US vs Finland vs France?

This past week has been a little weird. I've been feeling a lot different things, thinking about a broad range of subjects, and basically just been mentally and emotionally exhausted.

First, something positive: I've been really enjoying the conversations with my host parents (mostly mother). One night, for example, we stayed at the table for 3 hours. I'm very interested in the socialist system present in many European countries and how drastically it differs from the political and social system in the United States. Of course, I've experienced the socialist lifestyle in Finland, but it still amazed me to hear my host mother explain all the benefits from the government that reach so many domains of daily life--education, healthcare, social security, etc. After hearing all of that (for example, how mothers receive stipends for back-to-school, how French mothers are appalled when they actually have to purchase a book for school, how immigrants, once they have children, receive all the benefits as any other French citizen, etc.), I couldn't help but feel that France is such a nice (nice as in generous, not pleasant) country. It really would be génial to live here, I think. It's a humbling concept that no one is out in the cold on their own; French society offers you help via governmental aid (taxes). At the end of the day, the way that society is set up undeniably affects individual thought. Due to that relationship, I think that the US government's "every man for himself" philosophy translates to a very individualist, independent population. But what of those people who can't find a job? Or have a serious illness? You really have to be financially secure in the US, otherwise you are constantly living in the fear that if you get sick, you won't be able to pay your medical bills. I don't know, it just seems that the French have more sympathy and understanding for someone who can't quite make it on his own. Unfortunately, there are many people in the US who would rather do anything than pay taxes (even to help others), and that makes me sad. I'm just starting to understand how these systems really work, so I'm not trying to speak as any kind of expert on the subject. This is just something I've been thinking about.

Due to this (and just the fact of being here and all that that brings to my mind), I've been thinking a lot about what country I'll choose to build a career, settle down, and so on. I've been feeling a lot of stress and general frustration lately because it's such a hard decision to make, but it decides everything. I prefer the European social model, the political system, the way of life, etc, but just being in France (away from the US) for 2 short months has made me realize that it's not that easy. You can't just leave your 'home' and expect to feel a sense of belonging in a foreign place. I love France, I feel good here, and I believe I feel more at home here than most of my friends on my program. But that doesn't change the fact that there are things about the US that I wouldn't want to leave behind, at least not permanently. So essentially I'm at a standstill, trying to choose between two continents that are so drastically different and unfortunately separated by a great physical distance. Being here has given me a lot of time and an interesting perspective to think about this (not only am I physically kind of 'between' the US and Finland, but France is similar to Finland in many respects without being exactly the same. And the fact that I associate mostly with Americans here creates an interesting and apparently eye-opening combination), and as a result, it's been all I've been able to think about for the past few weeks.

Speaking of cultural things, something a bit more light-hearted: I went to an "American-style diner" here last week called Breakfast in America and had the best cheeseburger I've had in a long long while. My friends and I finished our meals off with chocolate milkshakes (definitely worth the 5 euro), and we were reminded about how comforting food can be. This restaurant also has incredible, real American breakfasts, so we're already planning to visit again to try that out. Pancakes, eggs, bacon....yum. I can't wait! (French breakfast sucks, haha.)

Classes are going a bit better. Mentir vrai actually makes sense now, although it's difficult to pay attention for a full 3 hours. Usually I make it to about the 1-hour mark. Then I start flipping through my planner and thinking of autres choses. :) However, I did get a nice fat zero on my first quiz...oops. Oh well, it doesn't count towards our grade, and it's ridiculously ridiculous (yes, that ridiculous) how the class is organized. Get this:

Oct. 22: Quiz on Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Menteur (2 books), discuss only BG in class

Oct. 29: Quiz on Acteurs de Bonne Foi, STILL discuss only BG in class

Nov. 5: Quiz on Fables and Contes (2 books), finally start to discuss Menteur in class

Nov. 12: Still discuss Menteur (why have I already read the 3 other books??)

Basically, we have to read all 5 books within the first 3 weeks and it makes no sense, since we discuss them one by one throughout the semester. But whateverrrr.

Some exciting news! I've been slated for the position of VP Programming for Delta Gamma next year. I'm so excited, and all the election hype (even if it was just through emails, it was very exciting for me) has me missing school/DG/friends quite a bit. I think next semester will be absolutely fantastic...being away from school has really made me realize how amazing all my friends are at school and how much I dislike being away from them. Next semester will be so DG-tastic for me, and I could not be more happy to go back to that in January. I will be one happy girl during Rush, trust you me...

