SORRY!

      So, I haven’t posted anything in a while. Sorry. Classes started which meant homework started although I honestly haven’t had a lot of it yet. But then I got sick, so all I felt like doing was sleeping and drinking water. I’m better now, it was just a cold, but it made me literally tired ALL THE TIME. Like, every other thought in my head for the last week has been, “I really just want to lie down *insert place name* and close my eyes.” On a related note, I found this medicine here called Actifed, and it is MARVELOUS! The box only has enough doses for four days (four doses each day, so 16 pills) and I was skeptical at first, because most medicines in the US give you a flat 24 or so doses and leave it to you to take it as long as you need. But this one even had the pills labeled as ‘morning, afternoon, dinner, and sleep’ so you knew exactly when to take them. And today is the fourth day I’ve been taking them, and I’ve still got a bit of a runny nose, but even that’s mostly cleared up. I’m pretty sure this is the fastest I’ve ever gotten over a cold. Usually they drag out for a couple of weeks, even with medication. So, that’s a plus for France in my book!

                My classes have all been going good. In France contemporaine, we’ve learned all about the major newspapers and how they were founded and which political parties they favor. Today we started on the overall structure of the government of France. We talked about the different constitutions for the different republics (we’re currently on the fifth one), and learned the differences between a republic and a democracy. There are differences, mostly in that the general public has more power in a republic. For example, France doesn’t have an electoral college like the US does, their elections are direct. Also, there’s this thing which I think is pretty cool, where the president can go over the Senate and the National Assembly and have the people directly vote on a law. This is pretty rare though, and only used for big, but somewhat simple changes, like the length of the president’s term.

                Architecture is probably my hardest course, mostly because I’ve never learned anything about the subject before now, and even if I had all the vocabulary would still be completely new as it’s in French. Also there are a lot of dates and dynasty and period names and classifications, which call for straight memorization, which is never much fun. We have had three excursions now, which were much more interesting. The first Wednesday we went to the Musée Carnavalet and learned about interior architecture, things like floor designs, murals, and decorative arts pieces on walls, ceilings, and doors. This last Wednesday, we had a walking tour of the Marais Quarter, which is where many of the aristocrats had their town houses, mansions or ‘Hôtels Particuliers’. This was basically the same tour we had during the first week, but with less detail about the nobles who lived in the house and more details on the construction of the houses themselves. Then we had an extra excursion yesterday, to an exposition about the Hôtels Particuliers. The museum had several rooms set up like they would have been in one of these mansions, as a sort of ‘virtual tour’ and then paintings and commentaries on specific ones.

                The cinema professor is very energetic, but he likes to repeat himself, first in French and then in English. This would be helpful if I didn’t understand his French, but I can, and so can the rest of the class, and his English is not the greatest, so we’d really rather he didn’t. We don’t actually watch the films in class, but he gives us a copy and we get together as a group and watch them on our own time. So far Friday evenings have been dedicated to this, with us meeting up at Reid Hall and eating our dinners while watching the assigned movie.

                What other class do I have? Oh right, French. We speak French. And write French. And learn grammar, which I suppose I could elaborate on, but do you really want to know how to conjugate subjunctive verbs? Or the long list I now have of different ways of introducing my opinion? I didn’t think so.

                I haven’t done much else. Last weekend I was lazy and enjoyed a couple of quiet days. But I’m actually going to do stuff this weekend! Tomorrow (Saturday) I’m going to the Musée d’Orsay. On Sunday I’m going to go see Midnight in Paris, because I’ve been told by lots of people to see it, and it seems appropriate as I’m in Paris. Then next week, we have our vacation in the south of France! We’re going to Avignon, Arles, and Nice! I’m super excited! It’s going to be so warm!!

                What else has happened lately? Hmm, well, one of my hostess’ sons and his family came for a visit this week. They were there for Wednesday dinner, and then the kids (a girl of 12, and a boy who was 9 or 10) stayed the night. They were stayed last night too, but left this afternoon if I understood my hostess correctly. It was interesting to meet some different people, but I also felt like I was intruding on their family time. They didn’t make me feel that way, though. They included me in the conversation and seemed interested in where I came from and what I was studying and such. It just felt weird. I don’t know. It’s probably my hermit tendency cropping up again. I’ve been strangely consistently social these past three weeks. One thing I have noticed missing a lot, is green, nature-y things. I was living in a big city in Japan, but there was still a lot of green around. I haven’t seen as much here in Paris, and even in the parks and gardens I have found the green is very constrained. French gardens are all about man conquering nature and they look very manufactured, which makes me sad. It makes me want to jump over the little, ankle-high fences, and run around on their perfectly cut grass, mess it up a bit. On second thought that’s probably not such a good idea, but I still want to do it.

                And I think that about sums up the last two weeks. I’ll try to get another post out about this weekend before we leave on Monday morning. I’m not taking my computer with me though, so you’ll have to wait to hear about how nice Nice was until next weekend!