I made it through the first week of classes and came out just barely unscathed--as I sit here typing this post, I am battling a cold with the help of green tea and self-pity. I've mostly solved the mystery of my weekly schedule, which means now the work really begins. Classes in France meet only once a week, for the most part, which is bizarre to me. Even small-group literature classes that meet for an hour and a half only meet once a week, while stateside that would probably be a three-times-a-week deal. My host mother seems to think it's a downside of the French university system, and I might agree, but it's also great for abroad students.
Monday, I have literature, studying Les Miserables. It was a terribly difficult ordeal to find a copy of the book--especially for such a classic book and such a common print version, but I eventually found one. The class is a TD--a sort of smaller, discussion session based class and I'm already terrified, but I would really like to follow a literature class. After literature I go to ballet; an actual weekly university class, which is excellent, although my Balanchine arms are apparently too stiff here, and the teacher tells me to loosen up and enjoy myself almost every other minute. In the evening, I have Arab Civilizations, which I have not yet been to, but I will find tomorrow.
Last Tuesday, I searched for an Arabic translation class, which apparently doesn't exist, and so the only class I have is theater class through IES. That's a totally awesome course, involving improv, which I find more difficult in French (although it's difficult in English too), and yet a lot more freeing. Somehow, it's easier to be dramatic and make things up for me when I have to use French, from "red light, green light" to that improv exercise where you can't say "no." I'm happy there, so far.
Wednesday is the day I have the 8:30am European Union law class with the IES director that lasts for two and a half hours. This past session was mostly a review of my International Organizations class last semester at GW, but I think it will get more specific as it goes on. Bonus, there's no class on the Wednesday before my vacation weekend, so instead of a Thursday-Sunday vacation, I get a Wednesday-Sunday vacation so I'll have more time to go to Paris/go to Rennes/bother Jess and Leah in London. Last week, I also headed back over to La Perverie, the high school where I was studying when I stayed with Meije and took a ballet class before going to Danielle's daughter's house, where I met Danielle's granddaughters and their friends. This is another instance where I feel ballet benefits me immensely in a different country, because even though the girls I spent time with are French and ten to four years younger than me, we spent almost half an hour discussing and demonstrating the differences between the Paris Opera Ballet School's technique and my own Balanchine technique. Ballet is universal but not too universal--you can still find a lot to discuss between schools and countries.
Thursday I went to campus in search of my African history course only to find that history classes start next week, so I hopped back on the tram and did some shopping at H&M because some of my clothes are literally falling off of my body and that kind of stuff doesn't fly in France. The afternoon saw me in a course on "Palestine since 1945" that consisted of biblical history and an in-depth discussion of American presidents and their inauguration years and immense disappointment on the part of the teacher that no one knew when Lyndon B. Johnson was elected. I have since dropped that course and will instead be looking into the Latin American history class.
Still hemming and hawing on whether or not I want to do the internship for teaching. It would require me to not take my African and Latin American history courses, but it would also be a good experience, but I also don't like teaching, so we're sort of at an impasse. If I don't like the history classes, I'll do the internship, I suppose.
Fridays are free. Long weekends, here I come! This past Friday, IES organized a scavenger hunt around Nantes that really deserves to be part of the "weekend post" that I'm planning, just so you don't have to read immensely long posts.
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