Censier is OPEN! This means that we have class this week, and they're going to push our exams back a week or two so we have extra time to study. Woo (I guess)! Though my one European studies class seems to have gone kaput, the professor didn't even show up today and she already gave us some other work to do for the grade instead. At least I've got my other two classes!
I'm still planning on switching schools next semester, I might go to see Paris 12 (in Creteil) tomorrow if I have time. But at least I'll get grades for this semester, yay!
19 December 2007
16 December 2007
one more week!
Since I've only got one more week till I get to go home (YAY!) I figured I should probably give one more quick update about what's been going on here. Well, my school is closed now, not just blocked, and I'm not sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure there are no exams this year...or something. Tomorrow my independent study is due, so I'm going in to talk to MICEFA about everything. I'm looking at going to the university in Creteil next semester and taking history classes. They have some pretty interesting ones, so as long as I can get that to work out with my work schedule, I'll be good to go.
Germany was amazing, it would take forever to list all the details here, but I really had a wonderful time. Aachen is a really fun city, and Monschau was really easy to get to. The Christmas markets are really just sort of big parties with lots of food and lots of warm wine. Unfortunately it rained all weekend long, which was sort of a disappointment because being outside and wet for many hours isn't great fun. Luckily there were no other major mishaps, and it was definitely a relaxing weekend, though I was pretty tired when I got back to Paris at 10 at night on Monday...
The week went normally, I got to see Faima on Saturday, which was nice but we went shopping at La Defense and it was just insane...there were so many people, and her friend was there with her baby, so it was really slow going and I was exhausted by the end of the day. Luckily I got some cool presents...then Cory came over last night a little bit. On Thursday we hung out, and we thought there was a concert at Notre Dame, but it was really just the telling of the Christmas story...some other MICEFA kids were there but they were all drunk (surprise surprise) so we left to get hot chocolate. We went to this place right next to the Finnish institute and I saw my Finnish professor through the window! So weird. On Friday we took Cecile to lunch as a little going away party, and we went to this excellent cous cous place that had the best mint tea EVER.
Today I was supposed to go to have dinner at one of my teacher's houses (one of the English teachers from Creteil) but her dad is there and apparently he's quite old and tired today, so she cancelled...so I'm probably going to go ice skating with Cory instead! Yay! Otherwise nothing too exciting has happened, I'm ready to get this school stuff worked out and to go home!!!!
Germany was amazing, it would take forever to list all the details here, but I really had a wonderful time. Aachen is a really fun city, and Monschau was really easy to get to. The Christmas markets are really just sort of big parties with lots of food and lots of warm wine. Unfortunately it rained all weekend long, which was sort of a disappointment because being outside and wet for many hours isn't great fun. Luckily there were no other major mishaps, and it was definitely a relaxing weekend, though I was pretty tired when I got back to Paris at 10 at night on Monday...
The week went normally, I got to see Faima on Saturday, which was nice but we went shopping at La Defense and it was just insane...there were so many people, and her friend was there with her baby, so it was really slow going and I was exhausted by the end of the day. Luckily I got some cool presents...then Cory came over last night a little bit. On Thursday we hung out, and we thought there was a concert at Notre Dame, but it was really just the telling of the Christmas story...some other MICEFA kids were there but they were all drunk (surprise surprise) so we left to get hot chocolate. We went to this place right next to the Finnish institute and I saw my Finnish professor through the window! So weird. On Friday we took Cecile to lunch as a little going away party, and we went to this excellent cous cous place that had the best mint tea EVER.
Today I was supposed to go to have dinner at one of my teacher's houses (one of the English teachers from Creteil) but her dad is there and apparently he's quite old and tired today, so she cancelled...so I'm probably going to go ice skating with Cory instead! Yay! Otherwise nothing too exciting has happened, I'm ready to get this school stuff worked out and to go home!!!!
07 December 2007
So I'm a fascist now...
