School!

Yesterday was my first day of actual classes, and let me tell you it was interesting.

My first class, a discussion session of History of the 21st Century, met at Montreal - a building on a different metro spot than the main campus. I met up with two friends at the metro station and together we embarked on our adventure to find class. The building is in a rather ghetto part of town, there is a McDonalds about 30 yards from our classroom, but we found it relatively quickly. We arrived to the classroom - which could fit about 30 people- and most of the seats were taken. However we found a seat and waited for the professor. While we were waiting another 30 people showed up...and that is when we all began to panic. The professor announced that anyone not on her roster had to leave - and we, not having student cards, were not on the roster. So my brave friend spoke up stating that we were American students and did not have our cards. His comments were met by our fellow classmates with laughter making all of us panic even more and we become even more embarrassed. However the professor allowed us to stay and started kicking out "non priority" students (which resulted in many angry outbursts about the American students not deserving the spots etc). Finally after about 1.5 hours of trying to figure out the class roster our teacher became fed up with the class, dismissed us, and gave us her email address so that we could email her our interest in taking the class to which she would either let us in/reject us. Now, mind you this is all happening in French, so the three of us from API were not 100 percent sure what was being said at any given time - and consequently we thought we had been kicked out from class at minimum 3 times. Luckily - after class we went up to the teacher and explained our situation. She was very, very nice to us (a complete 180 degree flip) and explained that we were guaranteed a spot in the class and not to worry about everything that happened in class as "they were just being French". A girl standing near the teacher (perhaps a TA of sorts?) happened to be a tutor from the International Students Office, and she was a great help. She took time to explain the course description to us more and even explained how our method of evaluation would be different from the rest of the class because we are international students (i.e. we have the option of writing a paper in french instead of giving a 30 minute oral report). So although I wanted to cry for the entirety of class, I left feeling slightly better about life.

My two classes today were not half as bad, probably because they were both relatively large classes and as such seating and class registration were not as important. First I had a constitutional law course, which was interesting. If the class was taught in English I would probably love it. Understanding the french isn't horrible - the main parts of the lecture were clear (I think haha). The class is three hours long, which is different from the way courses are back home, but this particular course only lasts for 6 weeks so I guess I can't complain.

My second course is essentially about musicals and the importance of music and dance in film. I'm not exactly sure what the method of evaluation is, but it seems like it will be a good course. We watched bits of American movies today - such as Forrest Gump, Sweet Chariot, and Back to the Future- which made me slightly homesick.

After classes ended (about 6 PM) I broke down and bought a Parisian notebook - they are very annoying! In France lined paper does not exist - only graph paper and graph paper with a bazillion extra lines. The paper is also not the same size here. Sometimes I do not get this country. As our Resident Director Anne-Marie says, it really is the little differences (like different paper/notebooks) that you notice when you live abroad.


I have two more classes tomorrow, wish me luck!