Yeah, sorry about that drought in blog posts. I was actually feeling a little homesick and didn't really feel like admitting that. But I'm fine now. Don't miss anyone. Just kidding. It's just that I really like Neil's tailgates. (You guys need to do red and white kebabs with cherry tomatoes, red peppers, and pearl onions. and meat. Get on that.)
Also, the whole school system here is a little--ok, VERY--disorganized. It's very tricky trying to look up where all my classes are and when they start. You kind of just have to try out different classes for a couple weeks and then decide if you want to enroll in them or not. So far, I've taken two classes that I'm definitely not enrolling in, haha. The first was a four hour long medieval lit class. ewww. The second was a modern French lit class that I think I would actually thoroughly enjoy. A lot of people think 20th century when they think of modern. I know I do. But modern lit in France apparently means anything post 17th century because the language hasn't really changed much since then, thanks to a fairly tight bureaucratic hold on its evolution. American lit doesn't hardly have anything from the 17th century. Funny.
Anywho, despite the fact that I really enjoyed the two professors teaching that second class, I don't think I'm going to wind up taking it because at the end of the class, one of the professors announced what we needed to read for Thursday. I didn't know it had another meeting on Thursday, and unfortunately it conflicts with my "Psychologie de la Musique" class (if anyone needs a translation for that, maybe you should be warned against vacationing in France), which I'm really looking forward to taking.
In total, I'm going to try out about nine or ten classes this week and/or next week. In addition to those previously mentioned, I'll be taking "Jazz, esthetics and sociology," "Cognitive Psychology," "Domains of the Sciences of Language," "History of Music of the Middle Ages," "Ethnomusicology," "Sociology of Music," and "History of the Contemporary Novel."
I started dance classes! I'm taking "rock 'n' roll" which is pretty much a mix between swing and jive. The people there seem very friendly, and there are a lot of excellent leaders, which is all a follow could ever ask for. I was going to take it with a friend, but she backed out on me, which is inconvenient because I don't really enjoy walking there alone. But after class last night, some really nice people asked me if I wanted a ride home, which was much appreciated.
Last weekend, the director of our program was out of town, and my friend Steven was watching her apartment and dog. She has a nice apartment and dog. We took advantage of them. Steven made a really good dinner. Again. You're going to hear a lot about the food he makes because it's really good, and he's probably going to be a chef after spending too much on tuition to get a "real" diploma. We had gnocchi with homemade pesto and a salad with heirloom tomatoes and other yummies, and I made a peach tart. He made the pesto with walnuts instead of pine nuts because, apparently, Italians put pine nuts in their pesto, and Frenchies put walnuts in theirs. I think I prefer the walnuts (he toasted them before putting it in the pesto). Southern France has excellent tomatoes, hence all the ratatouille and tomatoes provencales etc. They can get this saturated red color that makes an Indiana tomato look like. . . I don't know. . . an unappetizing tomato? And the heirloom tomatoes have this plum color to them that looks quite pretty with some fresh greens. Have I gone on about the food enough yet? No? Good. Because my new favorite lunch just might be a sizeable portion of a toasted baguette smothered in either goat cheese or boursin with fresh tomatoes and basil. I haven't been eating a lot of meat here. It's expensive! I'll have to take advantage of my previous host family's butcher shop soon.
Well, that's about all I've got for now. I'll let you know how my classes go as the week progresses.
French word of the day:
faillir (fie year) = to almost? Really, it's a verb that means to almost do something.
Aujourd'hui, j'étais failli convainqu d'acheter un gilet qui couté beaucoup plus que nécessaire, mais heureusement, je n'avais pas assez d'euros avec moi.
1 comment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2iiNVICfjg
hi christin. here is a good video.
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