I'm taking what's called a 'cours practique', or literally translated, practical course. It's a French language course that I have everyday for two hours. Today was the first session, and we went around and took a tally of where everyone in the class was from: 2 Korea, 2 China, 2 Taiwan, 2 USA, 1 Bolivia, 1 Indonesia, 1 Venezeula, 1 Japan, 1 Sweden, 1 Germany, 1 Turkey, 1 Poland, 1 Saudi Arabia, 1 Iran. We all more or less speak French. That's pretty incredible; I'd never have that kind of diversity in a class in Columbia. Even at NYU, I doubt I'd find a class made up like that.
Every morning on the way to class, I walk up Boulevard Saint-Michael, cross Rue Soufflot and pass beside the Panthèon. There are tourists everywhere, looking at maps, taking photos, generally stalling the pedestrian traffic while I'm trying to hurry to get to class on time or buy textbooks and grab lunch before my next class. The fact that this is my life right now? Kind of makes me giddy.
And then the giddiness died temporarily. I went to my next class, La civilisation française, and was bored to tears for two and a half hours. It's a history of France course, and whoa is it dumbed down. We covered prehistory through the Hundred Years War in that time period, which would, if properly addressed, take an entire semester in and of itself. (The extent of our coverage of Clovis? "He was baptized to make his wife happy!" . . . Ugh) I'm a history major; I love history, and I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a spoon just to make things a little more interesting. I don't know how people who hate history to begin with were dealing. And what makes it worse? I could've taught the class better. I know more than the professor; she was reading her info off of little study guides for students. The information given was basic at best, and mostly idiotic. Here's to hoping the rest of my classes aren't that bad.
But I'm in Paris. Saturday, early in the morning, I'll be heading out to Normandy and Brittany for the weekend. I'll stay the night in Saint-Malo and visit Mont-Saint-Michael. For all that I complain, life is really cool right now. Even though I could use more sleep.
My walk to class in the mornings:
And then the shots requested by my mom of the view out my window:
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