I thought I should probably write another post about this week before going on my crazy adventure in Germany this weekend. Tuesday was a little ridiculous, we were supposed to start making up the time we missed for one of my European studies classes, but then of course the students voted to reblock during the AG on Tuesday afternoon (I was in Creteil, of course, and couldn't go) so nothing. I went to Finnish movies instead, which was great and I saw a great film called 'No Man is an Island' which is about the director's father who lives alone on an island, and it was really well made and absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately that's the last Finnish movie of the season, so now I have to wait till spring to go again.
Wednesday was equally as ridiculous. When I was at Censier on Tuesday, I saw two girls from my class and they told me to come back for class on Wednesday to see if we could de-block the school. So I went with Kristen from MICEFA and Tytti, and there were probably 40 or so people there as well as our professor. We all got in a group, some girls thought we could probably force our way in because we had so many people and there weren't that many blockers, but the professor said no so that no one would get hurt. We all walked up to the school and said we wanted to go in, which was when all the blockers started calling us fascists. The professor went in, I'm assuming it was to see if it was possible to get a room, but when he came back out they started calling us fascists again and said he was a 'con' (which is a not nice way to call someone stupid) and began to argue with the professor in the most disrespectful way I've ever seen! All of the students were yelling at him, and some crazy professor too, it was ridiculous. But the prof's reaction was great...when they said we were fascists, he was just like, 'Fascists were groups that developed in the 20s and 30s after World War I in Europe, not students that want to go to school.' Either way, several people came around and tried to explain to us stupid folks who can't understand the blockage cause geez, if we just understood then we wouldn't be trying to go to class, but they annoy me so much because they just talk to us like we don't know what's going on, when just about all of us have gone to AG's and have read up and definitely do know what's going on. So that was unsuccessful. and we didn't have class.
Thursday I went to work and it was nice, I had some new kids and they weren't bad, they were really, really excited to talk to me. Thursday afternoon I went to a Conseil de classe, which is something they do every trimester to tell the kids how they're doing. It was really interesting, especially since it's a class that I have and that I like, it was neat to see how they do in other classes and what they do to the bad kids.
On Thursday night I went to a Finnish independence day party! It was at Roosa's, she's Tytti's friend and she's in the European studies master program. It was so fun, we watched the ball on some internet station (there's always a big ball at the presidential palace and all the important people in Finland go and talk about how much they love Finland) and we ate some Finnish food and Tytti and Roosa sang songs in Finnish. They were the only two Finns, there were 2 French guys, three German guys, and a Ukrainian girl, so it was pretty interesting. I even spoke a little Finnish with Tytti and Roosa, which was so fun! and I figured it was good practice for my exam today.
I had my Finnish exam, it went well, I made one mistake for sure but the rest was good. Now I've just been getting ready to leave this weekend! I'll definitely post again next week when I get the chance!
Wednesday was equally as ridiculous. When I was at Censier on Tuesday, I saw two girls from my class and they told me to come back for class on Wednesday to see if we could de-block the school. So I went with Kristen from MICEFA and Tytti, and there were probably 40 or so people there as well as our professor. We all got in a group, some girls thought we could probably force our way in because we had so many people and there weren't that many blockers, but the professor said no so that no one would get hurt. We all walked up to the school and said we wanted to go in, which was when all the blockers started calling us fascists. The professor went in, I'm assuming it was to see if it was possible to get a room, but when he came back out they started calling us fascists again and said he was a 'con' (which is a not nice way to call someone stupid) and began to argue with the professor in the most disrespectful way I've ever seen! All of the students were yelling at him, and some crazy professor too, it was ridiculous. But the prof's reaction was great...when they said we were fascists, he was just like, 'Fascists were groups that developed in the 20s and 30s after World War I in Europe, not students that want to go to school.' Either way, several people came around and tried to explain to us stupid folks who can't understand the blockage cause geez, if we just understood then we wouldn't be trying to go to class, but they annoy me so much because they just talk to us like we don't know what's going on, when just about all of us have gone to AG's and have read up and definitely do know what's going on. So that was unsuccessful. and we didn't have class.
