Update time!

Well, I realized that the last time I updated my blog was last weekend after going to Parc Asterix... So, I think I'm due for another one!

This week went by really fast! The weekend was just another normal weekend, I didn't do anything special aside from walking around Lille, taking in all the sights that I won't get to see again. I've been having issues with a company in Paris trying to say I owe more money than I should, so I've been working to sort that out in order to get my French bank account closed before I leave France. I also mailed the second package of stuff home too. Right now, my room is mostly taken down and either already semi-packed into my suitcases or lying around in piles waiting to get packed. It's hard to think that in only 4 days, I fly back home and leave France. The fact that my room is really feeling empty with things taken down, doesn't help the disappointment. But at the same time, it will be nice to get back home and not have to deal with so many things I've dealt with while here.

I'm just relaxing right now, and going to get some work done later today as far as packing goes. I'm going to aim to get absolutely everything packed up and sorted out... then only take out the things I need for the rest of the week and basically live out of my suitcases. It will make it even more depressing but also easier because I won't have to rush and get things packed at the last minute too!

This past week was rather uneventful, part of why I forgot to update this blog till now! Monday, was another holiday, so I headed out into the city again just to walk around the Grand Place and shops near there... only on my way back, I stopped through a smaller park on Rue National where there is the P'tit Quinquin statue as well as a small quaint little park. So I followed that the whole way up since it was a gorgeous day, and ended up at the Citadel! So I headed over that way as I was not in the mood to go back to my room when it was such a lovely day out! I stopped by the Zoo again, and spent a good hour there taking even more pictures because the animals were up and about... and who can't have a fun time while at the Zoo?! After the Zoo, I ended up walking around the entire outer walls of the Citadel in the Bois de Boulogne, which is the oxygen center for Lille because of the many species of trees planted there. It was a quiet, peaceful walk around - so I just meandered my way around the path taking in the gorgeous scenary. After I did that, it was getting around dinner time so I headed back to my room.

Then, Tuesday morning started my final exams. I only had one on Tuesday around 11:30, and that was for Geography of France - which actually was a half hour oral exam. So I studied my notes and memorized the facts and figures... only to go into the exam and end up only saying three things about the class in the whole half hour! The rest of the exam was just talking about my time here in France, what I was studying, which lead to us discussing theater in London and in general... basically nothing at all to do with the classwork!

Wednesday, I had two exams and that was my longest day. I had a 3 hour final in the morning at 8:30 am for Travail du Spectateur. We watched the first ten minutes of Ariane Mnouchkine's "Tambours sur Digne" which was a really cool production because it used the idea of puppets ... only actors played the puppets, so there were puppeteers behind them dressed in black, and if that wasn't enough, the voices of the puppets were even different people offstage! So we had to analyze that for the rest of the exam. Only, we started an hour late because of technical difficulties with the projector. But I just wrote about how even though it is unique and avant garde, the production upheld the ideals of Classisim. I think I did really well on that exam.

Then, in the afternoon, I had the Greek History exam - which was 4 hours long! All of us in that class had figured that we would only be tested on the stuff we learned after the midterm - and since that was only women in Ancient Greece and slaves... it wasn't too much info. Though, I decided to take a gander and focused mainly on the women aspect figuring I would probably have to do a dissertation on the role of the woman in Ancient Greece for the final. As such, I only briefly glanced over my notes on the slaves. So I go into the exam, after already spending 3 hours writing another exam... and turn over the paper with the questions on it - and was forced to make a double take. The first of our three options we had to pick one from to answer, was a dissertation on the different ways and rights of citizenship in Ancient Greece - material we studied at the beginning of the year! The second question was a commentary on text and images provided about the war conflicts of Ancient Greece - something we only briefly mentioned here and there, never really studied! And the third option was a dissertation on Slaves in Ancient Greece! Not a single thing was on the role of women, or could even be angled from that viewpoint... so I ended up forcing myself to recall all the things I could about slaves in Greece and wrote about that. I ended up taking just over 3 hours to write it as I actually organized my thoughts and did a rough draft before finally copying it over to the actual test booklet. I ended up being the last one to leave that exam - but I really feel that I was able to put enough information in the paper to get a great grade on it!

