Class, Nuits Blanches, Salon Zen...La Vie Parisienne!

Huge apologies for taking such a long time to post a blog about the week! It's just kind of been one things after another, but in a good way, I think. So here is what's about to be the longest post in the history of Blogger, I hope it doesn't become horrendously boring!!!

I guess I'll start with Wednesday, which was my first day of real classes. In the morning I had Grammaire du Texte, my only MICEFA class, with Michele Le Coadic (who I had in September, too) and honestly I think it'll be the hardest class. I mean, I don't even know what to call half the things we talked about, we're picking apart Rousseau and Dumas grammatically. Cecile and I tried to do the homework last night and failed at a good chunk of it...the Grammar Queen seems to have found a grammar that is a true challenge...anyway hopefully the class will progress and I'll start to understand more what exactly is going on. After the class I had to go pick up my student card from MICEFA (FINALLY!!!) Then I ran to Censier, where I have my European studies classes. The first one is 'La construction culturelle des identites nationales en Europe' and my professor is Svetla Moussakova, I think maybe she's originally Bulgarian. It should be an interesting class, she talked for a while about what it means to be in the 'European studies' program and then the bibliography, but I think overall it'll be a neat class. Actually there was an adventure beforehand because we didn't have a room, but eventually we sort of took one over. It's a huge class, and there are only about 10 French people - it's mostly other Europeans and one other MICEFA girl whose name I think is Kristen (who is also in Grammaire du Texte). The I had to kill 2 hours, I should have gone home...but I stayed on the campus and read, and I also called ILPGA to see about registering for the Finnish class, and the mean guy tried to tell me the class was really full and he wasn't sure if I could be in it, that I would have to go see the secretary first before going to class (even though class was at 8:30 in the morning on Thursday). So I was still freaking out about that class at that point, but I had to go to 'The EU and its nations, 1815-1914' which is taught by Professor Delauney, who tries to speak slowly but gets really excited about Clausewitz and Hegel and then...well let's just say note-taking is a real adventure in the class! But I think those Euro classes will both be really interesting!

Thursday morning I decided to go to the Finnish class anyway, even though I hadn't seen the secretary and the guy told me not to come, I really didn't want to miss the first class. We were all waiting outside for it to start, and then we went in and...they changed the time! Now it's on Friday afternoons at 2! At first I didn't know at all what to do, because of course I really, really wanted to take the course, but I'm supposed to be working on Friday afternoons. I decided to go ahead and register, and I called Mme Michel from Louis Issaurat - luckily she picked up the phone - and she told me to go ahead and register, that we'd fix the schedule so I can come in on Thursday mornings too. So I gave the secretary my student card, told her I only wanted to take the Finnish class, and she put me in there in 2 seconds, no problem. Thanks, mean dude. Oh well, at least I'm registered! Anyway then I had to go to my training for work, unfortunately I got there almost on time. Gosh, it was pretty much the most useless thing I've done in a long time. It was done by two English teachers, the guy was nice enough but I didn't really like the lady. They just kind of lectured to us about how we should teach, so I didn't find it very useful, and no one could really pay attention...they sort of tried to have us work in groups but couldn't agree on what we should do, so they just didn't. They also asked us what 'authentic' stuff we brought...one girl said she brought stuff she had gotten from a teaching store, and they said that wasn't authentic...and I said I brought children's books and they told me French students don't read aloud, that is completely useless, did you read aloud when you were in school? And I said, why, yes, we read aloud through high school. Thankfully some other kids came to my rescue and said they had seen kids doing it in their schools here, and the lady got mad because 'they're not supposed to be doing that' - thanks, lady, becaues you run the world. And what they consider 'authentic' is worksheets with maps of the UK 'Patrick is from Northern Ireland, color in the shamrock and paste it on his shirt.' (not kidding). I'm supposed to go to another one but it's on a Friday at the same time as my Finnish class, so I really can't go to it...I might even lie and say I have a test...

Thursday night I had my History of Rock class, I think it's really going to be cool. I'm pretty sure I might be the only American in it, which is cool, the professor is Olivier Julien and he's a little dude who apparently knows a lot about music. We are going to focus on music in the 50s and on, and more how 'musique populaire' (which isn't popular music, it's more like 'grassroots' music) influenced mainstream culture and the mainstream music industry. We're only going to talk about the US and the UK, and last class we talked mostly about jazz and R&B and 'country-western' music from the 50s in the US, I think this week is going to be some more about mainstream stuff because 1954 is when Elvis Presley signed to Sun Records, and we're talking about record labels and everything too. The only problem for the class is that I can't understand the English words he says...like when he was talking about 1954 I totally didn't have a clue he was talking about Elvis, I had to read it on someone else's paper!!!!

Friday I went over to Creteil again to go to Louis Issaurat, and it really went well. I only had two classes, but I was so impressed by both of them. One was a 6eme with Aude Schaller (she's really young!) and they were so well behaved, and while they didn't know much, they were excited to have me there. They were also REALLY well behaved, they actually listened when she said to be quiet...anyway then I had 2 hours free, but I met with Mme Michel and we went all over and met important people and made my schedule for Thursday mornings and everything. Then I went to class with Mme Philippeau, who for some reason I thought might be kind of a push-over, but man, that was the best class I've seen yet. They were SO well-behaved, and the way they interacted was really awesome. They had English 'names' like we used to do in French class, and when someone said something wrong the other students corrected it, but they ALL participated, except for one kid. I was really amazed, they really knew what was going on and what was being asked of them, instead of usually when you feel like half the class is fine but the other half has no clue what's going on. I am really looking forward to working with them, and also to Thursday when I get to meet the other classes at Louis Issaurat.

