I'm not dead yet!
I know I haven't updated in FOREVER. I just haven't been able to really think of anything worth posting about. My life has more or less settled into a routine. It mostly revolves around classes and trying to unwind after said classes. Here's a brief rundown of my schedule:
Monday: Techniques de la Traduction: My class with Francois, my advisor. One hour a week, 9:15 am. Mostly just learning vocab, but freakin' hard. I had a test last week and I think I only got an 8/20. 'Course there were 850+ words to learn and he only quizzed us on 20 of them, but still... The rest of the day is mine to do with as I please. I usually go on an adventure to find all the food I forgot to buy over the weekend. And I get a nap. Yay naps.
Tuesday: Day of hell. 1hr 200+person lecture on Modern French Lit. Just finished with Surrealism and moving on to Marguerite Yourcenar. 1 hour break. Not enough time to go back to the dorm, I usually get lunch here. 1hr Theme class. French to English translation. I really like my teacher. His name's Morfee. It makes me laugh. I'm learning a lot of Britishisms in this class. Then another hour break. I usually do my Theme and Theme Media work. Or get coffee. Then an hour of Theme Media. The difference between the 2 is one is a 2nd year class translating books, the other is a 3rd year class translating news articles, mostly relating to politics. This is with a different teacher, a lovely old British man. He's quite nice and isn't going to make me take the final exam I think. Then 2 hours of TD for French Lit. I want to shoot myself by this time. It's just been a very long day, although the teacher for this class is quite entertaining. He flails a lot and somehow, his flailing makes things clearer. It makes no sense, but there you go. At 5:45pm I'm finally done and drag myself back to the dorms to chill out. This usually involves some wine and a movie/tv and dinner.
Wednesday: My lazy day. I don't have class until 1:30, so I usually try to sleep in. But since my room faces vaguely East-ish, the sun comes in and wakes me up anyways. My 2 classes are Civilisation Celtique and Cirefe. I think I've written a bit about Celt. Civ. Namely the fact that the teacher is a linguistic hobbit. This class frustrates me a bit. I find it all quite interesting and I have upwards of 25 pages of notes already, but I can't figure out what I've learned so far. If he were to give us an exam, I honestly have no clue what it would be on. I'll keep y'all updated on that one... Then there's Cirefe. That's my "I'm a foreign student who doesn't know French" class. Wednesdays is the written aspect. I like the classes, but I hate the fact that they're from 6-8 at night. It's just too late for class. By 7 pretty much everyone is just staring out the window with a blank look on their face. There is however a cute German boy in my class who I'm hoping to get to know better. Again, I'll keep you updated. Maybe.
Thursday: Same classes as Wednesday, but at different times. Civ. is at 9am, but Cirefe is still at 6pm. So I feel like I've been in class all day, despite the fact that I had a 7 hour break in between the 2. I've taken to using that time to head down to the Funky Munky and just chill out, drink some coffee, and do some work. It gets me out of my room for a while, which is really nice. It has also cemented my "regular" status there.
Friday: A cleaning day. Or a lazy day. Or an adventure day. I've recently discovered another Marche practically on Villejean campus (where I live), so I think I'll start going there Friday mornings.
Saturday: MARCHE!!!! Yay. After the Marche early0ish in the morning, then it's off to Geant or Carrefour or wherever to get the non-marche ingredients for my meals for the week. For some reason, this usually takes up most of the day. I'm not sure how though.
Sunday: My other cleaning day. I've been mostly just staying in my room, but come Monday I just want to get out, so I'm going to start taking walks more for amusement than exercise. There's a cemetery I want to check out. Which sounds morbid, but all the cemeteries I've seen in France have large headstones and statues and sepultures. I find that so fascinating and pretty, in a morbid sort of way. I'm also the girl who was fascinated by the Catacombs... I'm just so used to the cemetery where most of my family is buried, where they only allow flat headstones. So it looks like just a giant field or park, not a cemetery. Last week I discovered areas of Rennes I've never seen before. And a delicious Indian restaurant where I WILL be going again. So much delicious food for such a reasonable price and the waiter shook my hand when I was leaving. It was cute.
So that's basically my life, with slight variations from week to week.
