Deux à venir, un sens de réussite

Two exams down, two to go, and despite having no confidence in my exam-taking skills, I'm feeling de + en + better about my french skills! I took today's exam, three essays in three hours, without a single hesitation in my writing in french. It comes naturally now, minus a few complex sentence structures that work in english but don't at all in french. Its always a matter of finding another way to say it.

The exam today...oh so fun. Of course. I mean, who doesn't love to write about the evolution of spices from the 14th to the 18th centuries in Europe. Or about bread as a major figure in the history of france. Or about "structure" in eating in general. that's not broad at all.

wow. that exam proved that our prof is a bit of a lazy ass considering every option started with "écrire un essai sur..." aka write an essay on... couldnt have throw some IDs or short answers in there?! no?

Alright, now i really get to the fun part. the history of the french revolution and religions.....have no idea what the topic will be. praying its on dechristianisation, cuz i got that one covered. it's the whole memorization aspect of this that scares me. i don't do dates. i don't do historical facts...or people....or places....my knowledge of the french revolution can be summed up in the following paragraph:

1789-1799.
storming of the bastille july 14 1789.Louis XVI reining...then was guillotined...somehow has a religious aspect...dont remember the year. civil constitution of the clergy 1790. made clergy members employées of l'état. had to preach republican sermons. La Vendée - department in western france, different construction of nobility which made revolution ideas less relevant for them, very centered in their catholic ways, strongly opposed dechristianisation, guerre de la vendée was a contrerevolutionnaire action. split between the jurors and the nonjurors/refractaires...the second of which were contrerev. and which made of 65% of la Vendée. big violent war. non-jurors lost, of course. poor babies. dechristianisation de l'an II = taking power out of the hands of the catholic church and laicising France aka secularizing. took away church's land and goods and resold them (year?..1790?), took away the church's power to tax (year?), legalized divorce (1793? earlier?), didnt ask pope to approve reforms. pope condemned the reforms(year?). culte de la Raison moved into old catholic churches...enlightenment ideas...national holidays....mocked catholic rituals....culte de l'être suprême de Robespierre, still wanted religious-type cult with supreme being, but anti-catholic, anti-atheist. established as national religion during Robespierre's Grande Terreur. lots of people die by guillotine. after louis XVI executed...la première République....napoleon....

don't you feel so much smarter now? yeah...probably not...i should go study.

Dublahn

At least, that's how the French pronounce it. Either way, we went there...after quite the long trek. After the smoothness of our last two voyages, I suppose it was time for a complete disaster. We got to the Edinburgh airport, all checked-in, only to find after two hours that there was some major damage to the main runway, and they would have to reroute us to the Glasgow airport. Fortunately we weren't flying on ryanair et who had simply cancelled all of their flights.
Aerlingus was kind enough to bus us over to Glasgow where we proceeded to wait until 10:50 to get a flight to dublin. our original flight was scheduled for 3pm. It couldve been much worse, and despite the delay, we quite enjoyed our time in the airport/on the bus -- played a little cards on the airport floor (which became a trend since from here on out, all of our flights were delayed), took a nap or too, relaxing like vacation should be.
In dublin, we got to the Dublin City Bunkhouse...our least favorite hostel of the trip, only due to the fact that their laundry machines were pieces of poo and wouldnt work...so we had to hand wash....and then their dryers didnt work either so we had to wake up early and take everything to a laundromat to be dried....where the staff(who dried it themselves, it wasnt self-serve) lost myyyyy (quite expensive) jeanssss >< my only pair of pants on the trip. wonderful. anyways, that was the low of our trip.

Besides that (and the hostel i had to stay at the second night because i booked at a different time...oh how that hostel was sketchville), dublin was quite nice. We took a "Hop-on, Hop-off" bus tour with great irish tour guides, saw Trinity College, went to the Guinness factory and did the whole shebang, went to the Jameson factory and watched Tori do a whisky tasting, explored the local polish grocery store, and then enjoyed a bit of Irish night life. Ah, the Irish, they are friendly. It was a good time.