Okay well, I'm now quite tired (9.30 am class this morning was hard on me), and I'm heading out tomorrow morning to go on a tour of Pere Lachaise cemetary (Oscar Wilde, here I come). So I'm going to go to bed. One more bonne nouvelle--Anna is coming to visit this weekend! She is flying in tomorrow, and I know we're going to have the best time. :) I'll update on that next week!

Bonne nuit!

French classes and a weekend in Normandy.

A lot has been going on since my last update.

Last Monday, I had my first class at French university. For the first month in Paris, I only had my 2 courses with Sweet Briar (my program) to attend. These courses have only other SBC students in them, which means very low on the intimidation factor. My first Sorbonne class was a Linguistics TD (basically a subsection). For Linguistics, I have a CM, which is a large lecture class, and a TD, the smaller class in which tests, papers, etc. are done. So the class was scheduled to start at 10.30, and I planned to meet Tara at 10.10 to walk there together. The walk took no more than 2 minutes, so we had quite a while to wait. We just kind of stood there, looking at the French students, not speaking to each other so as to conceal our foreigner status. I don’t know if I looked uncomfortable, but I definitely felt it. The random and untimely stomach ache didn’t help the situation. Once 10.30 rolled around, we entered the classroom and found 2 seats comfortably far away from the front of the class. When the teacher came in, she asked us to introduce ourselves. Damn. We would have to talk. I tried my best not to be scared: "Je m’appelle Aurora. Je suis une etudiante des Etats-Unis. J’ai decide de suivre ce cours parce que j’aime bien les langues et je voulais essayer un cours de linguistique.” (We had to explain why we wanted to take the class.) Phew. Done. The rest of 1.5 hour class passed relatively painlessly (aside from in my stomach…), and the professor spoke very clearly and tended to repeat herself, so it wasn’t difficult to take notes and understand. All in all, first class = success!

My other class, which meets on Thursday, was a different story. The course is called “Le mentir vrai” and studies 5 French literary works from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. I’m still not exactly sure about what the title of the course refers to, but it’s something about lies, the truth, illusions, pretending, etc. The class was 3 hours long and quite painful to sit though due to the fact that I didn’t understand a whole lot about what the teacher was saying. It’s not that the words were unfamiliar (for the most part I was able to recognize and even write down each sentence exactly as she said it), it’s that the ideas were rather complex and I had never heard of them before. Something about Aristotle and limitation? Don’t really know. Hopefully as time goes on, these lectures will make more sense. In any case, it’s comforting to know that this professor has a good amount of experience with foreign students, and it doesn’t seem like she has the habit of failing them.

Other stuff that's been going on:

-Had my first test at Sweet Briar in my EU class. It went pretty well.

-Worked on reforming my circadian rhythm, with some success.

-Visited Parc des Buttes Chaumont, a huge park (especially for Paris standards) with lots of beautiful natural things: waterfalls, cliffs, foliage, etc. And there was a cool bridge..!

-Bought books for class at Gilbert Jeune

-AirFrance finally got their act together, and I was able to change my return flight to December 23! This means I will be in Finland from Dec. 17-22. :)

This past weekend, I left Paris for the first time to go to Normandy with Sweet Briar. The entire trip was planned and paid for by SBC, which was extremely nice and convenient. We met at Gare St. Lazare at 8.30 am on Saturday to take the train to Normandy. There were 30 of us, including 2 chaperones from the program (one of them is Mme Gree, kind of a baller). After a 2.5 hour train ride, we took a bus straight to our first tourist spot: the Tapestry of Bayeux, which is an extremely ridiculously long tapestry that recounts the Battle of Hastings of 1066. I'm not a huge history buff, especially not of Medieval History, so to me it was kind of boring. But I guess cool to see something famous? After the visit, we ate a typical Normandy lunch: galettes (basically cornmeal crepes) at a small cafe. Then we boarded the bus again, and drove to the American Cemetary at Omaha Beach, the site of the D-day landings. It was a very somber place, and the mood was set by the somewhat ominous/freezing weather. Seeing the ocean was nice, although kind of bizarre--we have been landlocked for quite some time now, and it was weird to be on a cold beach. Then the actual cemetary...it was striking. There were so many white crosses lined up in rows and rows that seemed absolutely endless. Hearing a statistic of deaths has such little effect when compared to that of seeing an actual physical representation of the amount of people that died in WW2.

