La fin

So I'm back at Mudd and getting back into research. It's hard to believe how quickly you can get readjusted after being in a foreign country. On the other hand I asked Terence at dinner the other night if we were allowed to put our elbows on the table at meals in America. So I've done a lot of thinking about whether or not it was really a good choice to go abroad. I've fallen a little behind in terms of classes for my major, my English has been set back a little, and somehow I'm having problems loading gels in lab. At the same time, seeing France gave me a viewpoint I could never have found elsewhere. Above all, it showed me a surprisingly different way to think. The lifestyle is a lot different, and it was really cool to see how the thought process can lead to so many of the differences I noticed. I can make up the missed classes, I can go back to English, and I can spend 12 hours a day in lab to relearn the basics, but I'll never have another opportunity like studying abroad. It was definitely a great decision, and if anyone reading this is on the fence about doing the same thing, you gotta go. I miss Paris a lot, but I really hope to get back there soonish, maybe even taking a job over there for a while between college and grad school. I'm finishing this post and probably this blog with my favorite photo of the semester, taken the last night I was in Paris. I think it was take number seven on the backflip in front of the Eiffel Tower project, and somehow Glennis caught me right before takeoff. I think it perfectly expresses the unimaginable anguish of having to leave the Paris that I had come to love. But I'll be back.

Plus de photos

So Glennis finally sent me the photos I had been asking for and here they are. The first is from Biarritz, at this awesome place where the waves were crashing. I wanted to be in a cool pose with the water breaking right behind me, but as you can see, I was a little afraid of getting soaked.

This one is from the opera we went to, with Alexa, Glennis and I all dressed up.

My last night in Paris, Glennis and I decided we needed to get a shot of me doing a backflip in front of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately we weren't as fortunate as in Greece, and it took 13 attempts. It was actually kind of cool because she caught me at different points in the flip each time, but here's the good number 13.

Château de Vincennes

So I'm back at Mudd, but I'll update you on the last weekend in Paris. I went to the Château de Vincennes with my cousin on Sunday, and had French lunch and dinner with Glennis and Alexa on Saturday. We made a tiramisu from a recipe my host mom gave me and it was fantastic. We finished the whole thing in a half-hour. The castle was really cool. This is the castle within a castle: the fortress of the king.

And here's the chapel, done in the flamboyant gothic style.

After visiting the castle, my cousin and I headed back to the Latin Quarter, and I finally got a picture of the big statue of Saint Michael.

Glennis and I met up after I got back from the castle and hung out on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. We saw this woman with a crazy hat and got a picture of her as she posed with some random tourists.

Photos (Enfin)

So not much to add from last time but I wanted to put up a couple of pictures. I'm still waiting for a few from Biarritz and from the Opera from Glennis, but I'll post them eventually. This is the Basilica of St Denis.

For our final activity today we took a boat along the Seine and finally saw the small Statue of Liberty:

See some of you soon!

Presque la fin

So I have less than a week now...I admit I'm used to semesters going by really quickly, but I feel like this one takes the cake. I'll be pretty sad to leave France, but also really happy to get back to the States. I miss sloppy, careless American food and making money. I'm really excited to start my summer job because some Russian team scooped my project while I was abroad and I'll theoretically get to pick up an entirely new one. Oh yeah, I don't have any photos today; I've been too lazy to upload them. I took my last scary exam today, which was for Medieval Art. I thought it went ok until I saw in my notes that illustrations are precious arts and stained glass is not. Oh well; I bet it didn't go too badly. I did really well on the bio exam for my second bio class, and I think the exam for the Arabic Literature class went ok too. Now I've just got Grammar tomorrow and then I'll be done. However between then and Monday I need to get ready to go, which will be tough. I still want to see at least four things in Paris, buy lots of stuff and do all my packing. And since there's a weight limit on the plane, I may end up needing to send things back to the States too. So basically packing needs to be figured out Friday. I'm not even worried about the exam tomorrow; I'm just worried about all the crap I have to do afterwards. Anyways, the last week: not much to say because everything was wrapping up and I was studying a lot. We did a visit to the St Denis Basilica, the first piece of Gothic art, on Saturday, and then ate at a great couscous place. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of exciting things going on now that it's almost over, but I promise to do a big philosophical essay at the end, maybe when I'm back in the States. I hope everyone's enjoying their vacations!

