What? I have to take classes while I'm here?

The title pretty much says it all. 


Let's be honest, this whole "study abroad" concept would be far better minus the study part. Like I said in the last post, I picked classes. Well, I did a terrible job. I don't have any classes on Mondays or Wednesdays which is nice, but the rest of the week is enough to make up for that! 


The first class I went to was Tuesday at 9am. It's called (roughly) Hell and Heaven, a history of man: literature of the middle ages. Yes. There are 2 professors for the course and they both seem really nice and, more importantly, quite sympathetic to the plight of the poor foreign student. It's split into two halves, literature and iconography of heaven and hell in the medieval times/middle ages. At first this class scared me to death because it is a whopping 4 hours long! They started out with a introduction and gave us the "bibliography" which is this huge list of books that you can use as references. It isn't at all like the states where you get a book list and you buy them. Basically you have to go to the library here to look at the books and take notes. I think I'm against that concept in general but we'll see... Anyways during the class I had already decided to drop it because it seemed really not that fun haha but maybe it was because it had already been 3 hours? After the 3rd hour I felt like my butt was cemented to the chair. Little did I know that that class was a vacation compared to what came next... 


France and Europe: The fall of the monarchy to the fall of the napoleon era. Terrible, really. We had class in this huge huge room so naturally I assumed there would be a lot of students. Wrong. There were maybe 15 of us and a lot were Americans from the program. I had such high hopes for this class and the prof walked in and began rattling away immediately. She talked so quietly and so fast. Then she took attendance and got this look on her face because of the amount of American students. Because we are American she said that she assumed we knew nothing about the French Revolution. How kind. Then she introduced the course a little bit and said we each had to do a 20 minute oral presentation on one of the days. I ended up volunteering to give the one next Tuesday. Why? Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous but I looked through the documents and the one on Tuesday was the only one written by someone I had heard of before. Madness anyhow. But then it was down to business and she just started lecturing away, rarely taking a pause to answer question or breathe. Her voice trailed off at the end of sentences and made it so difficult to take notes. I think the vast majority of the things I wrote down ended in " . . . " because I couldn't understand her. That class is a definite no-go. I guess they'll have to do without my brilliant 20 minute commentary on document 4 on Tuesday... 


No class Wednesday but I finally did laundry! Woo :) I love clean clothes! 


Today I had social and cultural history of France in the 19th century. It was the first good class from the start. The professor is really easy to understand. There are also a lot of other foreign students in that class. We have to compose 2 works, 2 pages long, in groups about topics that we chose. I think my group has dialects and then ... something else haha I have no idea! Then we have to give an oral presentation with a partner. Marley and I go fairly soon. I think ours is on French territories and rural something or other? I swear these are written down somewhere so don't worry!! The grade is composed of those assignment and then a final exam. It seems like it will be a good class! Yay!!! 


History of the rural world from Antiquity to our days. Odyssey number 3, really. I went to the 4th floor of this building, which is really the 5th floor to go to the class. People were inside already having a class so I thought I had read the number wrong. I walked back down to the first floor only to find that I was correct, as far as the posting in the history department said. I climbed back upstairs and waited awkwardly for other students to arrive. I kept checking my watch... 12h40..12h45..12h50... 12h55. Only one other girl but she wasn't sitting by the classroom! Let the panic commence!!! Then at 13h05ish a professor-like woman- actually she looks kind of like a witch if witches wore many shades of purple and wore black patterned tights- went up to the classroom. She went in and then noticed the other "class" going on and then came back out. She asked me if I was waiting for the rural class and I said yes and so did the other girl sitting farther down the hall. Then she was like well I'm not quite sure why there are people in our room, but the real problem is that you two are the only ones in this class! Just two! More Panic. She started asking us both questions and found out I was American. She said we would go ahead and talk about the class a little bit (she kicked the other people out) and stop at 14h instead of 16h for the day. Basically she informed us that she was most likely going to get rid of the class and if we wanted to stay in we'd have to go to the one in the mornings (when I have the other class). That totally sucked because she was super nice and easy to understand. She talked a little bit about the subject and then said she would be gone next week but would email us about the future of the class. Crap. But, one good thing did happen. She told me that I spoke really well and only with a small accent, especially in comparison to other Americans! Woo go me. I managed to speak well even though I was panicking haha! 


So I came home after that and had some nutella to clear my mind! Yes, that is my excuse. I decided that I'm going to go to this History of the Industrial Revolution class on Tuesdays instead of the France and Europe nightmare. So I'll have Medieval Lit and Industrial Revolution Class on Tuesday, French Culture class and Oral Expression on Thursday, and dumb program course on Friday mornings. Not too too bad! 


Speaking of classes, I should probably go to my last one! Hope you're all having a wonderful week :)


Miss you and love you,


  Liv