Les cours

Okay, first things first, I DO NOT hate Lille. At all. I’m having some pretty interesting experiences and sometimes feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster, but I think a lot of that is just due to the stress of everything happening so fast. We keep saying that our moods depend a lot on our levels of stress, hunger, warmth, and energy! It’s definitely true. Last night was particularly interesting. We ventured out to find food for dinner after spending the day signing up for classes and attending orientation. We eventually found a pizza place and were impressed by our ability to get through all of meal using French with the waiters without any communication problems or them speaking English to us, but we spend a good hour extra at the restaurant trying to figure out how in the world we were supposed to pay. We had no idea whether it was more normal for the waiter to bring the bill, to ask for the bill, or to just walk up to the cash register. Good thing by now we are starting to laugh at these misunderstandings rather than being frustrated by them. Things got even crazier when we got back to our residence and we were locked out. No joke! The key would not work! Needless to say, it was time for creative problem solving. We all tried the door, started pushing buttons on the buzzer system, opened the next door over, couldn’t find any other doors our keys worked on, then Tom and Mandi FINALLY found the back door where the people who park their bikes come in, and let Angela and I in. Whew!!

Today was the first day of classes, and overall, they went really well. I really like my Madame de Lafayette class. The professor, Monsieur Godo seems really nice and really good. He’s also really accommodating to Internationals, which is helpful. I felt really good about being able to listen and understand almost everything he was talking about. I had a relaxing afternoon and then went to my Vérsion class, which is translation from English to French. Way cool class. I was super interested in taking the translation courses, so I’m excited about it! The teacher, Monsieur Roger, also seems nice. Funny thing: we found out we missed a class today. In France and other European schools, whenever they change the classroom for classes, they put the new schedule on these bulletin boards in a hallway of FLSH (Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines). Last night, we checked the boards for our rooms and saw that our History of France class was going to be on Thursday, NOT Wednesday like we originally thought. Turns out, Emily—one of the Canadian girls—stops by our floor tonight and tells Tom, Angela, and I that we missed our class. AH! While not a disaster, we were wrong because we were trying to be diligent students by CHECKING the boards. Oh, the irony… At any rate, classes tomorrow should be fine. I have an English Lit class as well as my French placement test, but I’m not too worried. :-) But for now, it’s bedtime!