Nancy et Metz

So I took my bio exam on Friday and it didn't go super well. I probably only studied 3-4 hours, so it's not a huge surprise. There was also an equation that I definitely should have memorized but didn't. Oh well; we'll see what happens. Friday night I watched the best French movie I've ever seen, "J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster", "I've always dreamed of being a gangster" in English. It's four separate stories of people who really want to accomplish a small crime, but utterly fail. It starts out beautifully with one of the main characters getting out of his car with a pantyhose mask on and walking into a pole. Then yesterday the group visited Nancy and Metz, two towns in eastern France. In Metz, we saw a really cool Gothic cathedral, with some of the windows done by Chagall. I got a book on him from my cousin after graduating from high school and now I'm running into his stuff everywhere. He also did the ceiling of the main opera house in Paris. Here's one set of windows:

And here's a shot of the front of the cathedral:

Wandering around Metz we also spotted some gardens, so I took a photo for ma mère. Happy Mother's Day!

Before getting to Metz, we got a small surprise: Thermopolis, a French spa and swimming pool type resort. The thing about pools in France is guys can't wear trunks. Wendy tried to explain it to me as a hygienic concern, which I guess makes sense. In any case, all the guys ended up wearing "slips de bain", Speedos, or as I called them, "Man panties". So that was a little awkward, but overall it was a cool place. They had this whirlpool thing on the outside of the pool where you could just get pushed around by the current. There were also three saunas: one in which you sweat a lot, one in which you can barely see or breathe because of the mint-flavored steam (remember that episode of Friends?), and then one which was so hot I felt like my face was melting like that guy in Raiders of the Last Ark. Anyways, overall it was pretty cool and now I just have two weeks left here. So little time...Again, good luck on finals!

Biarritz

So I was going to wait to post this until I got a good wave picture from Glennis, but she's taking too long. I should also definitely be studying for my final exam in Gene to Protein, but I just don't have the willpower right now. Paris is gorgeous right now and I'm kind of sad I have to leave in a little over two weeks. But anyways, Biarritz. So as soon as we got back from Greece, Glennis and I had to get our things together for a train to Biarritz the next morning. Biarritz is in the southwest of France, really close to the border with Spain. It has the nicest beaches I have ever seen. Huge waves and always sunny, at least while we were there. Here's a picture:

We got probably the best room in the entire budget hotel, except that my bed broke whenever I sat on it. Clearly I've put on a little weightt during my stay in France. I ended up just putting my mattress on the floor most of the time. Besides hanging out at the beach, we also went to a casino. So my first gambling experience in a casino happened in French. It was pretty cool, and I had Glennis and Alexa there to stop me from losing all my money. I ended up turning 25 euros into 70 euros and then losing it all. After a quick consultation with my advisors, I decided to put another 20 euros in to win back what I had lost. In the end, I was up 7.50 euros in 2 hours of Blackjack. Very sad, but at least I didn't lose anything. In any case, Biarritz was awesome and my only regret was that we didn't get the chance to visit the chocolate museum there. There were definitely some interesting sites, though:

So we found this square with trees full of umbrellas. No idea why.

