Classes and Cinemas

Thursday, February 2^nd

                We didn’t do much today. This morning each of us had a meeting with Audrey, the Director of the Program, to discuss our class schedules. I was put in the French 303 and 304 classes, focusing on grammar and oral improvement. They’re the lowest level French classes offered here, and as I haven’t really studied French since last May, over 8 months now, I was pretty sure I’d be taking these classes. I’m looking forward to relearning/improving my grammar.

                I’m also taking a class on contemporary France, a political science course. I’m not much for politics, but France certainly is, so I really should learn more about them, especially as they concern France. And since I’m not interested in them myself, I know I won’t  look up stuff on my free time, so I ought to take a class in it. My other class is about French architecture. I’m really looking forward to this class, because we meet twice a week-once in the classroom and once “en ville”, which means we get to go out into the city and see stuff first hand! I probably won’t be quite as excited once we get out there, considering I’ve been complaining about the cold when we’ve been walking around this week. But it’s only for an hour and a half each week, not all day every day, so it’ll be easier to suck it up.

                We only have classes Monday through Thursday, so when I was looking over my schedule before talking to Audrey, I thought my schedule looked pretty empty with only those classes. I talked to her about it and she said that it’s possible to take five classes here, and other students have done it, but it’s more difficult than taking five classes a semester in the states. She’s going to let me try it for a week, though, and then talk to her about it again. My trial class is Cinema, which she said is a really good class with an enthusiastic professor. So I’m looking forward to that class too, and I hope I can work it out and take all of them!

                Here’s a layout of my schedule:

Monday

9am-10:30am: La France contemporaine (politics)

11am-12:30pm: L’Architecture

2:30pm-4pm: Français 303 (writing and grammar)

Tuesday

2:30pm-4pm: Français 304 (oral)

Wednesday

9am-10:30am: La France contemporaine (politics)

11am-12:30pm: L’Architecture-en ville

2:30pm-4pm: Français 303 (writing and grammar)

4:15pm-5:30pm: Cinema

Thursday

12:30pm-2:15pm: Cinema

2:30pm-4pm: Français 304 (oral)

I still have quite a bit of free time during the week, and with three weekend day, I’m sure I can handle the extra class.

                After our meetings with Audrey, we all met up with the tour guide in the Marais quarter. She showed us several of the “hotels particulaires” which are what the French call the grand mansions in the city where the nobles used to live. We didn’t see all of the ones that were supposed to be on the tour, because of the extreme cold. We were also supposed to go to another quarter and walk around there, but even the tour guide thought it was too cold for us to get any enjoyment out of the tour. We decided to reschedule to one of our Fridays, as they are usually free.

                After a quick lunch, three of us were going to see a movie, but first we couldn’t find the right theatre. Theatres are quite complicated here in Paris. There are about 3 gazillion of them-seriously, throw a rock and you’ll probably hit one. Most of them only have a few screens and only show three or four movies at a time. You have to buy a pretty thick booklet and look up the title of the movie, and then it tells you which theatres are showing it. Then you look up those theatres in the back, and find out the ticket prices and times. Thankfully, students and young people get awesome discounts, so we only have to pay around 6 euros for a ticket. We found a theatre near the school that was supposed to be playing Felines but we couldn’t find the theatre, and then one girl wasn’t feeling good and the other decided to call it a day too. I didn’t want to go home yet, and had gotten myself in the mood for a movie, so I went and saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows by myself. It was an excellent film, by the way and quite amusing!