Danny's life in France

so today was my first day of classes. my first class wasn't until 2pm, but still. this class is going to be a bit difficult. it's on litterature on the first world war and on the algerian war. and our prof gets this nasty white foam on the edge of his mouth from talking too much. it's absolutely disgusting! after that, nothing much today. post office to send a letter to anne-caroline in paris, office to check on a course transfer, and...that's about it. now i'm getting ready to cook spaghetti and eat with lauren and kelly. hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting...

today - nothing big. it's the first day of classes, but my monday class doesn't start until nov. 3. so i slept in, went to lunch and then went to carrefour (a store that's probably 3x the size of a superwalmart). then i came back and went grocery shopping. then i went to dinner with some friends and have been hanging out in my room ever since. nothing exciting. but i did get a couple of things to decorate my room with, though. so it's looking a bit homier. ta ta for now.

so today i got up at 8:30 to meet sylvie to go hiking up to the mountain. well, it was raining. so we didn't end up doing that. i just went back to bed and got up at 2:23pm. then i went into town with a couple of friends of mine then came back to the dorms. i did some laundry (after an hour and a half of waiting in line for a washer). i hung my laundry up in my room to dry and then went and had somewhat of a small party in kelly's room. nothing big. now, i'm going to go back to my room and go to bed. today was a really slow day - NOTHING interesting. but no COCKROACHES for a week now!!!

today i got up with 10 minutes to get ready to head to marseille. my prof took us all to marseille and it was a blast!! we took a boat to a small island where there's this famous castle (where monte cristo took place). we then had lunch and went to notre dame de la garde. it was really cool. notre dame is a famous catholic church up on a high hill above the city. the title translates to 'our lady the guardian.' there are nothing but thank-yous inside the church for the church saving people in various times. it's really cool. and besides, i got to take lots of pictures from up above the city. we just spent the entire day hanging out. it was so much fun! now, i'm back and there's a music festival going on in a park that's just down the street. i might go to that. otherwise, i've got laundry to be doing and sleep to be had! we'll see... oh! and there are thunderstorms coming! i see the lightening off in the distance. i sure do miss indiana thunderstorms...

so danny's really happy right now. i just read my email and i have been approved to take all of the courses i want! and the best thing is that they'll all transfer for what i want them to transfer as!! to be honest, picking courses here in france is nothing but utter pure and complete chaos!!! it's friday before classes start and there are still TONS of students who don't know what they're doing. whew! aside from that, nothing new here. i got an a on my final grammar test. i'm really happy about that. my vocab test i think i got an a- on. and...what else today...my teacher took us all out for a drink this evening. that was really nice of her! tomorrow we're all going to marseille (my class and prof, that is). it's going to be really fun. and...i've got more laundry upstairs to be doing, so i should probably be going to do that now. besides, i'm completely beat. this week has just about killed me. well, i hope all's well back in the states.

today was purely a day sent from hell (yet again...). so i went to classes as usual this morning. nothing out of the ordinary, right? well, then this afternoon i had a meeting with our resident director who was supposed to help me choose my classes for this next year. well, yeah...she's learning just as we are. and last night i spent a total of 5 hours picking courses. and today i had to totally redo my schedule and i spent another 3 hours in the office doing so today. the problem is i don't know if the classes i wanna take will transfer. but oh well. maybe it'll all come together in the end. french bureaucracy is particularly frustrating. and tomorrow i've got my meeting with the IEP director. he'll be the one to tell me if i have sufficient courses to be an IEP student, which i don't think i've got any problem. aside from this catastrophe, things are fine. i haven't seen any COCKROACHES for 3 days now, so i guess that's a good think. i would prefer to not have seen any at all, but i guess that's the way the cookie crumbles. tomorrow i've got my last BIG exam for my intensive class. dans le cul! as we say here in france. that's a particularly vulgar expression, only to be used among friends. so i think i'm ready for it, though. justin came over and we studied a bit over some wine. we're both feeling pretty confident about the exam. and...sunday, sylvie (sylvia) and i are going to go climb a mountain that's just outside of the city. i think it rises a good 3000 feet in the air. and once we get to the top we're going to have lunch. so that'll be really fun. and...i think that's about all of the interesting things here. wish me luck for my test tomorrow, friday. it'll be at 9:30am here, 2:30am on friday for those of you back in the states. AND WOULD SOMEBODY EAT A MCDONALD'S CHEESEBURGER FOR ME?!?!?! i miss mcdonald's with a passion. toodles for now.

