Rainy day, Fun Dinner

Intense orientation activities at the Centre Madeleine seem to have subsided and the rest of the week is mostly about exploring Paris with our orientation groups. Earlier today I met with the academic coordinator to choose my classes, and we decided on French language and a poly sci class on the EU at the Centre Madeleine, plus an intro linguistics course, a translation course, history of cinema, and a cinema class called Aesthetics of the Image. I will drop of the last four courses b/c I only need five, but the woman recommended that we start with a “spare tire course” in case we don’t like one of the ones we chose. Hopefully I’ll be able to drop one of the cinema courses, since I’m not super interested in that, but she said the translation course is difficult and very hard to get a good grade in (apparently American students do very poorly on the English-to-French translations). I’m really interested in that class though, so I hope it works out. I think there will be at least a few other Middkids, so maybe we can help each other. I hope that the cinema course will count for an ART distribution requirement at Middlebury b/c that’s the only requirement I need to fulfill while here. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t, but I emailed the Film and Media culture dept. head yesterday with the course descriptions, and first he said it wasn’t his decision, then he said that he wasn’t comfortable with such a short course description or with a course at an unknown university. Of course this “unknown university” is in partnership with Middlebury and very respectable. I know he wouldn’t be able to approve it before I return anyways, so I’m hoping that next fall I’ll be able to argue with him or with the Curriculum Committee and hopefully get it counted. Nobody at Midd seems to know for sure who is responsible for saying which courses fulfill which distributions…very frustrating.

This afternoon it rained and even though our group meeting finished at 4, leaving me with five plus hours to explore before dinner, I couldn’t think of doing anything other than returning home. Which I did. And I opened the door – but it took a while. My absolute biggest challenge so far here has been opening the door to my apartment with my key. The door has two locks, so if you turn it once it locks halfway, and twice it locks completely. I think the door is rarely actually locked though. So when I stand there and turn the key obsessively, I’m locking a door that wasn’t already locked. Oh well. I studied the lock today when I came in, in hopes of understanding it better. If the door is locked completely, I need to turn the key twice to the left while pulling on the handle, then turn it to the right while pushing on the door to enter. Maybe I should go practice now…

Anyways once I finally let myself in this afternoon, I wrote some emails and then collapsed on my bed for two hours. I didn’t sleep, but I just lay there and found it impossible to get up. Apparently moving to a new country and wandering around a city for hours per day is exhausting. I’ve also been getting at least 7 or more hours of sleep per night (almost 9 last night), which is far more than usual. Hopefully these good sleeping patterns continue – being ready for bed at midnight works well for me, especially if I’m going to have an eight a.m. class, which I might to ensure that I have a good professor.

I ate dinner with my family again tonight and it was actually a really good meal (conversation and engagement wise – the food is always delicious). French is finally starting to flow (perhaps that’s a strong word…) from my mouth. My vocab hasn’t really improved but my accent has and I’ve become much much more comfortable speaking French in the past few days. My host mom commented today that I’ve become much more talkative. I think I was engaged at dinner tonight both because I’m more talkative, but also because the family was significantly calmer and quieter than during previous meals. The oldest daughter Marie and her boyfriend weren’t there, so I imagine that calms everything quite a bit. I met a new member of the family today: a female cousin who lives during the week in the son’s room. She is super nice, and she attends the same university as me, so she gave me directions. I hope she’s around more often as she’s very pleasant. Tonight at dinner we had a large variety of cheeses (previously we have had only too). One was from the mountains and very soft with little taste - I enjoyed this a lot, especially on bread. The other new one was from Corsica and it smelled very strongly. My host mom cut me a small piece and it tasted like animal. While it was it my mouth, I felt like I was on a farm and I had licked the nearest goat. Not in a bad way, it was just surprising and strong. I like pretty much all cheese so I'll eat whatever they serve, but I'll cut bigger pieces of the softer ones. The cheese also made me understand the importance of the red wine, b/c it left an intense aftertaste that only "vin rouge" could take away. I'm getting used to my little glass of red wine at every dinner. I can't say I love it - I'd be fine with water, but I'm used to it and realize it accompanies the meal well. Also that I need to drink copious amounts of water on my own to avoid dehydration (no Nalgenes filled with ice cubes here).

Tomorrow morning I go to Paris III to register for classes and get a tour of the place – should be exciting. I think my orientation group might also go ice skating if it’s no raining again – should provide some fun stories.