Then I ran into a dilemma. Thursday morning at 10 am was due the Rattrapage paper for History of France, which I was forced to take as I had gotten a 4/20 on the final because I had studied just about the opposite of what she ended up asking up on the final. But, at the same time, I had to study for the two finals I had Thursday morning starting at 8:30... because I had to do good on those too. I ended up sitting down and started answering the Rattrapage questions, but after I had finished the first questions it was already after midnight! Knowing I needed to get some sleep, plus study for the two exams that morning... I did some quick thinking. I looked at all my classes to see if I really needed to pass the History of France class. But what I realized was that since I had dropped the Modern Lit class, I still had 12 classes left. Most international students had about 8 or 9 classes which was enough to transfer back home, and here I am being the overachiever and trying to pass 12 classes! After looking at the grades I recieved for those classes, or at the least figuring that I would get the passing grade for the class to transfer back, I opted to not do the History of France Rattrapage and instead focus on studying for the two exams that morning as I would still most likely pass 11 classes.

So Thursday morning came around and I got up to go to those exams. Both of them were 2 hours long, and they were for the Analyze Textes and Practique du Jeu classes - basically theater classes. The professor had already told us hints about what they were going to be on, and since I went up to her after the last class and asked, she gave me a little more info to help me study. The first one was two questions, one analyzing the Theater styles and theories of four well-known names in the theater world and if their theories could still be used today. I ended up focusing mainly on Jerzi Grotowski, a Polish director and theorist who created a form of acting and theater that I have already studied and tried to follow - so that essay was really well. The second part of that exam was to basically come up with a plan for a Happening - which is an art form that uses the audience and normally has a message to it. I really liked mine called, It's Only Paper!

My basic idea was that it would last over 5 days in Times Square in New York City. The first day at noon when everyone would be out and about, you would toss 1,000 pieces of green paper cut to the size of dollar bills off the roofs. The people would first think they're money and try to get them but soon realize that it's only paper and just toss them on the ground. The second day, you do the same exact thing - but people won't even notice much because they were conditioned to not are because it's only paper. The third day, however, you would actually toss 1,000 dollar bills instead of paper. People would quickly realize this is actual money and try to grab as much as they can. The fourth day, you would go back to tossing green pieces of paper - and the people below would soon realize it's only paper again and ignore it. The last day, you toss green paper and they don't even realize it because the've been conditioned to ignore it. The whole point of the Happeneing is the fact that the dollar bill is really only green paper that has an association with the economy. People show by their greed in trying to grab the actual dollars on day 3 that we as a society are conditioned to want as much money as we can get our hands on. But when it's only just green pieces of paper, they have no value so the people just ignore it! I really thought it was a cool idea!

Anyways, the second exam was for Practique du Jeu and this one was rather simple - we just had to discuss Bertolt Brecht's theory of theater and the Brechtian Actor by using examples form texts and shows we've seen. Since I had done The Threepenny Opera in Fall of 2006 at Clarion, I really knew what Brecht's theater style was like as that's one of his most well-known productions. So I tied that into the whole paper, organized it and ended up with a well written paper. After that was over, I went back to my room and took a nap!

Friday morning was Suzanne Bray's French to English Translation Final, which I really couldnt' study for - so I just woke up and went into the hour and half long exam at 8:30 in the morning. But that was my only final for that day so afterwards, I came back and again took another nap as I was worn out from the week of finals. Now, I only have the English to French Translation final tomorrow (Monday) afternoon at 1:30 and then I will be completely done with my finals!

So, since it was my last weekend in France - and it was the same for others as well, we all decided that we should go out and have a fun time this weekend. So Friday night, the plan was to start off here in the Residence having a party and pre-gaming, and then go out later to a bar or club. So around 11 pm, I joined everyone else on the second floor where we had music playing and of course were drinking and just having a good time. The entire Spanish population of the Residence was out in the hall as well doing the same so it was rather fun. Time ended up flying by and by 1 am we started getting ready to actually go out. Only that was when one of the cleaning ladies (who I guess are also in charge of the residence or something) decided to come on up and crash the party by trying to give everyone avertisements - basically trying to write us up. So we all split different directions in the chaos that ensued. The Spaniards started arguing with the cleaning lady, some people wanted the blame put on them... but it was being put on innocent people... all in all not a good time. But a small group of us ended up on the fourth floor in Eve's room where we waited in terror if the cleaning lady would come around to all the rooms like she kept threatening... but she never came thankfully. Only a few other friends of ours came by and we jsut kinda kept the party going quietly in there. By now it's going on 3:30 in the morning, so we of course realized we weren't going to be going out and ended up heading back to our separate rooms... where I just crashed.