sorry about not posting yesterday. yesterday was purely a day sent from hell, but oh well. ok, so what's up with 5 cockroaches?? i mean seriously, people. i went down to the front desk and got a little nasty with the people who run this place. i told them that i either wanted to be refunded money that i paid to live here, let me move to a different room that's up a couple of floors, or simply call an exterminator. they said that they'd try to send for the exterminator. well, if i'm still having problems in a couple of days, i'm going to go back and get nastier. aside from that, i FINALLY got my cell phone yesterday. orange sucks - they're the elite cell phone company here in france, i guess. i had to end up going to sfr. in doing so, i had to change numbers. if you need it, email me and i'll give it to you. yesterday was more of the same, though. classes and homework. but i had to study for a test that we took today. i did ok on it, but we'll see on monday when i get my grades. also, monday's the start of real classes. what i'm taking right now is an intensive course that all of the americans on my program are required to take. my teacher is awesome!!!!! she even went out last night and bought me some bug spray so i have something to kill my 'roommates' with. and saturday she's taking us all to marseille to hang out a bit. aside from that, i've got a meeting at 5:15 to discuss my classes that i'm going to be taking this semester. university here in france is quite different than university in the states. here, you don't really have to register. all you do is find courses that you want to take and go to them. there really aren't limits to the number of students who can be in the same class. the time you really register is when you sign up to take the final exam. oh, and that's another thing. classes here in france are not like classes in the us - the only grade that we have is the final exam at the end!! so i can skip an entire semester of classes and just go take the final exams. but i'm not dumb enough to risk that. or am i... well, that's about it here. more to come tomorrow.

today i had to get up extra early...7:30am!!! we had meetings all morning long at the IEP (l'institut d'etudes politiques or political sciences institute). what a bore they were! but they served free pain au chocolat (chocolate bread) and coffee. so that made it worthwhile. the weather here today - cloudy, kinda cool, sprinkles every now and then. and...after the meetings got out at noon, i went to the bank, to orange to check on my cell phone but i have to wait until tomorrow to get my contract, to the grocery store and back home. i cleaned my room (finally!!) and am getting ready to start my mountains of homework. will the chaos ever come to an end?? but who cares?? I'M IN FRANCE!! WOOHOO!! le dorm restaurant opened up today so maggie, jessie and i are going to go try it out in a bit. that's about it here in france...more to come tomorrow.

so friday i took the tgv (train à grande vitesse, or high-speed train) to lyon. for those of you who don't know anything about the tgv, it's a train with the nose in the shape of a bullet (kind of). it's really aerodynamic and it goes around 350kph or 200-250mph. things fly past your window so quickly it kinda makes you dizzy! i love it!!! too bad we don't have it in the states...anyway, it was really cool seeing nicolas again. (we had worked together this summer at concordia). i gotta see all kinds of interesting things, like the town from up above on a hill. then we went and saw this retarded movie last night called 'willard.' just go see it - you'll know what i mean. then today we went and visited an old military fort in lyon. that was really cool. at 3pm, my tgv left the train station and an hour and a half later, i was back in aix-en-provence. i got off the train and this really rude woman who drove the charter bus that goes from the train station to the center of town made me put my small carry-on bag that i had with me for the weekend underneath the bus. man-o-man was i angry at her! but oh well. i got back to my dorm and took a nap. what good that did! oh! guess what the worst part of living in this dorm complex is - are you guessing?? THE COCKROACHES!!!!!! anyway, now that i've procrastinated enough by calling the united states, going out to have a drink with a couple of people and now playing around on the internet, i'm going back up to my room to clean and POSSIBLY do some homework. more to come tomorrow...