Sunday, June 9, 2013

and school has begun

Bonjour,

I have survived my first week of classes. :)

Monday: Monday morning I wasn't sure what to expect. I arrived to find they had the class lists hanging up so we could find which class we were in and who else was in the same class or other classes. Before classes began, they had everyone together to welcome us and tell us a little more about our classes and our workshops in the afternoon. although we had to arrive a little earlier on Monday, our classes are from 9am to 1pm. at first I was little scared of having four hours straight of class but it turned out to be nice. Before we started she had us all introduce ourselves. There were people from all over in my class. Although we had many Americans (mostly form Colorado or Boston haha), we also had someone from Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, England and Haiti. About half way through our class we stop for a little break. She originally told us about 10 minutes but it turned out to be much more. most of us had come back to the classroom after the 10 minutes to find that our professor had not even left the room yet so we all began talking, getting to know one another. As class continued we found out we had our first homework assignment (we were all a little disappointed to have homework our first day). As the first day wound to an end most of us just went home to eat get our homework done. overall it was a good first day of classes.

Tuesday: Tuesday morning we were all a little relieved to not have to come earlier as we did on Monday. Our discussion for most of the day way gastronomy, so by the time it came for our break we were all very hungry. This time we had about 15 minutes for our break so we had time to grab a coffee. We have come to realize there is no need to rush, we can take our time. This has been a little bit of an adjustment since I am so used to everything being fast paced and rushed. It is definitely a nice change of pace. Since our first 'work shop' did not start until Wednesday, some of us took the opportunity to grab lunch together and hang out. This is where I also got to meet two others from the other classes who were from Libya and spoke Arabic. It was a really nice afternoon to just relax and enjoy the company of others.

Jason(Left) Robert(Right)

Wednesday: I am getting into the swing of things. The four hours of class seem to be going by pretty quickly (the 15-20 minute breaks help a lot!). Wednesday is our first 'workshop'. We had a tour around the city of Aix. Since there would be to many of us for one tour, we were divided into two groups. Our group was the second so we had to wait until the first group finished to start ours. This meant we had plenty of time to pass until our tour began. A lot of decided to go get lunch together and hang out until it was our turn. We grabbed sandwiches or pasta then stopped somewhere close by where we had to meet and enjoyed some wine while we waited. It was then our turn for the tour, which turned out to be very interesting. As we walked around the city, our school director pointed out and explained various things about the buildings, people, or streets.



(L-R) Stanislas, Abdelmoez, Emhmd, Grace.
 Enjoying nice conversation.                                         In front of one of the many cathedrals.
         One of the cathedrals in Aix.                              Having some fun on the tour.
 The statue changes with every new season.                Our director explaining something to us.
               Around Aix                                                                 One of the small streets.

An old  home from the 18th century.                 One of the many fountains.

 Thursday:  We were all really tired on Thursday so our professor gave us a good 20 minutes break so could all have time to get un cafĂ©.  After our break we found out we would have to 5-10 minute presentation on a region of France. Everyone was a little worried.

Friday: It's the end of the first week of school. We had one presentation done and I decided I was going to go on Monday. My region was Champagne, So I had some work to do over the weekend.

1 comment: