The Classless Student

So now that everyone knows the basics of my setup, I suppose I should proceed to details about what I've been up to...

The most obvious thing I should be doing is going to class. It is, after all, a STUDY abroad program. But classes are a bit tricky at the moment. Paris 4 (my host university) doesn't start classes until Oct 2. So you ask, "Why then, Stephanie, did you leave at the end of August? To twiddle your thumbs for a month in France?" Admittedly, France is such that even thumb-twiddling is more pleasant here. But I came early for a two-week orientation in Tours, a lovely town in the Loire Valley, and to get myself situated in Paris a few weeks before
the stress of classes. In both locations, Sweet Briar has provided courses to review the language and the univerity methodology (which is to say, the method of teaching and learning in a French educational institution). Now that those orientation courses are over, I've begun the Sweet Briar courses that I will take throughout the semester. I have a writing course with an amazing Professor who lovingly lets us call her Madame Atelier (roughly translated as Madame Workshop, because the course is called Writing Workshop). I am also taking a course in French Theatre, which means I get to attend 5 French plays in Paris completely free of charge. It's a pretty good deal, I must say. Plus it's been cool to learn this week how ritual sacrifice in ancient Greece morphed into the theatre we know and (sometimes) love today.

The French University system is fundamentally different from our own, and one of the differences is the approach to planning the semesters that each country has. For example, in the US students look at the catalogue themselves (usually online) and fit their courses together like a puzzle according to the hours and the importance of each course. This is done about half-way through the preceding semester, and though there is definitely movement in the first few
weeks of the semester, the majority of the students have the majority of their schedules figured out in advance. (This is how it works at MHC, anyways. Please correct me if I am wrong to generalize that this is true for most colleges. I know of at least one very dramatic exception, but I think I've got it about right.)

The French, however, do not seem to value scheduling things that far in advance. The evidence I cite is the fact that the hours of the courses set to commence October 2nd were not fixed until just yesterday, September 22nd. Meaning that there is a space of 10 days between when you can actually plan your schedule and when the courses begin. It's been driving all the American students mad with the anxiety of having no solid plan. Not like anything's really written in
stone, but the illusion of a strong plan to guide the way is comforting. But NO! Deprived of our crutch, we were! I'm relieved, though, that I've finally made some solid decisions about which courses to take, and I've gotten things narrowed down to some choice options. But more on that when I know which ones are the one's I'll actually take!

Other fun things I've been doing:
-Wandering about parks and gardens
-Eating lots of yummy cheese
-Buying my first bottle of wine (at 19, and it's legal! But my wine buying experience is terribly lacking; the wine was awful.)
-Picnicing on the lawn in front of the Eiffel tower at dusk (it looks amazing when they light it up)
-Going to nifty film/art exhibits by Agnes Varda
-Buying pastels to do the American (artist) in Paris thing
-cutting my hair obscenely short
-mispronouncing every word I attempt to say and being corrected by 5-year-olds who then further complicate the matter by trying to teach me the word in Italian as well (O, by the way, I'm also babysitting).