did. I ended up being 10 cents short to pay for a dryer, so I tossed my clothes into my bags and hung everything up on our drying rack here at the apartment. It’s been over 24 hours and most everything is still damp. Guess who’s going to start a change jar for laundry?
That afternoon, Carly, Roz, Chelsea, and I went to the kebab place for lunch since Roz and Chelsea had never had one. Just as delicious as always! We went to see The Artist afterward, my first French movie theater experience since I’ve been here! And what an amazing movie! I mean, wow. Filmed like a silent movie and set in the 1920s-30s, it’s so different from anything I’ve ever seen, and the orchestral music throughout was phenomenal. I also saw it’s one of Quenton Tarantino’s top 11 picks for 2011. Basically, go see it, like, right now.
We hung at my apartment and had a cup of tea before Roz and I went to a mixer-dinner organized by the yearlong students to help us meet everyone in the program. Called “Bienvenewbies” (bienvenu=welcome in French, plus newbies, get it? Hehe), we were served wine and tapas from this place just around the corner from my apartment called “Goût du Monde”. It’s owned by a guy and his wife who spent a year traveling the world, went to fifteen different countries, and decorated the restaurant and themed the food they serve accordingly. It was SUCH a cool place! And what a cute and fun business idea. I’d love to go back and talk to them, see where they went, and maybe get pointers for travel. Oh, and eat their delicious, worldly food, too.
Today, I woke up intending to get started on my 100+ pages of reading, but instead decided to catch up on my blog and make a Pinterest account. Probably about the worst time-wasting idea ever. But now I’m out of excuses to keep me from reading, so without further ado, here I go for my homework. Things coming up: I want to email my grandpa’s sister who lives in Toulouse, as well as some other extended family in Paris to try and plan a few weekend visits to see them (aha! Another procrastination tool…), more planning for Italy, and upcoming visits from friends made in Australia! Also on the to-do list this week is look into a soccer team. I miss the sport heaps, and with all this bread and cheese, I know I could use an excuse to exercise! I'm also looking into some English-French exchange/tutoring programs, including one where you tutor a family's kids one night a week, and then have dinner with them. With allthe home-stay people talking about their hosts' amazing French food, I've been so jealous and I'm super keen to try ratatouille, bouillabaisse, and pâté! More to come next time, and until then, I hope it’s been a good week for you guys, too.
Here and there,
Kiley
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