degustation de France

I've found it's terribly difficult to have to think back to what I did exactly when and how best to explain it. I guess that's my punishment for taking three weeks to start this friggin' thing that I've been talking about doing since like before I left...awesome.

OK. After a lazy Sunday of homework and sporadic rain storms, I started my first "real" week of classes. There had been some uncertainty about whether the Cinema course would happen or not--it needed at least 5 people, and only 4 were there the first week--but yay for Amanda F, because she decided to enroll, so now I get to watch the most famous French movies and have a glorious time.

Mmm yeah. So, pretty much the same as the week before, but now I'll describe some of my classes more.

French Cultural Patterns, Monday morning at 10h45 with Jean-Michel Cosse. Jean-Michel is an awesome professor, he's really intelligent and above all really understands how much we can understand. He's obviously taught American students a lot. We have another section on Friday mornings with Elodie Buhrle, but it's sooo hard because it's the end of the week, and also I just blatantly disagree with a lot of the things she says in terms of the similarities and differences (okay, really just differences) between Americans and American culture and Frenchies and French culture. But then I'm too tired to say anything about it. Also, I can't really understand most of what she says, as she speaks super fast and uses a ton of words I don't know--super frustrating.

French Oral and Written Expression, Monday afternoon at 14h, also with Jean-Michel. This is probably the most directly useful class. Jean-Michel basically just straightens out the misconceptions of how to and how not to speak French. So many things that I used to say in French that made sense in terms of translation into English just do NOT fly in French. E.g. the adjective "plein/e," meaning "full," should not be said at the end of a meal, when you want to announce that you're too full to each more, as your host mother will probably be sent into a tizzy at the fact that after only 3 weeks in France, you are already pregnant. Instead, tell her, "j'ai deja mange assez, merci." Much better.

French Cinema, Tuesday morning at 9h (oof) with Jean-Dominique Brignoli. Jean-Do is super chouette and seems to know a lot about film. Also, I found out last week that France had the very first movie EVER. What!? How did I not realize this?? Then, a movie was actually a "vue."

Major Scenes in French Theatre, Tuesday afternoon at 15h with Jean-Claude Azoulay (yes, all my professors are Jean-Something. Oh, France). Jean-Claude is a professional actor--he has a show this weekend in Marseille that I'm really going to try to go to--and speaks perfect English--real like English English, not American English. Pretty sweet--and is hilarious and a wonderful teacher. In the 3 hour class (same as Cinema), we spend the first ~1.5 hours discussing plays (last week and this week is Moliere's Le bourgeois gentilhomme), then the remainder playing around like true Theatrettes. It's perfect.

Last is Architecture and Urbanism in Provence, Friday afternoon at 14h, also with Jean-Do. This class, which is pretty much just Art History of Provence, is really fascinating, especially because the focus is on Aix and Marseille, so I can literally leave class and see exactly what he was just talking about--and in fact, this week we're going to spend the last 1/2 hour actually in Aix, EXPERIENCING the Architecture and Urbanism in Provence. Good lord, I love France.

So yes. Those are my classes. They kind of rock.

On Tuesday, I chose my "club" for the semester--I'm going to take classes in "Rock" dance from a group called RockCaliente at Berny's Cafe in eastern Aix. The class last week was SO much fun. I know it sounds kind of conceited, but I figured that whatever beginning level dance class I take would be no problem for me, but I'd struggle with the language a lot. I found out that not only would I have some issues with the language, but that this "rock" dance is not something I'm used to at all and I was already pushed a litte--a very pleasant surprise. Some of the guys there were a bit "louche" (French for creepy. One of my fave words, duh), but in a way that wasn't so bad. And also, even the louches could dance. Now that was a surprise.

After my super chouette dance class, I went out on the town with Emily--starting at Brigand, as usual, then to O'Shannon, also as is our wont, then to IPN, which had Ladies' Night. This meant that if we paid 3 euros to get in, we could have as many champagne-currant syrup drinks as we wanted. Not a bad deal, even for just one. It was quite delicious, too!

After that long, louche-y night, I spend Wednesday catching up on sleep and doing homeworkses chez moi, then I headed to my very first course in Wine Tasting. Note for all:

WINE TASTING IS HARD.

I thought I could be good at it, mostly because I like to think I have a pretty good nose in general, but no. Absolutely false. I would smell the wine, and it would make me think of something, but I could never place the smell. And as for the tasting part? Fail. Total fail.

After another awesome rendez-vous with my language partner, Claire--she is so cool. She works at the Pavillon Noir, which is the "centre choreographique national," aka AWESOME, and she's said that she can get me tickets to the events there. That like makes my life. I wanted to see the Ballet Preljocaj (the dance company) so bad, but I figured I wouldn't be able to afford it. And now, free tickets?!?! So unreal. Also, this is an epic hyphen happening right now--I think I had a quiet night chez moi with my host family. That's also how my nights went for the rest of the week.

So, it's really late now, I'm really exhausted, and I still have a bit of homework to do for tomorrow, so I'm going to cut this off now. Tomorrow or something, I'll write about my trip to the Luberon yesterday (oh man, I am GOOD at this catching up thing), which was pretty damn cool.

Gros bisous!