Le Désespoir et le Bonheur

I am still recovering from yesterday, both physically and mentally….really, I’m serious, I am….. Once again, yesterday was a day of extreme highs and extreme lows. My life had evened out to a happy medium now that I am more settled in Paris but today was just one of those days… It started out in complete désespor (despair) but happily ended in le bonheur (happiness).
The day started out with le désespoir, caused by what else, my class at Paris 12. I knew taking a L3 (license 3 = third year) philosophy class would be difficult but what I endured today was miserable. Even for an introduction class, where we went over the syllabus (or lack thereof) pretty much sent me off the deep end.

The day started out well enough, I got to Paris 12 for my first philosophy class no problem and found the room right away. The teacher began talking about the course and right off the bat he says that he has changed the course description from what he wrote in June for the livret etudiant (student book, has info about each department and classes offered every semester). Uh oh, bad sign, right there. I only took the class based on the course description because it included a bit of political philosophy that I need for my government major at Hamilton. I was still calm at this point, I thought “Ok, whatever. I’ll give it a try.” Plus, I still had another hour and a half to sit through so I couldn’t get all stressed out so early. Well, that lasted about two seconds because the final exam is a four hour dissertation. As in TALKING, in French, for FOUR HOURS. Now, as a foreign student, I would not be expected to do this same assignment, the teachers here have lots of exchange students and are usually pretty good about giving written assignments or alternative assignments that are do-able for foreign kids. However, I do not want to deal with a guy who makes his student talk for four hours in an undergraduate class! Also, he didn’t really have a syllabus. While this is typical for French universities, he kept talking about more books he was thinking about giving us. He finished off the class by saying that because he is teaching his thesis research topic, a class like this has never been taught before. Well, that was it for me. If I am going to take a philosophy class in French, I want a topic that has been discussed over and over and there are lots of books on the subject. As soon as class ended, I tried to talk to the professor and explain that I probably won’t be back but it was terrible. I was all nervous and didn’t really know what I wanted to say. Well, I made the conversation as short as possible and then I ran. Well, not literally, I speed walked but boy did I book it out of Paris 12. The whole time I was walking back to the metro, I couldn’t get a particular song out of my head….. “I rannnn, I ran so far away.” Right now, I believe that I have to find another class at Paris 12. Our program only has so many spots in each university each semester and the other universities are filled. “Couldn’t get away….” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUjIA3Rt7gk

Thank goodness I had rugby in afternoon. After the fiasco in the morning, I really needed to plaquer (tackle) something. It was a only a little scrimmage tournament but it was pretty fun. I still don’t really know what I am doing out there but the team and the coach have such high expectations! I got put right in the middle and I am was supposed to get in the middle and pouse, pousse, pousse (push,push,push). After the first play where I touched the ball I saw that my knee that was bleeding. Does that make me a real rugby player now? The coach even drew up a little give and go play that was supposed to get me the ball but we never got it to work. We still have so much to learn and work on at practice. We have another game on Thursday so bring it on ‘em.

Tomorrow night is Nuit Blanche (white night = all nighter) so all the museums will be free (they're always free for me) but there are also lots of contemporary art installations all over the city. I have to go, its my homework! J'adore Paris.