Only, I didn't get much sleep because I had to wake up and get to the bank to talk to them before they closed at noon... so I dragged myself out of bed around 10 am, got ready and headed on over there. Only, when I got there they were closed! Another one of these random French national holidays that keep popping up everywhere - and of course on the days when I have things I have to do! So that ended up being a waste, so I just headed on over to the Grand Place as I wanted to get some postcards of Lille from the Furet du Nord - as well as enjoy the area for another last time. While I was there, there was a festival thingy going on in the Place Rihour next door - so I took my time to walk through the stalls set up. I ended up buying an ice cream cone with Grand Marnier flavored ice cream - it was incredible! I'm going to miss the ice cream for sure! I then ended up walking to Carrefour to grab a few things like bread and something to drink for this week, before coming back to my room and relaxing. Since we hadn't actually gone out the night before, we all planned on going on tonight - so I tried keeping on the ball with those plans while just relaxing the rest of the day.

We ended up going out about midnight. The first stop was a bar called Pirates, which is themed to the Pirates of the Carribean... only there was no room for all 11 of us to squeeze inside that tiny place - a bit upsetting because I actually haven't been there before where most of the others had. So we headed over to Rue Solferino where most of the bars are to try and find one that would work for our large group. After ruling a few out because they just had no room, we called some other friends who were already out at places to try and catch up to them. So that took us to the Shower Bar - which was small but a really cool place. It was themed like a shower and was more of an adult bar as there actually was a shower above the bar where they had people go in from time to time and perform some rather risque shows while showering! We all had a blast while getting drunk and it ended up being a really fun time!

After that, we headed over to the Tchouka club to dance and continue the night - by the time we got over there (which was around 2 pm) it was already packed and had a really good party going on. So we just joined in on the fun! I think we spent a good two hours there just dancing and having some more drinks. By the time we actually left, we were all getting tired and were ready to leave. So we said goodbye to part of the group who were going a different direction, and the rest of us from our Residence headed back through the streets of Lille at 4 am in the morning! So naturally, I came back to my room and just crashed!

I had intended to wake up this morning to get to the Sunday Wazemmes Market for one last time before leaving France... and even though my alarms woke me up in time to do so... my body was in no mood to actually move itself out of bed! So I ended up sleeping in and woke up after it was already closed - oops! But I had been to the market many times before so I really wasn't missing too much. And now, I've just been sitting here updating this blog, finishing uploading my pictures online and will start packing things up here.

My time in France is very quickly coming to an end. I have one last final tomorrow afternoon, I have my room check-out scheduled for Wednesday at 3 pm... and I leave France on Thursday morning. Aside from the miscellaneous things like closing my bank account and packing, I'm done - all I will have to do is some last minute hanging out with friends whom I probably will never see again, and that's it.

My train leaves Lille on Thursday morning at 6 am, and is a direct train to the Charles de Gaulle Airport outside of Paris. I've given myself almost three hours to get checked in and everything at the airport before my plane leaves Paris at 10 am. Then, 8 and half hours later, I land in Newark around 12:30 pm EST where I've also given myself a little over three hours to get through customs and onto my next plane home. I leave Newark around 3:30 pm EST and arrive back home in Pittsburgh at 5:15 pm where I'm sure my family will be waiting anxiously for me in the baggage claim.

Well... as this is a long blog like usual, I should get going as it's already 7 pm and I would like to get everything packed up and all that figured out by tonight! Not sure if I will have another blog before I leave France - I'm thinking I might make one on Wednesday... but just in case I don't.... this shall be my last blog from France....

Alors... Au revoir France! Je t'aime et tu me manques!
(Therefore... Goodbye France! I love you and I will miss you!) for those who don't speak French!