Last Day of Class

At first I thought time was moving really slowly, and after my first week, i felt like I'd been in Paris for a few months. All of a sudden though, the month has gone by surprisingly quickly, and here it is, the last day of school.

We still did work on the last day, and had to give presentations on both holidays in our respective countries and future plans. It was good, but shouldn't we have had punch and cookies instead?

After presentations and everyone making jokes about me skipping the day before, we spent a good half-hour taking pictures of the class, during which Mmlle. Carole was a really good sport, posing with everyone and making funny faces for the girls from Taiwan. Or maybe she was just trying to make them leave her alone. We'll never know.

Anyway, goodbye class. Je te manquerais!

My Classmates

So I was all James Bond (or at least Secret Squirrel), and took pictures of my classmates during one of our sessions. The quality is so-so, but you should consider the composition artsy rather than crappy, after all , I was shooting from under the table. A few people were missing this day (mainly Venus, Tien Chien, and Marit- we'll catch them later) but here's a short breakdown:

In this picture we have (l-r):
Barbara- you may remember her as she-of-the-bleeding-foot. She's Polish, very nice, but slightly bizarre and built like Macy Gray. She also calls me "Carol". Last time I tried to correct her she tried to give me a pastry from her pocket, so Carol it is. Next to her is
Mansoor- He's one of the biologists.

(l-r) Jian Nam- from Taiwan. I think he has a crush on Carole, the teacher. He's in Paris for 4 years to study finance.
Chazanfar- The other biologist. His french is really good. Bastard!
Sara- Tien Chien thinks she looks like Amy Winehouse. She's from Tel-Aviv and is here studying robotics.
Chamek- from Poland. Studies publicity and smiles a lot. Has very spiky hair.
Vashik- Jian's main competition for Carols's attention. He can smoke four cigarrettes during our 15-minute break period.

(l-r) Cecile and Anne- Religious ladies from Vietnam. They think I'm the devil (hee hee) and are trying to form an alliance with Barbara to "save" the rest of the class. They're really annoying in that Cecile is forever answering questions not addressed to her and Anne riffles through people's things to see what kind of grades they got. Neither has ever fought with a sibling, been upset at a friend, or had a bad thought. I know this because I got stuck with them on a group project to discuss these things, and the whole thing was really boring and holy.

Elizabeth- She's from the US and has been having a good time. She's staying with a family near the Champs Elysse.

Carole Visconti- our professor. She's totally cute and really makes the class fun. Though everytime I use "en" instead of "aux", I can see her wanting to peg me with a piece of chalk. She's got a good sense of humor though. She caught me skipping class last Friday with Don, and pretty much cracked-up at the fact that she saw me. Still, next day she told the whole class that I had been playing hooky. Hmmph.

The Ideal Woman

Everyone in my program went to Brittany today, but since I had plans for the weekend, I stayed behind. Gina was bummed she was probably gonna have to sit next to the professor from LA with the horrible french accent for the six hour drive. So I told her to get to the bus early and grab Sunnyor Don. And to bring a sleeping pill just in case.

Anyway, class today was all about and family. Our first in-class assignment was to write a group essay on "My Ideal Woman". My team consisted of Vachik, Chamek (new guy in classs from Poland), and myself (for this entry I'll be Charlok, just to match).

It all started well enough until Vachik got a little weird and started to monopolize the essay, with our only contributions allowed being my "long legs" and Chamek's "she has eyes" (they were supposed to be blue). The result, in french, was:

"Vashik's Ideal Woman": She has any color hair, any color eyes, any weight, any height (but with long legs), has to be nice to her boyfriend, and has to like movies and culture. Hot! Did I mention Vashik is a theology student who lives in a seminary?

The three religious women in class found the essay very offensive, primarily because we mentioned nothing about the ideal woman cooking well and having lots of children. Yeah, they didn't mind when another group described the ideal man as being "a dangerous bad boy".

After class, the institute had a little welcome get-together for the summer students (that's Chamek, Vashik, And I, in Team Ideal Woman Stripes, in the picture). It looked like a guest list was made up from the cast of "It's A Small World", with a few monks thrown in.

The House Chat

This is the house cat at the Sainte Famille Dorm.

The picture does not do him justice, but the thing is freaking huge. As in fat. When he stands, his paws barely touch the floor. The nuns keep him in the TV room in the basement (the hypothesis is that they do that because "maybe he's evil"), and he only climbs the stairs to eat.

It's the kind of cat who sneaks into your room at night and smothers you to death by sitting on your face while you're asleep. No worries though. This cat is way too morbidly obese to make it up four flights of stairs.

Cheese Sandwich in the Garden

The cafeteria at the Institute Catholique has really good, affordable sandwiches for the students. They're about 1.80E to 3.00E, which is great considering. They've kinda become the lunchtime staple this week. Going back to the dorm to eat, Mother Superior saw the sandwiches and said, "Monsieur Carrrmona, you should eet in the gahrrden". So we did (because she's a nun and all). Luckily, the dorm has a really beautiful garden with blooming flowers, religious statues, and little metal benches and tables. And ashtrays. The rain had stopped, the sun was out, and the sandwich was delicious.

ID Cards

My ID cards. The orange one is the...ummm... "Carte Orange" and it gets me on the metro and buses. The blue one is my student ID and it gets me discounts when I get back to the US?

Room With a View

A little E.M. Forster-y, but this is the view from my window.

The building on the corner with the yellowish brick and gray rooftop is the Institute Catholique, where I'll be taking my classes. And where I was also subjected to a comprehension placement test today where for the life of me I couldn't figure out if freakin' Pierre Fosse was a gardener or an architect and why he called his neighbors crazy.

On the good side, it's only half-a-block away, which means I only have to get up early enough to find the shower key and make it down to nun breakfast. Then I can leisurely walk the two minutes to class in classic flanneur fashion.