We also found a pool inhabited by vacuum cleaner flamingos. Again, no idea why.
Unfortunately we made a huge mistake and expected that we could pick up our tickets from the ticket office an hour before our night train back to Paris. Glennis really couldn't handle it, so I took a picture of her shame:

We ended up having to buy new tickets on the train, but we did manage to get the "couchettes", which are compartments with beds. So I actually ended up sleeping pretty well. When we got back to Paris, it was time to study for a paper on the Virgin and Child of the St-Chapelle, a really cool ivory sculpture. Not too much has gone on this week, things are wrapping up. And as I said before, Paris is gorgeous. Once I'm done with the exam tomorrow, I'll probably finally check out a museum again: either the Musée de l'Orangerie (lots of Impressionist works) or back to the Musée Rodin, to which the Camille Claudel collection has temporarily returned. We've got a mystery trip to Nancy and Metz this Saturday, so I'll be posting on that soon enough. Good luck on finals!

La Grèce

So I'm back from Greece and Biarritz and there are so many things to talk about that I already know I'm going to forget most of them. I feel kind of vain posting almost nothing but photos of me, but Glennis is incredible at taking jumping photos. Anyways, Greece: so we got into Athens two Monday mornings ago, checked out the Acropolis and a beach. The next day Glennis and I went to Delphi which was awesome, and took a bunch of photos. We got someone there to take a fighting picture of us in front of an old stadium.


After checking out the stadium, a theater and the temple of Apollo, we visited the temple of Athena.

While we were there, Glennis somehow managed to get a picture of me exactly in the middle of a back flip. Sorry I don't know how to rotate photos, but the temple of Athena is slightly to the left of me and the temple of Apollo is tiny but visible to the up-right of me.
The next day we headed for Mykonos, a small Greek island famous for its beaches. They were really nice, but I didn't really take any good shots of them. I think Friday four of us went to Delos, a very close island, and checked out some ruins. One of the things I really liked in Greece was the fact that a lot of the tourist signs were in Greek, then French, then English. Apparently English isn't the second language everywhere. We climbed up to the highest point of the island where it was wicked windy and took jumping photos where we tried to make it look like we were jumping off the cliff. Sidney did not approve...
Then Sunday was Greek Easter, so we helped the hostel prepare a feast, which included lamb. Most of us helped spit-roast the lamb. The acropolis is just to the right of my head in this photo, one of the few pieces of evidence that I am capable of multi-tasking.

We got back to Paris Monday night, and then Glennis and I hustled to get ready to leave for Biarritz, in the south-west of France, the next morning. I will post on that soon.

L'Opéra Garnier

So it's starting to dawn on me that I'm not gonna be in Paris for much longer. I am sort of excited to get back, but I'm also gonna be pretty sad to leave. I have the rest of this week and then two weeks of vacation. The first week of vacation I'll be in Greece, and the second I'll be going to Biarritz in southwestern France for a few days and spending the rest of the week in Paris. Then I'll have two weeks of classes, then one week of finals, then a plane back to the States on May 26th. So let's see: what happened? I got sick again, but just a cold which has given my voice a gravelly quality. Not sure if it makes the French sound better or not. Learned a lot about protein structures Thursday and Friday...I had dinner with Glennis Friday night and we finished a whole bottle of wine. Yes it was pink wine, and yes she drank more than I did. Saturday I met up with my cousin, Nate, who's here doing research for a few months. We checked out Notre Dame and the Musée Quai Branly. Sunday we got a tour of the Opéra Garnier, which was cool because it was the first tour I've gone on here where I haven't zoned out for the majority of it. That's where I took my two pictures:


Here's a shot of the seats:


And here's the painting on the ceiling, done by Chagal for free. Unfortunately I couldn't get the whole thing in one photo, but it is pretty.So the Opéra trip was pretty cool and we're going to see a piece there in a few weeks. After that Glennis and I got together with some French guys for go-karting, which was 16 euros for 10 minutes! That's more than 24 dollars! Crazy! I also got my grade on the Mouse Development course: 55/100! I know that sounds terrible, but it was actually right around the class average. So I passed my first science class in French! I also have a phone interview for the Beckman scholarship, a scholarship for undergraduate researchers, on Friday, and I'm starting to prepare for that. In fact, in order to get ready I should probably go write a paper that's due Thursday. The grading is very different here: this particular professor doesn't seem to care if you write well, all she cares about it is that you argue and discuss exactly what she wants you to argue and discuss. She gave me a 5/10 on my last composition because I didn't answer the prompt the way she wanted me to. Sorry, small rant. Oh, lastly my Mudd email account seems not to be working anymore: I'm trying to clear it out, but I'm not sure that that's going to work. My main email address will now be facehugger200@gmail.com. Well, tomorrow includes a visit of the sewers of Paris, so hopefully I'll be able to post on that before going to Greece.

