le 29 janvier
Wow, a lot has happened in just the past few days! On Thursday I finally had my first day of classes. First was poetry, which starts at 9 am. I got up at 7 this week as an extra precaution to make sure I had enough time to get there on my first day. Of course, getting to campus was no problem since I've done that plenty before, but finding the right classroom was another story. The Halle aux Farines used to be a grain storage building (hence the name farine, which means flour), so it is organized very oddly. I actually found the room I thought my class was in with no trouble, but upon reading the schedule on the door I found that the French had played their favorite game: switch the classroom at the last minute. Fun! Luckily I had written down another classroom number for some reason, and when I found that classroom it was the right one. Phew! Lindsey: 1, French school system: 0. Day off to a good start.
In poetry, most terms are cognates, so it was easy to follow my professor. I also found out that Al (one of the API students) and Rachelle (a girl from the Netherlands who was in my intro stage) were in my class! The only thing is, this class (and some other classes) lasts for three hours. Ick. Luckily classes are only once a week. After poetry I had time for lunch, so I headed to the cafeteria to meet Elena and bumped into Hannah too! Then we (along with Al, Will, and Kate) went to Medieval history. This class is bigger, so it's held in one of the lecture halls. Our professor introduced us to the Middle Ages with a slideshow that reflected some stereotypes (Monty Python, anyone?), then affirmed that this class would teach us about what really happened in Medieval Europe. Good to know. Then we headed to the API office to meet Anne-Marie and recharge our métro and meal cards for next month. Will had downloaded an app for his phone that let him play the top 100 songs of every year, so we hung around the office for a while remembering songs from the '80s onward and eating the French sweets that Anne-Marie keeps there.
Yesterday I had my thème, or French-to-English translation class. For some reason I was excited about this because the class was actually in English! I went with Jenna and we discovered that Garth is in our class too! Basically we just translate French texts to English and debate in a scholarly manner the various ways in which one phrase can possibly be translated. It's a good way to learn sentence construction and vocab and things like that. It's interesting that as American students, we're learning in the opposite way as the French students in the same class. I also finally met a French student! Her name is Fanny, and she explained to us how she'd been told that her name was an offensive term in English. We assured her that this was just in British English (those cheeky Brits!) and that in American English it was just an older name and reminded us of a fanny pack (haha). Anyway, she was really nice and said "See you next week!" as she left. Next time I want to speak to her in French!
Then last night we celebrated Philippa's 21st birthday. Philippa is a very sweet and very tiny British girl from my stage. To celebrate we went to a bar in the 9th. We got off at a métro stop called Blanche, and when you come up the steps the Moulin Rouge is right in front of you! Unfortunately there are also sex shops everywhere (Paris!), and being there at 11 pm was a little shifty. The bar was on a quiet side street at least, but it was very small and very loud inside. I attempted to have fun without drinking (because ew, drinking), and I definitely also had a conversation with Will about how I don't drink. He asked if I was in AA (haha!) and I said no. He asked if I had a medical condition and I said no. He said he couldn't understand why I don't drink. I explained that I don't like the taste, that I like to be in control of myself at all times, and why would I pay large amounts of money for something I don't enjoy? He still didn't understand, so we agreed to disagree. I then informed him that just because I don't drink does not mean I cannot have fun, and he kissed my hand (he's gay, so don't get any ideas) and told me that he would never think I was boring. I told him to wait until we go to a club sometime because I love dancing. We were actually possibly going to a club after the bar, but I was one of those who wanted to get back to the Cité Universitaire before the métro stopped running (which it does at about 1:30-2 am on weekend nights), so I unfortunately did not get to dance. Hopefully this will happen at some point. In any case, we got home at around 2:30 am, having had to walk since when we got off the métro we were a few stops away from home by tram, but the tram had closed. At least I have an excuse to keep eating so much bread if I balance it with all this walking!
Today I am relaxing. More on the rest of my classes when I have them!