Hello again!

I'm in between watching a movie and working on school work, getting ready for my English to French translation DS this morning... so what's best to do? Update my blog!

This past week was a rather bland one. It was mixed with the usual boringness of classes, with the semi-boredom that evenings can bring on. This has been a bit of a stressful week for me because I am really learning the use of budgets and the harsh realities that life can bring. Since I have been over here in France, the value of the dollar internationally has fallen, and therefore how I spend my money is even more critical. I have to balance things out, just like it is in the real world once school has finished - and I'm glad that I am able to do that now when I have the support of others to help me. I've also been figuring out a bunch of things with classes over her - as I have to budget my time to get all my classwork done too!

I think I am going to be dropping my Modern Literature class - which is only about books of the French author Marguerite Duras. My reasoning for this is two-fold. I have another class with the same professor - Mr. Godo, who is a really friendly and understanding professor, as well as completely passionate about Marguerite Duras! In my other class with him, we are reading Moderato Cantabile - and doing in depth analysis about the book. However, as it is in French and while my French is improving greatly while being over here - I still have yet to finish reading that book. Well, for the Modern Literature class, I not only have to read that book but five others that she wrote. Also, as the Modern Literature class is a Master's class, the level of work is higher and that is the reason that instead of a DS, there is a 15 page theory paper due. Catie, the other international student in the class with me, and I have talked with Mr Godo, our professor, and he recommended that it would be easiest for us to do our paper on Moderato Cantabile. Normally I wouldn't have an issue with having a paper like this to write. But giving the fact that it would have to be in French, and I have other school work to work on as well - which includes writing a movie script with Charlie; writing, filming, and producing a short movie on my own; plus the work load from other classes - I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed about Modern Literature. I'm going to email Mr. Godo and hopefully talk to him after class this week and express my concerns. I hope to find out what the final test is going to be like and whether or not I can feasibly pass the final. As I am not going anywhere for my two week break from classes in April, I would have the time to sit down and read the books and do the paper plus all my other coursework but as I have 14 classes and only need to pass 8 of them - I'm wondering if it might just be easier to drop the Modern Literature class. So I hope to talk with Mr Godo about my concerns and reach a conclusion that will be best overall. So, on that note - I will keep you guys posted!

As for the movie script that Charlie and I have to write for my Ecriture class, that is going rather well for the most part. We are actually ahead of the rest of the class and the teacher is using our work as an example! We got together Saturday afternoon and actually started to write the script - and for being ahead of everyone else in the class, the teacher might even give us some bonus points! Though, it's a bit interesting to write it because naturally it is in French and my skills with the language are nowhere near fluent. So, the language and wording has more or less fallen upon Charlie though I am helping as much as I can. I actually was the one typing it up on Saturday because I am familiar with the program we are using! But the story is a really good one, and we have things planned out well enough that we could easily see it being actually produced! We're just hoping for a good grade on it though!

I had mentioned the short movie I have to essentially create from scratch - this is for my Performance Artistique class. I had a great idea for my Court Mettrage - what it's called in French, and had everything planned out and most of the script written but not translated to French yet. I had originally shared my idea with Charlie to make sure it was a good idea and she had said it was but that it would be hard to film. Well, I didn't think much on that as I know my levels of standards are higher than the average persons and when I want to do things I want them to be the best I can be. Well... I found out on Friday while we grabbed lunch between class and my DS for Greek History... the reason it will be hard and almost impossible to film my Court Mettrage is because you cannot film in clubs and bars in France. Naturally, half of my short movie script takes place in bars and clubs... so that whole plan had to be tossed out the window.

Then I had to deal with Charlie talking about what we should be doing financially as I have explained what is going on with her just because she's someone to talk to here... naturally she's trying to give advice that won't work out which is just making me a bit frustrated... I explained my desire to drop Modern Literature to which she said not to worry about the movie script that we are writing because she'll be doing most of it anyways... etc... and to top it off... Friday night she had paid for tickets to see Le Roi Lear - Shakespeare's King Lear only in French at the local theater. I knew it was here but didn't plan on going and most certainly did not know that Charlie was going with some of our fellow classmates. Naturally, she doesn't tell me this till Friday morning - as well as the fact that the show is completely sold out. So I was a bit ticked off at the fact that she was going to see a very classic theater repertoire show, knew about it in advance, and didn't even bother mentioned or asking me if I wanted to go as well - and I'm way more a theater major than she is and probably will be!

But aside from that mess... my Greek History DS was rather horrible... I was tired from having class all morning and not looking forward to a 4 hour test it was scheduled to be. I had done the best studying I could - though I'm sure I could've done a lot more if I really wanted to! But I completely was drawing blanks after reading over the three options we had to pick from. The first one was a basic dissertation on Greek meteques and strangers during the pre 5th and 4th centuries BCE.. while the last two options were a commentary on the given texts. I hate when I have to comment on texts, especially when no topic is given to comment about - just given the text with no direction. Naturally that's how the last two options were - no direction! So after a bout an hour of wrangling my brain for any little tidbit of facts I could use in my dissertation - plus I think I kinda dazed off a couple times too! I was finally able to piece together a dissertation that I hope has enough information in it and talks about what our professor was looking for to give me a decent grade on it.