Le Weekend (continué)

So I actually took a ton more photos this weekend, but I tried to pick the best ones for posting. Glennis is posting thousands of them to Facebook, too. I did want to share a video I took of this guy I've seen perform in the Latin Quarter a few times. He and this other guy have a great dance routine where the other guy makes you laugh and this guy just does a ton of insanely cool stuff. I think I might ask him to do a backflip with me in a photo before I leave. Anyways, here's the video. My goal is to be able to do one of these things by the end of the summer.



I also feel I should share one of my most horrible nightmares ever. It was last night, and the dream starts with me looking in a mirror. I'm just patting down my hair when I notice a small patch of white. So I push the hair aside and notice that I have a bald spot. I keep moving my hair around and discover two more that I had combed-over. It was awful. No offense to my dad or anyone else who is successfully bald, but I think I'm gonna look into Rogaine.

Le Weekend

So this weekend Kerri visited us in Paris and was nice enough to bring Barcelona sunshine with her. Friday was definitely the nicest day we've had here thus far. We went out to dinner and to a club with some French guys we had met at Reid Hall and some of their friends. It was a little awkward at times since their English isn't great, our French isn't great and Kerri's French is pretty much nonexistent. It was still fun though, and that's what counts. The next day, after my encounter with the strange Italian man, I met Kerri and Glennis at the Musée d'Orsay, where I particularly appreciated a Renoir of a cat.We also checked out the big stuff at the Louvre: Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, as well as l'Arc de Triomphe and the Latin Quarter. Eventually we wound up at the Eiffel Tower at 1 AM to watch it light up, which it does every night at I think 9 PM, 10, 11, 12 AM and 1. The next day we went on a boat tour of the Seine and then took Kerri to the airport. Unfortunately on our way back from the airport, some metro police checked mine and Glennis' cards and saw that we were out of zone. They charged us 25 euros! That's more than half of what it costs if you buy the tickets in advance. Anyways, we were pissed. Overall, it was really cool to do some touristy things this weekend; I think after being here for a while you can start to forget just how awesome a city it is. Thanks Kerri. Ok: other photos. This is a very original jumping photo of me and Kerri at the Eiffel Tower at 1 AM.
And this is my attempt at an L-kick in front of l'Arc de Triomphe.
Lastly, we decided to be really touristy and imitate statues at Musée d'Orsay. I'm imitating Cupid being stung by a wasp on his right foot.

Une histoire

Ok, so I did a bunch this weekend, but I'm gonna wait to post about most of it because it's late here. However, there is one story that I want to post now before I forget vital details. So I was leaving my apartment around noon yesterday when this guy called to me from the street. He was in his car in the middle of the road and I just figured he needed help with directions. Feeling more confident about my direction-giving capabilities than I should have, I asked him what was up. He was Italian, but we started out speaking in French, then in English. He pulled over to get off of the road and the sketchiness began. So first he shows me this map of Paris and I figure I was right and he just needs directions. Then he starts telling me about his career. It turns out he's a fashion designer who did a show at the Louvre the night before. He shows me this little album of photos and shows me a few pictures of a jacket. I think he claimed it was Gucci or some other famous Italian brand. Then he shows me the contents of a bag in the passenger seat and it's the same suit. He says it's not even on the market yet and it's for next season but he wants to give it to me. He adds that I appeared to be the right size from the sidewalk. It was a really nice suit, so I was a little intrigued. I asked him why he wanted to give it to me, and he just said he wanted to give it to a tourist in Paris before leaving. At this point I'm kind of torn; it sounded like I didn't even have to do anything for it. Then he goes on about the suit and says that it's worth 2000 euros. I'm impressed. Eventually he gets to his point: he tells me he has to be in Nice, pretty far from Paris, in 9 hours for another expo and then he shows me he's almost out of gas. He explains that he went to a casino on the Champs Elysées the night before and lost 5000 euros. He can't use his credit card because he just went over his limit. That's when I decided to leave. I said I didn't really know where any gas stations were and that I didn't have a French credit card, which I said you needed in order to by gas in Paris. I wished him good luck and left. I felt a little bad for several reasons: he may have been serious, Nice is a good drive from Paris, and he probably spent about 10 minutes on his unsuccessful pitch. Overall I have no idea if he was serious or not: he was in a nice car, he had a nice suit, his story was pretty elaborate, he had a real-looking business card. He also had a very strong Italian accent, which I found fairly amusing when he was speaking in French. Anyways, my sketchiest story in Paris to date, unless you count Versailles a few years ago. I'll post on other stuff soon!