Les Examens de l'enfer

My updates have been lacking due to paris auto-mode and this horrible thing called exam month. I swear, exams should never be spread out this much. My first one was the 20th, my last one in june 10th. Other people's started as early as May 5th! Its crazy. Too much time to stress out. I've realized that i prefer papers by farrr over exams, and I'm slightly freaking out over my next three exams. I know I can do well on my food history exam, it just requires a lot of reading/studying. I'm likely to have a panic attack over my history exam which has yet to be scheduled since the professor hasn't emailed me back. I emailed our program academic advisor asking what i should do (hoping that she would be like, if he doesnt respond, you dont have to take it since i'm not actually supposed to have an exam in the class, educo is making him make us one =_=) anyways, she's trying to contact him. of course my secret motives and plotting were unsuccessful, though there's still a chance, haha. and then my archaeology exam is june 10th, which I'm less worried about now since my tutor has been amazing. she even got old exams for me to practice with.

I am sad that I haven't been keeping written track of the past month, but at the same time I don't think it would've been fun for people to have to read about my constant stress :P So just a quick list-ish update of what i've been up too. After spring break, Lizzy Parker came to Paris for a week and we had a good time (and i still managed to write 2 papers, lol). We went up to the top of Notre Dame which was a gorgeous view. It was nice to see the gargoyles up close and the architecture of the top of Notre Dame. We also went up the Tour Eiffel but it was raiiiining, so that made things interesting. Lots of sitting in the gardens and relaxing because she was exhausted after exams.

Then...first french exam, in my film class. It wasn't that bad in the end. I knew I just had to pass, and I'm 99% sure I did. The questions were very fair, and she read us our rights before we took the exam, one of them being, "Foreign students have the right to a dictionary and a grammar book." I had brought my little pocket dico that came in very handy.

Audrey came this past weekend, we'd been counting down the days since I can't remember how long. We got a lot done and did a lot of walking. General recap: Hour-long airport search. Carrying the heaviest suitcases ever through the metro. Falafel amazingness. Longchamp buying. Tuileries. Orangerie (Monet museum), awkward photos. Champs Elysées. Random parade. Arc de triompe. Deux Cigales dinner with Joey and Liz. Pub Crawl. Moose. Longest church service ever. Liturgical dance. Amazing youth choir. Picnic at champs de mars. Pregnant gypsies begging for grapes. Louvre. Homeless man attacking crêpe stand. Notre Dame Mass. Baby Bottles Fondue. Sacré Coeur - more beautiful than ever. Eiffel Tower at night. Sleep. Rabid parisian woman. Pastries. Good bye :(

Alright, now I must end my procrastination and begin work on everything that involves the history and theory of french cuisine....I think I'll start with..Lunch. Good plan.

Trois Jours à Edinburgh

So May comes with absolutely no free time for updating nor for doing any other sort of activity other than a) studying b) writing c) being a tour guide and d) have anxiety attacks. oh, life is good, haha. I can't believe its already half way through may!!! I just turned in two papers. I've got two left to turn in and four exams and then I'm done! 5 months is almost up and I'm not ready to go home! I wish I could extend my plane ticket till the end of june, but alas my bank account nor my housing accomodations would never allow that.

Anyways, time to catch this up....spring break stop number 2: Edinburgh!

