Allons-y!

So, I left of promising to describe my classes.  On Monday mornings, I have only one class, which goes from 3:15 to 5:45; that is my literature class.  So far, I think literature is turning out to be my favorite class.  For one thing, I just love reading, whether it be novels, short stories or poetry.  Also, I seem to understand it better, but that may be because my French class last semester was French conversation and literature, so a lot of the language is the same.  On Tuesdays I also have just one class, from 3:45 to 6:15.  That one is cultural history, and it is rather more difficult.  Right now we are studying about the Gauls, and when the Romans invaded them.  One of the most famous battles between the Romans and the Gauls occurred at Gergovia,  which is right around here somewhere.  Wednesday is my day off, so I always have to plan ahead what adventures I'm going to have that day, so as not to get bored.  Thursdays and Fridays are quite busy.  Thursday I have two classes; the first one being argumentation (a writing class, sort of like rhetoric I guess) from 8:45 to 11:15.  Then I have lab from 2:15 to 3:15, and immediately following, I have oral expression until 5:15.  These two are extremely difficult and exhausting.  Basically, in lab I watch a video twice (last time it was a news program) and take notes from it.  I have to understand it well enough, and take detailed enough notes that, in oral expression I can give a presentation with particular details like the name of the program, the name of the channel, and what problems and solutions were presented in the program.  Then I have to criticize it, adding personal experiences if possible, saying whether I agree or disagree, etc.  I tend to leave that class feeling exhausted and like I barely know enough French.  Friday I have three classes.  In the morning I have civilization from 9:15 to 11:45.  This is sort of like a current events class; we talk about newspapers, lyrics to popular music, etc.  Then from 1:15 to 3:45 I have narration, which is sort of like a creative writing/oral expression class.  This class so far has been a lot of fun, but difficult because I don't like talking in front of the whole class.  Immediately following narration I have my cultural option, which is a film class.  We watch movies in French, and then discuss them in their historical and cultural context.  It's very interesting, but rather hard to stay awake, being late in the day and the last of many classes.

The first week, all my classes were very big, so big we kept having to move to bigger classrooms.  So, this week they divided level five into two groups, and put me in group 5b.  So the schedule I just described to you was not my schedule the first week.  However, after they divided up the level, all the Asian students (and a couple non-Asian) decided they would just stay in 5a.  So now 5b has six people (which I LIKE) and 5a has a whole lot.  I wish they would leave it like it is, but they said if only six people keep showing up to the 5b classes (which have exactly the same teachers and exactly the same material) then they'll put the two groups back together again.  I think that would be too bad, because it's a lot less stressful for me to interact with a small class than a big one.  But anyway, I have no idea what my schedule will look like later on.  We'll see.

The campus here is not at all laid out like OU; in fact, it would be difficult to say they have an actual campus at all.  The buildings are kind of spread out over a particular part of town.  Every morning when I go to class, I have to walk past some shops, a subway, a bakery, and a couple restaurants before I get to the building where most of my classes are.  But that's ok, I don't really mind the walk.  I don't think it's really farther than walking across campus, it's just different being in the middle of a city.

Now that I've gotten a little more settled in, I've been working on a particular goal: to make some French friends.  You might think this would be easy, but no, it is not.  First of all, while all of my classes are taught in French by French professors, all the students are foreign students (from everywhere but France: China, Colombia, Brazil, Japan, Vietnam, Italy, Czech, Slovakia, Mars... even Bételgeuse).  It's great to talk to them in French, and learn about the fascinating places they're from, and often French is the only language we have in common.  But seeing as it's no match for a conversation with a native speaker, I've been looking for French students.  But it's hard to strike up a conversation; for some reason, French people just don't seem to be as open as most Americans (at least in the south).  I have had a couple brief conversations with the young woman who lives next door to me in the dorm, and she is very friendly.  But she always seems surprised when I say hello.  Also, one day, when Ashley and I were at the laundromat, she offered me a tictac, and then offered one to the French man standing on her other side, just to be polite.  He looked very surprised, shocked even, and said "no thank you, you are very nice, too nice."  And just today, I though I had a wonderful idea for putting myself in a situation to have a conversation with fellow French students.  I would go to the cafeteria by myself when it was crowded, sit by French people, and chat, even if it was just a few words.  Well when I finally got in and got a tray of food (the line was out the door), it was hard to find even one empty seat.  When I finally found one, I asked the people at the table if I could sit there, and they gave me the strangest looks!  One girl said yes, so I sat down.  They proceeded to look only at each other and speak rapidly only to each other, and they ate quickly and left.  It didn't take me long to figure out that no one asked permission to sit anywhere, and no one talked to anyone unless they came in with them.  So I am left brainstorming for ways to interact with real French people.  I'm hoping the protestant church Ashley and I found the other day will prove to be helpful on that account.  Otherwise, I don't really know what to do at this point.  I am finding that French people are difficult to make friends with.  Making new friends is hard enough for me back in the States, not being an extremely outgoing person, but here it's so much harder since I don't know the culture; I don't know how French people interact with each other.

Tomorrow, since it is our day off, Ashley and I have a few small adventures planned.  First of all, we have a breakfast meeting to go to in the morning.  It is an "American" breakfast, so I have no idea what kind of food they'll serve.  Grits, bacon, eggs, and coffee would be nice.  Probably it'll be donuts.  But then after that, we're going to go to Place de Jaude.  We want, first of all, to buy a normal pillow, because the pillows they gave us are very narrow and weird.  We also have some kind of official form we need to mail, and then we want to find out a little about what happened in Clermont-Ferrand in WWII.  We would love to have some stories about the resistance from right here in town, but that may be beyond the scope of just one Wednesday's adventures.  We'll see. :)