Thursday I went to work and it was nice, I had some new kids and they weren't bad, they were really, really excited to talk to me. Thursday afternoon I went to a Conseil de classe, which is something they do every trimester to tell the kids how they're doing. It was really interesting, especially since it's a class that I have and that I like, it was neat to see how they do in other classes and what they do to the bad kids.
On Thursday night I went to a Finnish independence day party! It was at Roosa's, she's Tytti's friend and she's in the European studies master program. It was so fun, we watched the ball on some internet station (there's always a big ball at the presidential palace and all the important people in Finland go and talk about how much they love Finland) and we ate some Finnish food and Tytti and Roosa sang songs in Finnish. They were the only two Finns, there were 2 French guys, three German guys, and a Ukrainian girl, so it was pretty interesting. I even spoke a little Finnish with Tytti and Roosa, which was so fun! and I figured it was good practice for my exam today.
I had my Finnish exam, it went well, I made one mistake for sure but the rest was good. Now I've just been getting ready to leave this weekend! I'll definitely post again next week when I get the chance!
03 December 2007
Train toilets, mummies, and a carte de sejour!
It's really been a long time since i posted last, and a ton has happened since then, too! Most importantly, it's December and there's less that three weeks till I go home!!!!! Technically (well, according to the student mobilization website, I don't know if that's 'technical' or not) my school is still blocked, but on Thursday there was a secret ballot vote that the president called for - most people (students, professors, workers...) boycotted it because the General Assemblies rejected a secret ballot vote three times, so only about 3,000 people voted (out of a lot more, I can't remember how many), but of course they voted to de-block! But I haven't been back since Thursday night, when they were having a little protest in front of the school against the vote, and there was no class. Thursday afternoon there was an enormous student protest at Bastille, I saw it on my way over to Censier after work. Hopefully I'll find out something more today and maybe will have class on Wednesday...
There doesn't seem to have been any more protests in the suburbs, but evidently they're trying to tighten security around the schools in Creteil...I guess we'll see where that goes! Hopefully things stay calm.
On Friday I went to Anne's for dinner, which was nice. We were going to go out afterward but then we were both tired and feeling lazy so we just hung out and talked for a while. It's going to suck not seeing her for two weeks! It's so weird still, though, because the first time we met, I was with her for about 2 months straight, and then I didn't see her again for 5 years, and now I see her almost every week! It's awesome, but still kind of weird to have a sort of 'normal' friendship ; I've always considered her one of my best friends but we've never had this kind of a seeing-each-other-all-the-time friendship! Hopefully we'll get to go to Orleans soon, too!
Saturday I went to Amiens with Sasha, it was a really fun day! We left at 8 in the morning and didn't get back until 7 p.m., so it was a bit long, but I had fun. The train had Hogwarts Express-style compartments, which was awesome, and I used the train toilet for the first time - there's no flush, it's just a hole...you can watch the ground rushing by if you like...it's only a little cold...also it's not like on an airplane where there's not usually too much motion...I almost fell several times! Anyway we got into Amiens at 9, and we went to the tourist office and got a map and figured out what to do. We went to the cathedral first, it's the tallest Gothic cathedral in France, or something, and it's from the 13th century. The outside is beautiful, but I have to say that overall the cathedral at Chartres was much more stunning. There weren't as many windows or little chapels inside, and outside the architecture was not very exciting, compared to Chartres. The labyrinth inside was really cool, though, and actually the floor overall was really interesting. After that we decided to go to the Musee de Picardie (Picardie is the region that Amiens is in) , which was by far one of the best museums I've ever seen. There was a whole archeology section, and I got to see a MUMMY!!!! It was AMAZING. There were sections about ancient Egypt, Greece, the Gauls, the Romans (Amiens used to be a Gallo-Roman town) - apparently the Romans were into glasswork! So they had all kinds of cool glass, as well as stuff from the old baths and another dead guy, this time the skeleton of a warrior and all the stuff he was buried with. Then there were a painting galleries and a lot of sculptures, which were so awesome because you could walk up literally right next to them, I almost touched a few because I wanted to know what the marble felt like...but I was really good! Anyway it was just one of those great museums where there's enough of a variety that it's really interesting, but there's not too much stuff that it's overwhelming.