I was so exhausted by Friday, but I had made plans to hang out with Elly and Cecile, so they came over with Hannah (Elly's roommate) and we made 'Mexican' food... we used red beans and some kind of Dutch cheese, but it turned out great! We had beans, corn, green pepper, I made rice, we had some guacamole and really the WORST salsa I've ever had in my life, but it was really nice. Then we watched the end of Stick It, which I had started with Elly, and we drank a bunch of wine (now I have like 4 bottles on my counter because I haven't recycled them yet, let's just hope no one from ACCENT comes by!). I'm glad they came, we had a nice time, even if I was really tired.

On Saturday Sasha asked me to come to Defense, but since I was kind of just there and I really wasn't feeling great by Friday night I decided to sleep in instead, since Anne had already invited me to dinner. So I slept late Saturday and spent the afternoon on the phone, really, and then I went to Anne's at 8. I took them some flowers because I keep going over there for dinner empty-handed, I got some chamomiles and some purple stuff, it was really pretty. Jean-Francois and his really cool friend Ariane came, we had pasta and really nice pear cake, it was great. Then we went to the Tuileries to meet Greg's friend Sophie, who's an art student somewhere in Paris. I discovered that Ariane is a HUGE Radiohead fan, so we basically talked about how amazing Radiohead is all night, Apparently she went to Oxford and saw his house, she said she'd give me the address. :-) It was really cool to walk around there, I mean there were a ton of people but some artist had set up all these clay pots (like for potted plants) and they all had fire in them (good thing Mom and Allie weren't there!) and they were in huge balls or arcs all around the edges of the gardens. It was so beautiful reflecting in all the ponds throughout the walk from Concorde to Louvre. Then unfortunately Jean Francois and Ariane had to go because they had to take the RER, but we were walking to the Marais and came upon some exhibition where an artist had taken photos of bodybuilders and put old people's faces on them, as a commentary on people wanting to stay young...it was really awesome, also because it was projected onto a church. In fact most of the churches were part of art exhibits, later in the Marais there was another one...so we watched that for a while, and then we went for a drink in the Marais. It was cool because the whole way there we just kept coming across different things, people playing drums, art stuff, whatever. We tried to take the Noctilien back to Bastille from there, but it never came, so we ended up walking (me, Anne, and Greg) which wasn't really bad, but it was 3 a.m. before I got back. Needless to say I slept till 10 before I went to Mme Bluteau's on Sunday!

So Sunday I went to Champigny-sur-Marne for lunch with Mme Bluteau (from Victor Hugo), she lives there with her 2 sons, Etienne (12, I think) and Adrien (15). It's really, nice, she think it's too far from Paris, but it's right next to the Marne (hence...sur-Marne) and there are a lot of really cute houses, really typically French. It was a great meal, we had an aperitif (yes, for lunch!) and she made ratatouille (apparently the first choice when it comes to cooking for vegetarians! I'm actually enjoying it, though, even with eggplant. It's all so mixed together...) and we had quetche tart for dessert. I think it took 3 hours for all that, then we walked around the Marne for an hour, which was really pretty, and then we had tea. Either way, she didn't take me back to the RER till 6 p.m.! It was really nice to get to know her outside of school, she's really a nice and interesting person. We spoke mostly French but also some English when we were talking about some English language things. It was good for me to talk with Adrien a little, and to hear him talk (Etienne's really shy, he didn't say much), because he speaks a really 'young' French, it was cool. They were both really excited about France beating New Zealand on Saturday night (everyone pretty much just drove through the city honking for joy...), and it's cool because Mme Bluteau's into it too. She also let me borrow some French novels, and when I go home for Christmas, I'm going to get a few for her in English. It was really nice of her to have me over, I'm glad I got to know her better.

Then Cecile came and we failed at much of our homework...but it was fun anyway, we did well on some of it. Then today I ended up going with Anne and Jean Francois to this 'Salon Zen' thing, it was like a huge conference for 'zen,' so there was information about yoga, health, natural stuff, organic food, that kind of thing. We were there for a long time, but it was so interesting. I got a plant that grows without water or dirt, it's magic and it kind of looks like a wacky mohawk. I also got some essential oils because, well, they smell amazing. I got lavendar and rosemary, they do sort of the opposite thing. Rosemary's supposed to help you focus when you study, and of course lavendar is there to relax you. But I already used a little of the rosemary today when I got back and kind of had a lot to do for tomorrow, and I think it might have helped. We also ate lunch there, I had a sandwich thing with spinach, lentils, and feta, it was on a flat bread with sesame seeds, all organic and really yummy. We also met this lady how made butters, like almond butter, but also quinoa butter, which was so amazingly interesting. I wasn't sure if I'd eat a whole jar of it, though. Also, we sat down for a long time with the essential oils lady, so I got to learn a lot about a looot of different scents. And it was really neat practice for my French, talking to a bunch of zen hippy ladies, really. Actually it was funny because it was really very hippy, but of course not like a hippy crowd in the US, it was a very well-dressed, Parisian hippy crowd. Anyway while it took up most of my day when I should have been studying, it was a really awesome time and of course it's so fun to hang out with Anne and Jean Francois. So now I'm going to go read for a few hours. Next time I won't wait a whole week to write a post!