All my photos from spring break are now up on webshots: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/563367237sDZLHM


Started with a 9 hour bus ride from London to Edinburgh because we forgot to buy a train ticket and last minute ones were uber expensive. En fait, the 9 hour bus ride was a much needed relief. After so much walking in London, we were all tired and had hurting feet. The countryside was beautiful and we all caught up on some reading or sleeping. In edinburgh we checked into the Castlerock Hostel which was perfect as far as hostels go. RIGHT next to the Edinburgh Castle, we had a gorrrrgeous view of the castle on top of an extinct volcano..that was something I didnt know before...don't know why I didnt hear that in february.
Anywho, our hostel had a huge common area with a pool table and a bunch of other big tables (in other words there was plenty of room for beer pong and the like, which apparently some americans had taught the staff the week before, lol, i'm surprised not sooner)
anyways, our rooms were really nice and there was a huge kitchen, so we prepared a delicious meal one night and saved some money.
We made black bean and sweet potato quesadillas, amazing. Adrienne's idea. I'm going out of order a good bit here, but I'll just say,in some order the three days went like this: lots of walking around the city, making friends at the hostel with some guys from GA and one from quebec, going to hear the GA guys' music at a bar nearby,national museum with the first cloned sheep, elephant café where JK Rowlings wrote Harry Potter, Haggis, Tatties, and Neeps,
competitive and realllly insane jenga game,
portuguese guy gives me napkin that says in portuguese "butterflies have wings, skies are blue" and then in english "i love you," holyrood palace, hiked arthur's seat on the most gorgeous day ever,
tea at the same place that i went with mom and cathy i believe when we were in scotland before...i'm positive this is the one...unless my photographic memory is failing me, shopping at H&M which will save my butt later in this trip, bought an italian language book, and various other bits of funness in one of my favorite cities ever.

Les Vacances de Printemps

So our lovely two-week spring break ended this past weekend, and as reluctant as I was to come back to a month of solid work (oh...3 large papers and 3 exams in 4 weeks), i missed Paris and was glad to be back. Spring break also made me a bit home sick for all of you and for dancing. I'm thinking about finally trying out one of the dance classes here or at least going salsa/swing dancing with some friends. A two-week recap could take up a lot of time and I should be writing a paper now, so I'll tryto do this in mostly pictures:


Place #1: London
We did a lot of walking and site-seeing, a little tea-drinking which is my favorite part about the UK, and then crashed at Lindsay's friend Jocey's place...5 girls in one dorm room..it was impressive.

We walked through covent garden and saw a hilarious strings group that was selling cds like mad...basically forcing people to buy them, in a funny way. Went through Borough market, then through the tate museum which I loved. I'm a big fan of modern art and its ambiguity. Passed the globe theatre, wish we couldve seen something. Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminister Abbey, the whole bit. Overall, London's a nice city but I wouldnt want to live there. Plus, the tube is awwwful. Mind the Gap is not as enchanting as its made out to be.


Update later...

Anti-Mondialisation

So I knew the French had a huge sense of pride….we have the best cuisine, we have the best wine, we’re so refined, our language is amazing, etc (I generalize and exaggerate slightly, of course…though sarkozy did say the other day that the French have the best cuisine in the world…another great move on his part :P I believe my food history professor’s response to that was, he might as well have said “and my wife is the biggest piece of ass in France.” That was one of his tamer moments in class today...man swears like a sailor...), but I never realized how far the government goes to protect the French sense of pride. Did you know that French radio stations are forbidden by law to play more than 20% American/English music? At one point all advertisements with slogans in English were banned, but now the law only requires that those slogans then be translated into French on the sign…which usually results in a hugggge English slogan and a tiny translation in the bottom corner…which also seems like a very American thing to do.

Last week in my food history class we talked about the concept of “terroir,” something that we don’t talk about much at all in the U.S. because it doesn’t impact our lives neeearly as much at all. It’s the place from which I think France gets much of its culinary reputation. It’s the idea that everything comes back to place of origin in relation to food. Where was the food planted, grown, harvested…how was the climate, the soil, what sorts of mushrooms attached themselves to the grapes…etc. That’s important for obvious reasons…I.e. you plant one type of grape in two different areas, you’re going to end up with two completely different tasting/smelling/looking wines. But also for naming things. When you buy a camembert cheese in france, you can tell whether its authentic, trustworthy camembert by finding the AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlé) symbole on the container. They’re very serious about regulating the naming of products.