After the museum, we walked around the Christmas market for a while (apparently this is becoming popular in France in all the major cities) , and I had a hot-off-the-grill Liegeois waffle for lunch (the best kind of waffle there is...mmm...). It was a cute market, there was a lot of kind of random stuff but it was nice. In the morning there weren't too many people, but by the afternoon and before we left it was so packed, I couldn't really handle it...anyway we moved on to the Quartier St Leu, which is pegged in the city's brochures as 'The Venice of the North,' it's a little neighborhood that's built around whole bunch of canals. The houses are mostly older, some are half-timbered style, and it's really, really cute. We walked around there for quite a while, and then we went to the Parc St Pierre, which is a really big park on the edge of the town. Normally in the summer they have this thing called 'Les Hortillonnages,' floating gardens, and you can take boats all through the rivers and canals and see the gardens. Of course now it was just muddy and cold, but we saw the boats and walked around the lake a little. It was very nice, even if it did almost start to rain and begin to get really, really cold. I got so tired, too, I'm not sure if Sasha still had energy, but we were just killing time in stores before going to the train station, and I couldn't do that for very long. So we ended up sitting in the train station for an hour, which was fine and a little warm, but we got on the train as soon as possible and I think I even fell asleep on the way back. So overall it was a nice day, I'm really glad we went!
On Sunday I went to the Musee du Quai Branly with Mme Bluteau from Victor Hugo. It's the museum that Chirac dedicated a few years ago, it's sort of a 'civilisations of the world' type of museum. It's really huge, though, and strangely set up so that there are a million different artifacts that are all really interesting, but there's almost no information about them. Also, it's really hard to read the descriptions of each thing because all the text will be on one tiny plaque on one side for an entire case of artifacts. While the stuff they had was awesome, I really didn't learn anything at all, which was disappointing. Luckily, because it was the first Sunday of the month, it was free, so I didn't waste any money. Afterward it was absolutely pouring rain and really windy, we got lunch in a cafe near there and then headed back to Gare de Lyon. Then I did a little homework and had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which was perfect!
Today I went to the Prefecture and I got my carte de sejour! I can legally live here until April, yay! No hassle, almost no waiting, it was a very atypical visit to the Prefecture. I'm kind of glad that's all over and done with now, I have to say... Now I'm all set to go to Germany this weekend! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I can't believe that after this weekend I'll have been to Germany as many times as I've been to France! I need to practice my German...
I have my Finnish exam Friday! Why am I so excited...?
There doesn't seem to have been any more protests in the suburbs, but evidently they're trying to tighten security around the schools in Creteil...I guess we'll see where that goes! Hopefully things stay calm.
On Friday I went to Anne's for dinner, which was nice. We were going to go out afterward but then we were both tired and feeling lazy so we just hung out and talked for a while. It's going to suck not seeing her for two weeks! It's so weird still, though, because the first time we met, I was with her for about 2 months straight, and then I didn't see her again for 5 years, and now I see her almost every week! It's awesome, but still kind of weird to have a sort of 'normal' friendship ; I've always considered her one of my best friends but we've never had this kind of a seeing-each-other-all-the-time friendship! Hopefully we'll get to go to Orleans soon, too!
