The Beginning: Part II or Classes

I think I'm going to combine Tuesday and Wednesday here.


Tuesday was a great, but very uneventful day. We finished up our Orientation stuff and began our courses in the afternoon. Lucky me, however, does not have any Tuesday afternoon courses. So instead I spent the afternoon with this really cool girl named Lauren. She's from Louisiana and is oh so sweet. I really like her and I think that by the end of the semester, we'll be great friends. Also, we've decided that while we're here, we're going to be shopping buddies. We walked around Aix for several hours because neither of us had anything to do and I helped her pick out a pair of really cute boots.


Afterwards, we both headed home for the night. I ate dinner with Madame Rosso and then we watched some television and talked.


Wednesday was a bit more eventful. I had my first three classes and I think it's going to be quite the semester.


The first course I had was Contemporary French Novel. This class is going to be doozy. Not only do I have to read 4 different French books (one every three weeks) and discuss them, but I also have to figure out what the hell my professor saying. Here in Provence, they have their own dialect of French. And my professor most definitely speaks it. Oh mon Dieu!


The second class I had was France During the Occupation (which is thankfully taught in English). I think this course will be very interesting. It's both a history course and a communications course. So every class we will learn some of the history of the Occupation and watch excerpts from a movie to reinforce what we have learned. For this class, I will have to keep a journal of responses/criticisms/questions/etc on the two mandatory texts, four mandatory movies and either three more books or six more movies. It's going to be a lot of work, but I believe it's also going to be a lot of fun. The professor is incredibly nice and very enthusiastic. This may possibly end up being my favorite course of the semester.


The last class I had on Wednesday was Topics in French Contemporary Media. This course doesn't require much of us, other than that we must read French newspapers, watch French news programs and be able to discuss their stories. We will have a few major assignments such as discussing prominent themes within the newspapers (the Sarkozy government, unemployment, environment, etc) but I don't think this course will be all that hard or demanding. I really like this course and already find it to be interesting. Our professor asked us what we thought the number one topic in French newspapers was and it took us probably a good 20 minutes to guess it. I guessed the economy and poverty. Another girl guessed France's high rate of unemployment. And someone else mentioned the environment. Surprisingly, however, the most prominent topic in French news is the conflict between Israel and Palestine. And not simply within the past few weeks. The government is concerned about the conflict because there are so many emigrants from these two countries living in such close quarters in large cities like Paris and Marseille. Personally, I never would have guessed that was such a prominent topic in French journalism. And the professor is incredibly nice and cool. He's one of the younger professors I have and really seems to understand how to work with people our age and is very understanding when it comes to our French language skills, or lack thereof.


After classes were done for the day, I came home, did a bit of homework, ate dinner with Madame Rosso and then we settled ourselves on the couch to watch the big soccer match between Marseille and Lyon. She's a huge fan of the Marseille team and gets very into the game. It's great. And I think she likes the fact that I want to watch the soccer matches with her. I loved every second of it. Although I'm kind of sad that Marseille lost to Lyon (0-1). But she told me that Lyon is the number one team in France so I guess it's to be expected.