St Malo et le Mt St Michel

So I'm back from my trip to St. Malo. It was really great and I took a good deal of photos. Unfortunately not as many as last time. It's starting to look like Glennis is gonna beat me in the study abroad photo contest next fall. We spent most of the first day in St. Malo, which was a city for the Corsaires, basically pirates hired by the French government a long time ago. Unfortunately I didn't really take any good pictures there. Instead, I have a picture of a German bunker from World War 2 on a beach not far away from St. Malo.
I'm gonna try and get to the D-day beaches someday before I leave, but this one was not involved as far as I know. In a town nearby, I had to take a picture of a restaurant named after a book every French student of a few years has to have read.


Sunday we spent the day at Mt St Michel. It's a gorgeous location, but in all honesty, the buildings aren't particularly spectacular. We saw the church and a number of other buildings. Don't get me wrong, it was really awesome. It's just not too many things struck me as really photo-worthy. I really liked this relief on one of the walls, though, even if I didn't know what it represented.
After a tour of the buildings and lunch, we got a tour along the bay. It was either with boots or barefoot if you didn't have boots. I didn't have boots. It was cold. At the same time, it was awesome to feel the mud between my toes. Right at the end of the tour it started raining and hailing, so we all headed back, most of us with the right side of our pant legs completely soaked. Anyways, here's a picture of the abbey from the bay.
Yesterday we did a trip to the St Chapelle for my history of parisian art class. It's an incredible church and we had to wait about 45 minutes to get in. Here's a picture.
After that we went back to the classroom and took a quiz which I'm pretty sure I failed. I also was in the middle of swearing loudly when the professor walked out of the building to find us outside on the sidewalk. Not good. Tomorrow I have to write the intro, conclusion and an outline of a paper in my Arabic Literature class. The prof's going to give us a short text from each of the two books we've been reading and we have to figure out a thesis and set up the paper. Crap.

Le Foot Hier!

So I decided I needed to post on the match immediately. It was awesome! First we went to a fast food place and got to see two drunk English guys get thrown out. Oh yeah...all fast food places in Paris, and a lot of other stores too, have bouncers. Anyways, that was pretty funny. Then we headed for the Stade de France, bought a France beret for me, a France scarf for Glennis and a France chicken hat for Amy. The match started at 9 PM and we had amazing seats. David Beckham played for England, and he got a standing ovation when he left the field. The teams seemed pretty evenly matched, but France got a penalty kick in the first half and won 1-0. I took a video of the kick, and hopefully I loaded it correctly.



I took lots of pictures too, but I'm not sure they'll fit in a blog with a video. Plus, I don't think they'd compare. Again, this weekend is Mt St Michel, so I should have some great pictures and stories Monday. Also, tomorrow is my first Taekwondo class, and I'm really excited for that. Ciao!

Le Foot Demain!