Saturday I went to Amiens with Sasha, it was a really fun day! We left at 8 in the morning and didn't get back until 7 p.m., so it was a bit long, but I had fun. The train had Hogwarts Express-style compartments, which was awesome, and I used the train toilet for the first time - there's no flush, it's just a hole...you can watch the ground rushing by if you like...it's only a little cold...also it's not like on an airplane where there's not usually too much motion...I almost fell several times! Anyway we got into Amiens at 9, and we went to the tourist office and got a map and figured out what to do. We went to the cathedral first, it's the tallest Gothic cathedral in France, or something, and it's from the 13th century. The outside is beautiful, but I have to say that overall the cathedral at Chartres was much more stunning. There weren't as many windows or little chapels inside, and outside the architecture was not very exciting, compared to Chartres. The labyrinth inside was really cool, though, and actually the floor overall was really interesting. After that we decided to go to the Musee de Picardie (Picardie is the region that Amiens is in) , which was by far one of the best museums I've ever seen. There was a whole archeology section, and I got to see a MUMMY!!!! It was AMAZING. There were sections about ancient Egypt, Greece, the Gauls, the Romans (Amiens used to be a Gallo-Roman town) - apparently the Romans were into glasswork! So they had all kinds of cool glass, as well as stuff from the old baths and another dead guy, this time the skeleton of a warrior and all the stuff he was buried with. Then there were a painting galleries and a lot of sculptures, which were so awesome because you could walk up literally right next to them, I almost touched a few because I wanted to know what the marble felt like...but I was really good! Anyway it was just one of those great museums where there's enough of a variety that it's really interesting, but there's not too much stuff that it's overwhelming.
After the museum, we walked around the Christmas market for a while (apparently this is becoming popular in France in all the major cities) , and I had a hot-off-the-grill Liegeois waffle for lunch (the best kind of waffle there is...mmm...). It was a cute market, there was a lot of kind of random stuff but it was nice. In the morning there weren't too many people, but by the afternoon and before we left it was so packed, I couldn't really handle it...anyway we moved on to the Quartier St Leu, which is pegged in the city's brochures as 'The Venice of the North,' it's a little neighborhood that's built around whole bunch of canals. The houses are mostly older, some are half-timbered style, and it's really, really cute. We walked around there for quite a while, and then we went to the Parc St Pierre, which is a really big park on the edge of the town. Normally in the summer they have this thing called 'Les Hortillonnages,' floating gardens, and you can take boats all through the rivers and canals and see the gardens. Of course now it was just muddy and cold, but we saw the boats and walked around the lake a little. It was very nice, even if it did almost start to rain and begin to get really, really cold. I got so tired, too, I'm not sure if Sasha still had energy, but we were just killing time in stores before going to the train station, and I couldn't do that for very long. So we ended up sitting in the train station for an hour, which was fine and a little warm, but we got on the train as soon as possible and I think I even fell asleep on the way back. So overall it was a nice day, I'm really glad we went!
On Sunday I went to the Musee du Quai Branly with Mme Bluteau from Victor Hugo. It's the museum that Chirac dedicated a few years ago, it's sort of a 'civilisations of the world' type of museum. It's really huge, though, and strangely set up so that there are a million different artifacts that are all really interesting, but there's almost no information about them. Also, it's really hard to read the descriptions of each thing because all the text will be on one tiny plaque on one side for an entire case of artifacts. While the stuff they had was awesome, I really didn't learn anything at all, which was disappointing. Luckily, because it was the first Sunday of the month, it was free, so I didn't waste any money. Afterward it was absolutely pouring rain and really windy, we got lunch in a cafe near there and then headed back to Gare de Lyon. Then I did a little homework and had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which was perfect!
Today I went to the Prefecture and I got my carte de sejour! I can legally live here until April, yay! No hassle, almost no waiting, it was a very atypical visit to the Prefecture. I'm kind of glad that's all over and done with now, I have to say... Now I'm all set to go to Germany this weekend! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I can't believe that after this weekend I'll have been to Germany as many times as I've been to France! I need to practice my German...
I have my Finnish exam Friday! Why am I so excited...?
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