So my first week of classes went well. I don't think they are going to be as difficult as I had been warned but I imagine that if I had taken the recommended load of 8 classes then my head would be exploding right now from information overload. 

I got my french class changed but unfortunately I now have class on friday- the good side is that it is in the morning  10-12 so I still have the afternoon  and what not. 

I moved into my apartment on tuesday and I promise I'll post more pictures but I'll start off with these three. 1.) Picture out of my window- hopefully I'll be able to catch mary poppins and her band of merry chimney sweeps dancing one night!

2.) Samantha's moment of exhaustion after lugging her Enormous suitcase up 2 flights of stairs and around town.

3.) My window again... haha yay window.

Mission Accomplished

Horay! the day has finally come where I can say that I have officially moved in! Not only that but also I also started classes today! Wohoo! Only 9 more months of class left. (Yes I am always this pessimistic about classes)

French courses are 2 hours long- big difference than my beloved 50 min. classes. Plus one of my classes is in an amphitheater with THE most uncomfortable seating EVER. 

One of my classes was a lecture course in english and the professor wants to create the anglo-saxon atmosphere were students are free to interrupt and ask questions and participation is encouraged. My other class is a french lecture class and basically the guy just sits in a chair with a microphone and lectures for 2 hours- this is also the class with uncomfortable seats. Yay france.

classes

still sick... but here's what my schedule currently looks like

I still need to get a french class. They dropped my other one (I was in the wrong level) but they haven't replaced it yet. So I guess that's what I'll be doing on monday!

Pray that my sore throat goes away!

On tuesday (mardi) I have Social Policies in Europe and international history of the 20th century (wohoo!)

Wednesday (mercredi) I have the recitation for my history class

Thursday (Jeudi) I have European Economic Constitution. 

Hopefully I'll get a french class that meets on tuesday and thursday so then I have 3 days of classes and 4 days of weekend. (i'd be okay with wednesday and friday morning too I guess) 

But with the french class I should get 14 Georgia Tech credit hours. They wanted us to take somewhere around 22 GT hours and I was like-I know at tech that's pretty much suicide I don't think that it being in french would make it any easier! 

So I have some "interesting" courses. Basically they have a dumb registration system and have really small class sizes (only 25 students in each class) so all the classes were full when I got to register. So that's what I got- at least they will count for something.

sick.

I'm sick. Sore throat. And tonight was the big party for back to school- at least I was able to sell my ticket!

but here's some pictures that I didn't post yet.

They have an orangey flavor of schweppes, not as good as raspberry-but they don't have that.

My ticket... that I'm not using... lame. Sorry it's all backwards.

Food=Friends

tip of the day:

If you need to make friends, involve food! Cooking not only impresses people but it also feeds them and gives you a reason to talk- because being silent while eating a meal at the same table is just plain strange in almost every country.  My advice is learn at least one easy recipe very well, then when you cook it will taste amazing and everyone will love you! 

I made  couple friends on the hall because I made some four cheese stuffed pasta shells. When you're at a dorm or anywhere away from "home" then a "home-cooked" meal goes a long way.

(it helps if it has a very pleasant and strong aroma because people will be like OOh what are YOU cooking) 

Yesterday marked the last week of the welcome program. AKA week of pointless loads of course work to "prepare" you for Sciences-po- I'll let you know how prepared I actually am...

But this is exciting and scary because next week my work will actually count towards something. and scary because next week my work will actually count for something.

Tonight I went to a dinner with my group and the 2 other groups (about 15 people each but only about 20 people showed up) and our professors to dinner. It was a lot of fun! I had some amazing duck and mashed potato plate. (mmm mashed potatoes). 

One of my teachers is crazy. somehow the topic of meeting french guys was brought up and the prof. couldn't hear the girl asking the question and so a guy at the table relayed it to the professor and he was like (to the guy) "What you want a french boyfriend... you go that way?"

and the guy was like "NO nO girls."  

Prof; "no girls?"

guy: "no no I like girls"

Prof: "as friends."

guy: "no I don't want to date a guy"

this went on for about 5 minutes.

I also witnessed my first strike today. Or rather 2! Unfortunately one involves RER-B the one that takes you to the airport, but also the one that is right next to the Cité-U. So I have to walk a lot farther to reach the now SUPER crowded metro. I've never wanted to stand so close to this many people at one time! The other strike is about the privatization of the postal service. So I hope that I don't have anything coming in the mail from the bank or agency.

Photos from top to bottom: 1.) Typical classroom at Sciences-po. Huge windows pretty small can only fit less than 30 people-that's squeezing in-but there's some more desks that you can't see.

2.) Me and Ayu (Japanesee) and Yi chun (Taiwanese) at the dinner de conférence

3.) Mara (Canadian) and Mariana (Portuguese)  in the computer lab printing off some more stupid forms that we have to fill out! Stupid Bureaucratic system! (This one was 8 pages!)

4.) Yi Chun (Taiwanese) Mariana (Portuguese) and Mika (Japanese)

The long walk and Being a an American

This afternoon I had to work on another group project, this time a plan for a dissertation.  Since the sciences-po and therefore sciences-po wifi was closed we decided to meet at the only place that we knew had wifi- Starbucks, once we got there we remembered that we had to pay so we went to the second place we knew had wifi- McDonalds... horay American wifi. I bought myself a frappucino at Sbux but I couldn't bring myself to eat the MickeyD's, I'm not in that drastic need of a hamburger-yet. 

Then today at the Cité U the campus was open for visitors to take walking tours around the grounds and go inside some of the buildings. So I decided that I would go on a walking tour around the campus and see what I could see. Little did I realize how big the campus was but fortunately it was such a beautiful day that I didn't really mind. 

Then the bed that I am currently sleeping on is crummy, because during the middle of the night when I am sleeping the slats on the bottom of the bed fall out from under me... so in order to somehow fix the problem I simply stuck one of my suitcases underneath it. This solves the problem for now but I can't wait until I get to sleep on a real bed in my own apartment

Here's a link to more of the pictures 

new places

this is my new home for the next week! It is the maison Franco-Brittanique and it is located at the Cité -U or International University City in Paris. You can check out their website-sorry it's in french and maybe find some pictures of the place! One is the picture of the very pretty library located in the City. (Who am I kidding there really isn't a place on the campus here that isn't pretty!) here's a link to the photo page.

The Picture with the two girls are my canadian group mates. We were making a worksheet about the powers of the French President under their current constitution (wohoo!) 

The picture out the window is the view of the garden from my seat in french  class (not during class I promise). But I promise to take some pictures of the actual university this week and post them- for once I'm not up to date on taking pictures!

And for the best news EVER! I think that we might have finally found an apartment! The agency sent us the lease and everything and we're supposed to fax it to them by tomorrow! yipee. While I am going to be living in a palace of pepto bismal pink- I know that it is better to have a place to live more than it is the color of the place in which your living! 

Last but not least- I've included an amazing video clip from a french television show. Enjoy and remember you don't have to be 20 or a washed up celebrity to compete on  reality TV dancing shows- well at least not in France.