Tomorrow's the big match between France and England! So excited! Anyways, last week. So I started another science class on the Techniques of Molecular Biology. It's pretty good but I spent about ten hours in class just last Thursday and Friday. Otherwise I didn't do too much. I was going to go to London for the weekend, but it was insanely expensive and I have become too cheap to fully profit from being in Europe. I'll be sucking it up at the end of April, though, and going to Greece and maybe Marseilles. We also have a special trip with the program to Mt St Michel this weekend, so I should have lots of photos and stories after that. I will also take lots of photos at the match. Since I didn't go to London, I ended up visiting the Louvre again; and you can probably do that a thousand times without it getting boring. My host mom said in all seriousness that she has probably been there more than a thousand times. On this visit I spent most of my time in the Egyptian Antiquities section. Here's a mummy:

And as you might remember, the organs of mummified people were extracted from their bodies and placed in little jars. Here are some organ jars:
Today I had a check-up with a French doctor because I need a medical certificate to do Taekwondo out here. What was really surprising is how many questions about food there were. How long do you spend eating breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? How many sandwiches do you eat a week? Do you snack? And tons of others. I think it's probably because obesity is on the rise here. Also, Kyle asked me about what's really surprised me here, and after some reflection, I can think of two things: 1. So many people smoke here compared to in the states, including a good deal of kids in middle school. I read something in the news today that said that 1 in 3 17-year-olds smokes daily. It's actually down about 10% from five years ago. 2.Students are unbelievably rude here. They will talk throughout the class and the professors rarely say anything. That's it. Till next week!

Les Autres Photos

And the rest:
This was my favorite of the sculptures I saw that day. It's Italian and it's called "Psyche reanimated by the kiss of Cupid".


I don't really know how to introduce this one, so I won't try too hard.


So that's 7 photos out of the 9 photos that I took. The Louvre is so awesome! Anyways, tonight I have to do an outline for a paper on this really weird poem about vowels. This is for a required class that meets 4 times, with a huge assignment like that for every meeting, and a 6-page paper for the last meeting. I don't get any credit for it and it counts for 20% of my grade in my Arabic Literature class. The worst part is it's remedial writing; if you've taken 5 semesters of college French I would think it'd be a given that you know how to write in French. So dumb... I really like the program I chose, but that one requirement is really pissing me off. Sorry about that rant. Otherwise things are great: I start my other bio course this Thursday and next week we have the huge England-France soccer match plus a trip to Mont St Michel. I hope everyone who's on a break is enjoying it! Everyone else, enjoy what you're doing too!

Le Louvre

So this weekend I finally went to the Louvre with a camera. Therefore I have a bunch of pictures today. It'll probably take two posts to get them in. Glennis and I also hosted a "naze" dinner party, where unfortunately only one other person showed up out of three invited. Oh well. At least the chocolate cake was amazing. Then today we saw "Les Femmes de l'Ombre"-Women of the Shadows and "Soyez Sympa-Rembobinez"-Be Kind-Rewind. The second one was pretty funny, but I preferred Les Femmes de l'Ombre, which was in French and on a group of women in the French Resistance. Awesome, but largely because it was shot in a very American style. Ok, the pictures from the Louvre:

First: a modern piece depicting a scientist (see the microscope?)


This one is the picture on the front of my high school English copy of "Hamlet"


This one's a little blurry because I couldn't use the flash, but it's a monkey painting. I actually saw some other versions elsewhere in the Louvre.
This is actually in the garden, Tuileries, in front of the Louvre. Scared the crap out of me.
This is a really awesome, huge French painting, and I need to explain it a little because the story is really cool. The woman in the center is the Virgin Mary, surrounded by the Apostles. The little balls of pink fire raining down on everyone are gifts from God to give the Apostles the languages necessary to spread the word of God throughout the world.

