Les Classes et L'americain laid

It is only the first week but my classes are going well so far. My grammar class is SUPER easy right now. The first two classes we spent conjugating verbs in the present tense… I’ve actually been a little bit frustrated because I came here to challenge myself and become really familiar with the language and so far I have been learning stuff that I learned in middle school. I spent the week debating about whether to try and switch up a level in classes. Apparently that is pretty difficult to do at the Sorbonne and it could potentially really mess up my schedule. Also, I really really like my current professor. She speaks really clearly and lets us practice speaking in class. She’s approachable and young. I went up to her after class yesterday and asked about switching up and she gave me the final exam from last year and told me to look it over. If I thought the exam looked easy we could talk some more. I did think the exam looked easy but after talking to some friends and finding out a little bit more about what we are going to learn this semester, I decided to stick with this class. If nothing else it will be a good refresher for me and an easy A.

Something that is different about this grammar class is that it is taught entirely in French. Since I am in a French class designed for foreigners, it is not guaranteed that everyone speaks another similar language. In my class we have two other Americans, several people from Asia as well as Latin America. The professor is incredible at coming up with different ways to describe a word or verb we might not know. I should be a beast at synonyms in French by the end of the semester!

My Paris Civilization and Culture class is taught at the Accent Center in English by a really young professor who came here in 2000 from Berkley to write his dissertation on French literature and never left. He’s incredibly smart. The class is designed around reading about particular time periods and monuments in class and then visiting them the next class. For example, this coming Tuesday we have to read some of Victor Hugo’s writing on Notre Dame and then on Thursday we are going to visit Notre Dame! I think this is the best way to learn a subject, direct interaction. I am a little surprised at how literature based the class is but I think once we start our visits it will become less so.

I am taking a conference course (a giant lecture at the Sorbonne) on 20th century France and the French but that doesn’t start until two Mondays from now. I will also be taking a phonetics class that starts that week as well.

Everything at my homestay is going alright. It’s still a little bit awkward because I feel so much like a guest in their home. We have had a couple good conversations at dinner though which made me feel better. One night my host mom asked where my dad worked. I tried to explain that he works for Pfizer, a big drug company that produces medicine. She really wasn’t understanding until finally it hit her… “Oh! Fitzer!” She pronounces it the German way. She knew Pfizer well and even knew Merck, Pfizer’s competitor.

I found out my host dad is a philosophy teacher at a philosophy society in Paris. He spends a lot of his days typing up lectures from books he has. He was telling me about a lecture he gave this week that had to do with China and early religion in the country. He’s “an intellectual” as my host mom likes to say and is very up-to-date on news. He loves to talk to me about history but I don’t know a lot of the vocabulary that goes along with history so it is difficult for me to understand sometimes. Jackie told me my French has improved since I got here though so that is exciting!

I had dinner with a friend who lives in the same town as me in Connecticut last night. Her name is Kassie and she is here for the semester as well. She’s studying business at an English speaking university and lives with three other girls in an apartment. I saw her apartment and met her friends. It’s really nice to know someone else in Paris!

Today is Friday the 13th but apparently that isn’t bad luck in France. It also means that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. How cool to be in the city of romance for Valentine’s day! My friends and I just decided we have to avoid the Eiffel Tower so we don’t get depressed by all of the proposals that are bound to happen…

Last night on the train ride home I experienced “an ugly American”. This man gets on the metro and as soon as he steps in says VERY loudly and in a very southern accent, “Does anybody speak English on this train?” He wanted to know how to get to the RER (another metro line). A French couple sitting by the door knew English and helped him out but I was just astonished at how obnoxious he was. He really could have been quieter and more polite to figure out directions.

I’ve motivated myself to run the past couple of days. It is difficult for me to run in the middle of the day… I do much better when I can wake up and just go. But since I have class at 8AM every morning that isn’t an option this semester. It’s fun to run around my neighborhood and check out what I live near. Today I ran down Avenue Foch, the richest street in Paris. I have to keep up this running because unfortunately I am in love with banana and nutella crepes…