and the voices of those who stand looking

I'm sitting in my dorm room eating pastries and drinking wine with my roommate and her friend. We got dressed up and walked downtown to a local bakery that had expensive but amazing pastries. A sort of good-bye treat because we leave Cannes Saturday morning.

So this morning in class I had a little disagreement with my professor. There was some exercise where we made sentences using specific prepositions and using an opening. I made the sentence, "This is the school where I killed a lot of time". She got upset and told me I can't use that phrase in relation to school (to kill time) because there is always something to do in school and you're always learning something or there for a reason (thus, it isn't wasting time). I argued that she's never been to school in the States.

I'm also managing to impress people with my drawing skills, such as they are. Our oral practice for the week has been working in groups of two on a film scenario. I chose the genre of animated movies (à la Disney) and my story takes place in Ancient Alexandria. So while my partner records our dialogue for specific scenes (we have to perform them tomorrow, by the way, and the teacher expects them to be memorized. Ha. Ha ha ha), I was drawing our main characters. My professor suggested I pursue drawing for a living. I was like, "No, thanks. Been there, done that." It's amazing, though, that I haven't completely lost that skill because it's been years since I've really drawn much.

We arrive in Paris and are handed an envelop with the address of your host family. Then you're pushed in a taxi and sent on your way. Eeek. I'm praying to get a place in the first 6 arrondissements. Asking a little much? Yes, possibly. And next friday, there's an arranged trip up to Chartres for the day, all fees covered by AIFS. Of course, I'm going. After that is a weekend trip to Normandy, St. Malo, and Mont-St.-Michel. I think I'm going to that, although I don't know for sure yet. It costs a lot, and it has to have a minimum of 15 people to sign up for it in order for it to happen. Most people here aren't interested in going, I'm getting the idea.