One class done

So I took my first French science exam yesterday. Scary as hell. And also 100% of my grade. It went pretty well I think, but it was still scary. The worst part was it was pretty messy since I kept having to cross out words to get good subject agreement. I also remember writing "plus forte expression" instead of "expression plus forte" at least three times. (stronger expression) This test was in the mouse development course by the way. The good thing is it was one of those tests where most everything is just elaborating on the same question, and I had the right conclusions from the start. If you've taken one of those tests, you're probably familiar with the "Oh, shit" moment where you realize in part 3 that you were completely wrong in part 1. Anyways, I think it went well enough, but I have no idea when I'll get the grade. My next science class starts at the same time next Thursday. After the test Glennis and I went to the Louvre and got passes to go there whenever. And it was free! I think I'll probably have some photos in a few days.

Musée de Quai Branly

So I didn't do too much last week: most people in my program had vacations and were traveling, but I got to stick around because of my bio class. I was also sick, again. Mostly I explored, got lost and studied for the exam which is this Friday. Then I took a practice exam Thursday, and it really wasn't that bad. It was more on interpreting scientific results than having all the stages of development memorized. Anyways, now I have this false sense of security and am having a really hard time making myself read more of the textbook. My program also finally found me a tutor, so I'll probably get one session in before taking the exam. I also signed up for another bio class called "From the gene to the protein: methodological approaches". I'm pretty excited for it and it only has like 23 people in it, which is tiny for this school. I visited another museum filled with collections of "primitive art". I managed to see most of the American and African sections in 3 hours, but I'll be back. Here's a photo of a sweet African sculpture that's basically a "do not enter" sign. Here's a random picture I took of the Eiffel Tower from a window in my building. When I saw it, the jet trail looked like it was coming out of the tower, which was awesome. I ran to get my camera, but the plane didn't wait for me. It still looks kind of cool. Lastly, this weekend I made perhaps one of my most important purchases here: "Aliens" in French. Most of you won't understand why I bothered to mention that, but Dan will...

La Pomme de Terre en folie!

Ok: pictures from last week. First, here's a pretty cool bookstore in the Latin Quarter. In all honesty, I sort of didn't like it because all the books were in English, and everyone in the place was speaking in English, and I've developed this slight distaste for English. The really cool thing is that the second floor is loaded with books that you can't buy, but you're encouraged to read them at your leisure. I even saw a guy who had been in the middle of reading a book asleep in a bed up there.



Here's a picture of me in my chef's hat at the special cooking/tasting class.


I celebrated the New Year of the Potato with my New England friends, so I had to take a picture of this when I saw it at the entrance to one of the agriculture halls.
Quick translation:

Hall 7/1
Stand U3

Potato craziness!

Young and old, participate in animations, performances and games!
Starting at 9 PM

Potato peeling competition
3 divisions: men, women, mixed

Artistic performances: potato sculptures by Frédéric Jounault, specialist in vegetable sculptures

Sculpture competition for adults and children under the expert eye of Frédéric Jounault (www.crea'saveur.com)

That's all for now. Hope everyone's doing well!

The french language

So I had a small revelation this week.  I was freaking out about my embryology class, because I'm not always understanding the French, and the final exam, 100% of my grade, is in two weeks.  I talked to the section prof, who always insists on speaking to me in English with a perfect British accent.  She was extremely nice and said I could have an extra month to study, and/or take the exam in English.  The truth is, I really want to take it in French.  I also really want to take it at the normal time.  So I'm going to try to read the entire 250 pg textbook before the exam.  Around the same time I realized my French is not where I want it to be, so I've started looking for ways to speed up the learning process.  I've stopped reading the one English book I was reading, I bought a radio adapter for my iPod so I can listen to the news, and I'm going to try to write maybe a page in French everyday.  The key is getting to be able to think in the language.  Anyways, in another week I'll probably have given up on half of those projects, but I really do want to come out of this fluent.  Anyways, news: I went to the Salon de l'Agriculture Friday, which is an incredibly big thing here.  Producers from around the country come to Paris to showcase their products.  We saw horses, ponies, pigs, cats, and lots and lots of wine.  There are a lot of free tastings, but it wasn't really enough.  We left kind of wishing we had been a little less cheap: there were so many things we wanted to try but didn't.  There were two really awesome things, though.  First, there were these little cooking class things that you could watch and then eat a little bit of what the chef made.  We got to see and taste this really good turkey dish.  The best part was actually a T-shirt.  Last weekend, Sarkozy came to the Salon and of course he was videotaped the whole time.  At one point he tried to shake this guy's hand whose response was something like "Don't touch me-you're dirty".  So Sarkozy slams him with a really awful insult that I won't translate.  It's on Google Video if you want to see it, and Sarkozy isn't even close to discreet.  In any case, one stand was selling t-shirts with the Sarkozy quote and a little picture of a cow.  It was only 5 euros, so Glennis and I both got one.  I'm not sure when I'll wear it, but it would probably be best to wait until I get back.  Speaking of getting back, I now know that I'll be working at Mudd over the summer, probably starting the first week of June.  Hopefully I'll see some of you then!  I haven't put the photos from the Salon on my computer yet, but I'll post them soon. 