There’s no wonder the wines, cheese, breads, etc here are so good. They’ve got the food quality police out all the time trying to protect the French reputation (and finally the french earned back their bread-making reputation this year. theyve lost the breadmaking world cup the past couple years....U.S. winning it at least once, but they finally earned it back last week!) Too bad this food quality doesnt extend to nutritional quality...white bread and cheese fat arent exactly high(or i guess, low) on the food pyramid. tant pis.

In other news, a day hasn't passed since I last posted where there hasn't been some sort of strike or manifestation, always going past my street on the bd Montparnasse. The past couple days it was people blocking the olympic flame passing through Paris, today the students were back at it again standing on top of bus waiting-booth things (how they get up there is beyond me) and blowing their whistles. cops lined the intersections w/those plexiglass-esque shields and sent traffic in other directions. they had some intense bullet-proof-vestage going on.
Hmm and a short recount of the past week...last Friday I went on a promenade around Montmartre in the North of Paris with EDUCO people and we stopped and grabbed coffee at the café where Amélie was filmed. They had funny American music blaring (think Shaggy and random 80s). Then that night Katie and I made an insanely yummy mexican feast. Mexican food is certainly not one of the reasons to come to Paris...you'll have to scavenge to find taco seasoning anywhere. And Saturday morning we took a trip to Versailles to see the Grandes Eaux Musicales, even though it was a dreary day. We got lost in Marie Antoinette's village, but enjoyed the rando farms animals (one pen = a peacock, ducks, roosters, a goat, and a dog...) and the fighting donkeys. After that I went to a prayer lecture at the ACP which..eh..was less than what I expected, mainly because I disagreed with a lot of the pastor's...theology, i suppose. Anyways, then we went on the pub crawl that my friend Marla is now running. Sunday and on has a been a lot of lazing in my room, writing my archaeology paper, and figuring out Emory details (honors thesis, random applications).

Bon week-end à tous et toutes!

Ah, Les Grèves

From "Le Robert Micro"

1) grève n. f. Cessation volontaire et collective du travail décidée par des salariés ou par des personnes ayant des intérêts communs pour des raisons économiques ou politiques. >gréviste n. Personne qui fait grève.

However I disagree with this definition of a "grève," if we're talking about une grève en France. If its une grève americaine, then yes. That would be a voluntary and collective cessation of work decided by the salaried or by people having common interests for economic or political reasons. That's one of the only times you'll really see a strike
in the states. However in Paris, I prefer the dictionary.com english version:

2)strike n. : a temporary stoppage of something.

yes, nice and vague. that's how the french like their strikes. you can strike about anything you like. Ugly uniforms, gross weather, a bad steak tartare (or if you're our program's president, a non-crispy baguette)- just grab all your closest friends and get angry. That's why I think this final definition might be even more fitting:

3) grève n.f. I'm pissed. I hate Sarkozy. Lets all skip class and march in the streets today to show how pissed we are. I'll get my reserve of whistles and noise makers and we'll all make the evening news!

So, of course there's really something behind the striking, there's just an ongoing joke (especially for international students, because when universities here strike, we end up having to change our plane tickets till later to finish our exams) about the excessiveness of parisian grèves.

Anywho, the real story. I actually saw these passing my street this afternoon on my way to class.The Lyceens (high school students) of Paris had a demonstration today on the streets of Paris to protest against higher education reform and reduction of teaching positions in high schools, new reforms instituted by Nicholas Sarkozy's administration last year. The reforms allow universities to accept donations from private companies, a movement towards privatisation of education, as the French see it. I don't really know enough about the reforms to know what I'd think about them, though I would be disgruntled at reduced numbers of professors as well. We have the same problem of bad student:teacher ratios enough in the states (though fortunately not at Emory). It is however interesting and bizarre to see students so passionate/concerned about their education. I can't imagine this occuring in the states, or not as largely as this.
For the record I've been here three months and I've seen 3 huge strikes like this.