DS is Devoirs Surveilles - basically the French equivalent of a mid-term. It's normally in a different room, either a Friday afternoon or Monday morning, and there are other professors there to supervise it but not the professor himself. They can last from an hour to 4 hours and usually entail all writing. They have not been much fun so far as they are rather difficult to even think of studying for! I have another one this morning at 8:30 for my English to French translation class. Basically we'll be given a document in English and have an hour and half to translate it into French - without the aide of a translation dictionary of course! Therefore, it's almost impossible to study for this one! I just hope I do a good enough job on it!

The last week, Charlie and I didn't go to the gym at all - either we had too much work to do for classes, or we were just so worn out to go and spend two hours working out. So hopefully today after classes, we'll hit the gym again and get back to that this week. We normally go every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after our classes. We spend a half hour on the bikes, then another half hour on the ellipticals, followed by a session of lifting weights and doing sit ups - and ending with another 15-30 min on either the elliptical or bikes - it's quite a workout! The one day I went by myself and according to the machines on the equipment I burned about 650 calories in an hour! According the the scale Charlie had bought - I've lost 15 lbs since I was last weighed at the doctor's in December! I don't feel like I've lost that much weight but I can only hope it's accurate!

I really didn't do much this weekend - I didn't know what my friends were doing and I was a bit worn out from last week so i just took it easy. I slept in both days - had planned on going to the market again but ended up sleeping a little too late! The rest of the time I spend doing my laundry which took forever! The door in the basement of my part of the building has always been open before when I did my laundry - but for some reason now it's locked. So... in order to use the single washer and the single dryer in our side of the building I have to go all the way across the hall to the other building, down all 5 stories to the basement and then cross back into the basement of my building! At least I got a workout doing so!

I did find out something rather interesting about this building though. My friends and I have always wondered why the ceilings are so high and why it feels like a medical institution. Well, lo and behold - the building used to be a hospital! Now this isn't such a huge concern - however as the building is a U-shape with the main entrance at the bottom of the U... it has two wings. The are now known as Foyer International and Sainte Camille. I live in the Sainte Camille wing. However - when this building was a hospital, the Foyer's wing was the main portion of the hospital while my side of the building was used as the mental institution. This completely explains why the ceilings are so high and why it feels like it does! Which is kinda creepy to think that I'm in a room that used to house mental patients! But I guess when buildings are centuries old - and often reused time and time again - things like this happen!

Though I'm not a big fan of the building the longer I'm here. As I've explained before, I have a sink and mirror in my room, but to use the toilet, I have to go down the hall and use the W.C which is basically a tiny closet with just a toilet in it. Then, for showers, I have to go down the hall to another small - but larger than the W.C's room - where there is a single shower stall. While I've gotten used to this change in lifestyle and culture - its still a bit of a shock at times. To make things even more not so likable, the microwave that was in the basement kitchen for us all to use disappeared about two weeks ago! And to top that off - the main ceiling light in my room has been blown out for about three weeks now. I have asked the cleaning ladies what to do and from my understanding I have to change the light myself! Well... the ceiling is rather high to the point I can't even reach it if I stand on the huge table I use as my desk! So I have gotten accustomed to only having the fluorescent light above my mirror and my tiny desk lamp as my main sources of light in at nights. So, in some ways like these - I will be glad to return home and have lights I can actually change and a microwave to cook food it right at my hands, etc.

One nice thing though is the weather here. It has not felt like winter at all since I have been here. Perhaps that is because I haven't seen snow with my own eyes since I left Pennsylvania on January 3! There's something to do with the air here that won't allow it to snow - or if it does manage to do so - it doesn't stay on the ground! The closest I have seen was frost on the grass in Dublin and one morning here I had glimpsed frost on cars passing by! However, for all the snow I have not been getting here - we have had a good share of rain! Though for a good couple weeks it got rather warm and felt like April weather! It's odd because the flowers here are starting to bloom as spring rapidly approaches us! I can't wait to be able to walk around and have green trees, with flowers all over. Of which I will naturally take tons of pictures of! There are many parks here that are just flowerbeds so that will be fun to go exploring in the next few months.

It's odd to think that in a little over two months I will be on a plane back home to the states - and saying goodbye to France for probably a good few years at the least. After figuring things out, we decided that it was wiser for me to come home in May after I finish my exams. I had originaly planned to stay here till the end of June because of Rattrapages - which are kinda like make up tests. They are only needed if you don't pass the final test in the first place! But as there are three weeks between the end of exams and the week of Rattrapages (three weeks in which I originally had planned to do some traveling around Europe) but due to financial strains am no longer able to travel. Therefore, we decided it was best I study hard to pass all my classes the first time around, and come home the end of May. It will save us a month of expenses, me having idle time on my hands, and I can also start working a month earlier. Because of this, I'm really starting to treasure my time here as it's been so valuable and such an experience. Not many get to say they spent five months living in another county!

Well... I think that's been quite a lot today! Not that there was much to talk about in the first place, but I think I'm going to go get some sleep in before my test and get ready for a long day ahead of me! Till the next update! Bon soir!