Greece

Hey everybody,

I guess it's been a little while since I last posted. Last week wasn't super-interesting, although I did finally start freaking out about my biology class. We're supposed to get French tutors for science courses, but I still don't have one. And the exam is in a little over two weeks. However, I'm a little more calm now that I bought the book. It was only $30! I'll probably try to read the whole thing before the exam if I can. Next week is vacation week for all my classes except that one, so I should have the time. I also really want to go to the Salon de l'Agriculture, which is a big exposition where agricultural workers from around the country come to Paris to show off and sell their products. I've heard there are free tastings, and that may be my lunch Friday. Speaking of food, I found boxes of Belgian chocolates for only two euros the other day! It averages out to only 10 centimes for a chocolate. I was proud of myself today, though, because I used my willpower, "volonté", to not buy more chocolate and be satisfied with two nutella sandwiches, two apples, two cookies and a bunch of chips for the day. By "day", I mean between breakfast and dinner. Oh, I also convinced the director of my program to let me stick with only four courses for the semester (I almost had to pick up a medieval philosophy course on Friday afternoons). I've completely given up on chronological order so, the weekend: Friday night I went to a French film called "Paris". It was pretty good, and there were a ton of shots of Paris, so we could all watch and say "I've been there!" every once in a while. The only bad thing was that there were some drunk Parisians in front of us who had a hard time being quiet. Oh well. Saturday I finally went to the Rodin museum, not just the gardens, and I think I was there for at least 3 hours. I also found out that I can get in there free with my student card. Photos from there are the only ones that I've got, but next week I might have some time to explore a little more. Here's a small sculpture that I liked a lot because it's so dynamic.

It reminded me of a really famous sculpture of Rodin's main mistress, Camille Claudel, called "The Waltz". Speaking of her, her work is in Spain right now, but it'll be back in Paris in April, so I'll be going back to the museum around then. Here's a pretty famous Rodin sculpture called "Les Bourgeois de Calais". I read the story about the event itself, so I'm going to share it briefly. The city of Calais was under siege for a year by the English during the Hundred Years War. Eventually Calais gave up and the king of England demanded that seven men be sacrificed so that the other inhabitants would be spared. The seven men wore some kind of death robes, with the ropes for hanging them on their shoulders, and one man carried the keys to the city (on the right in the photo). Supposedly the queen begged the king not to kill them, so he didn't. I'm not sure how much of that is actually true, nor am I sure that I didn't mess up some part of the story, but it is pretty cool. There was a fairly interesting story about the construction of the sculpture, but I decided not to read that part. Sorry.



And of course, there's the thinker, "Le Penseur".Sunday, Glennis and I spent way too much time studying for a really easy quiz in our medieval art class, and I went to a performance of Molière's "L'École des Femmes" (School of Women). It was pretty good, but some parts were a little hard to understand. Lastly, I decided to go to Greece with some other people in the program in April! I think that's all from this week. I'll try to post again in a week, if not before!