I snapped my first day of school photo this morning, by myself, because my roommate was already gone. That's definitely a photo for the books. I can look back on it and remember how I didn't have any friends. JUST KIDDING! (I hope...)
After my photo shoot, I went to the school to speak with the French teacher to see if I could audit her French class-she was very sweet and said I could. She then proceeded to tell me that her class periods are Monday mornings from 8am-10am and Tuesday afternoons from 2:30-3:30. I am now wondering why in the world I would give up my days off (Tuesdays) and my mornings off (Mondays) to take a class that I will not get credit for. Holla if you feel me.
I just keep telling myself that it's worth it for me to take TWO extra classes a WEEK to learn the language.
After that, I walked to the doctors office and desperately tried to communicate to the receptionist that I would like to make an appointment with the university doctor. I made one successfully-I hope! I will be going tomorrow to get my cough checked out-I think i'm driving my roommate crazy by waking up in the middle of the night and coughing all 6 of my lungs up.
Then I met up with some friends for lunch. We ate at this totally american place called Frites-City where everything is fried. I took one step inside the place and decided my stomach might burst if I ate there-so I grabbed a paninni (is this a fake word because spellcheck is freakin?) from the place next door and sat with my friends outside!
Then I went to class at 2:30. I was very nervous for this class because the director of the school said if you have never studied the Middle East it would be very hard (blah blah, etc). My friends and I and say blah blah a lot when referring to French people and their sass. But the teacher ended up to be totally chill! He is originally from Lebanon and he is freaking baller! He had a few rules like no chatting, the usual. But just in one class period we covered so much material (kind of intimidating). But the funny thing is: he literally said if we have never studied International Relations or the Middle East, we would be totally fine and we would emerge from that class a lot more intelligent. The only downside is that a lot of the material we covered today I have learned in a different IR class from back home. But I think we will delve deeper in the Middle East and that will be relatively new to me! So as i'm listening to him speak about levels of analysis (blah and blah!) I realize that all I see outside the window is the sun shining brilliantly onto the Mediterranean sea (are YOU KIDDING ME??) How in the world can I concentrate when the school has a front row seat in paradise island? These are problems to be solved at a later date.
Further into the lecture I start to realize-well, it hits me, that i'm being taught a class by a man who does not speak English as his first language. Can anyone take a stab at how much of an idiot I felt that I was being taught exciting poli sci concepts by someone who had to master English and then IR and then master IR in English?? This is when I solve the problem of having heaven outside the window. This inspired me to buckle down and hang onto his every word (at least for the next 15 minutes).
I got home from class and made dinner and now am attempting to tackle my long to-do list of things. I was able to cross off one of those things which i'm almost too ashamed to say. But I think it's important to share this tid-bit just in case anyone else was thinking about doing it-DON'T......I literally just washed about 9 pairs of underwear in the shower. And in case you are thinking how stupid I am for attempting this, keep in mind that I will never do it again and it was a living and learning lesson for me. That is all!
A bientot!
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