COMING SOON: My trip to Paris!!
*EDIT* I'm going to Ireland in January!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, you have no idea.
Monday: Techniques de la Traduction: My class with Francois, my advisor. One hour a week, 9:15 am. Mostly just learning vocab, but freakin' hard. I had a test last week and I think I only got an 8/20. 'Course there were 850+ words to learn and he only quizzed us on 20 of them, but still... The rest of the day is mine to do with as I please. I usually go on an adventure to find all the food I forgot to buy over the weekend. And I get a nap. Yay naps.
Tuesday: Day of hell. 1hr 200+person lecture on Modern French Lit. Just finished with Surrealism and moving on to Marguerite Yourcenar. 1 hour break. Not enough time to go back to the dorm, I usually get lunch here. 1hr Theme class. French to English translation. I really like my teacher. His name's Morfee. It makes me laugh. I'm learning a lot of Britishisms in this class. Then another hour break. I usually do my Theme and Theme Media work. Or get coffee. Then an hour of Theme Media. The difference between the 2 is one is a 2nd year class translating books, the other is a 3rd year class translating news articles, mostly relating to politics. This is with a different teacher, a lovely old British man. He's quite nice and isn't going to make me take the final exam I think. Then 2 hours of TD for French Lit. I want to shoot myself by this time. It's just been a very long day, although the teacher for this class is quite entertaining. He flails a lot and somehow, his flailing makes things clearer. It makes no sense, but there you go. At 5:45pm I'm finally done and drag myself back to the dorms to chill out. This usually involves some wine and a movie/tv and dinner.
Wednesday: My lazy day. I don't have class until 1:30, so I usually try to sleep in. But since my room faces vaguely East-ish, the sun comes in and wakes me up anyways. My 2 classes are Civilisation Celtique and Cirefe. I think I've written a bit about Celt. Civ. Namely the fact that the teacher is a linguistic hobbit. This class frustrates me a bit. I find it all quite interesting and I have upwards of 25 pages of notes already, but I can't figure out what I've learned so far. If he were to give us an exam, I honestly have no clue what it would be on. I'll keep y'all updated on that one... Then there's Cirefe. That's my "I'm a foreign student who doesn't know French" class. Wednesdays is the written aspect. I like the classes, but I hate the fact that they're from 6-8 at night. It's just too late for class. By 7 pretty much everyone is just staring out the window with a blank look on their face. There is however a cute German boy in my class who I'm hoping to get to know better. Again, I'll keep you updated. Maybe.
Thursday: Same classes as Wednesday, but at different times. Civ. is at 9am, but Cirefe is still at 6pm. So I feel like I've been in class all day, despite the fact that I had a 7 hour break in between the 2. I've taken to using that time to head down to the Funky Munky and just chill out, drink some coffee, and do some work. It gets me out of my room for a while, which is really nice. It has also cemented my "regular" status there.
Friday: A cleaning day. Or a lazy day. Or an adventure day. I've recently discovered another Marche practically on Villejean campus (where I live), so I think I'll start going there Friday mornings.
Saturday: MARCHE!!!! Yay. After the Marche early0ish in the morning, then it's off to Geant or Carrefour or wherever to get the non-marche ingredients for my meals for the week. For some reason, this usually takes up most of the day. I'm not sure how though.
Sunday: My other cleaning day. I've been mostly just staying in my room, but come Monday I just want to get out, so I'm going to start taking walks more for amusement than exercise. There's a cemetery I want to check out. Which sounds morbid, but all the cemeteries I've seen in France have large headstones and statues and sepultures. I find that so fascinating and pretty, in a morbid sort of way. I'm also the girl who was fascinated by the Catacombs... I'm just so used to the cemetery where most of my family is buried, where they only allow flat headstones. So it looks like just a giant field or park, not a cemetery. Last week I discovered areas of Rennes I've never seen before. And a delicious Indian restaurant where I WILL be going again. So much delicious food for such a reasonable price and the waiter shook my hand when I was leaving. It was cute.
So that's basically my life, with slight variations from week to week.
COMING SOON: My trip to Paris!!
*EDIT* I'm going to Ireland in January!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, you have no idea.