After that, our somber/war-themed day continued, as we took the bus to our next location: Pont du Hoc, where German bunkers were bombed and the terrain is marked by massive ditches created by the bombs. It was unsettling to be there, to see what that war did to the earth, and to imagine what it once did to the people who were there during the war. After Pont du Hoc, we boarded the bus again to drive to our hotel near Mont St. Michel. There, we ate a wonderful (and fully paid) 3-course dinner and talked amongst ourselves. After that, Laura and I both took baths in the glorious bathtub in our hotel room (we don't have a tub at our homestay), and a group of kids went out to find some nightlife. Unfortunately, the town was limited to one main street with 2 bars, neither of which was worth stepping into. Thus, they returned 10 minutes after leaving, disappointed by their search. We talked/watched soccer on TV in our room for a few hours, then all went to bed rather exhausted.

Next morning, we got up early for a wonderful and full breakfast of croissants, bread, cereal, yogurt, poundcake, juice, coffee, tea, etc. It was the best breakfast I have had since being in Paris (breakfast at my homestay is usually cereal, if anything). After that, we got on the bus and drove to Mont St. Michel, a monastery which looks more like a castle and sits atop a mountain. The monastery itself was quite pretty, with its gothic architecture and incredible views. Afterwards, we walked around in the town a bit and visited different tourist shops. Some of the stores had adorable anchor-themed clothing for little kids, which made me think of DG, obviously. Our next destination was St. Malo, and after a 2-hour bus ride we arrived, got off the bus, and I looked out and saw a big anchor. The only anchor I have seen in France--I knew I had to take a picture. Little did I know that anchors would be EVERYWHERE in St. Malo--on bars, restaurants, stores, real anchors, in gift shops, on clothing, etc. It was so exciting! Unfortunately, our first priority was to find lunch, not to hunt for anchors. So we went to a restaurant where a few of our group ordered Moules-Frites (mussels and fries), while I opted for the safer choice of a ham & cheese galette. After that, we had a tour of a "pirate house," which wasn't really a pirate house, but a house that belonged to some dude who was committing tax evasion. It was still a pretty cool house, though. After that, I only had 30 minutes to hunt for anchors before we had to leave! I went with a few friends to some of the gift shops, but most of the things they were selling weren't anything practical or fun. So sadly, I left St. Malo empty-handed, without any anchors. But I did take some pictures of all the wonderful anchors that I saw while there. :) After St. Malo, we went to the train station and took the train back to Paris. It was a great weekend, even though it felt like we were very rushed the whole time. It was nice to be away from Paris for a few days and see a different side of France.

It's October?

It's been a while since I wrote anything, so I guess it's time for a little update.

I'm now signed up for my two Sorbonne classes which start next week. I'll be taking Intro to Linguistics and a French literature class called "Le Mentir Vrai." I'm not really sure what to expect, but I guess we'll see next week! Tara is in my linguistics class, which is nice because it means I'll have someone I know on Monday in my first real French class.

This past weekend, my aunt and my grandma came to visit me from Finland. We had a lot of fun together and it was so nice to see them after such a long time. We hit all the main tourist spots: Louvre, Tour Eiffel, Jardin de Tuileries, Champs-Elysees, Notre Dame, Orangerie, Sorbonne, Jardin de Luxembourg, Sacre Coeur, etc. Needless to say, our feet were extremely tired after each day, and I was always exhausted when I got home. Unfortunately, I have been having some trouble falling asleep (even when tired), which I think is a result of my whacked out sleep schedule. Next week, I'll need to get up early on 3 mornings, so that sleep schedule really needs to change fast. But anyway, I really enjoyed showing Sari and mummu around Paris, even if the men who worked at their hotel were huge jerks (I got yelled at for going up the stairs in the hotel). We also went to a TON of tourist shops (those places are addicting) and cafés. Great weekend, and I was sad to say goodbye. I feel better about it now though because I'm trying to make plans to go visit them and other relatives in Finland in December. :]

Today, Tara and I went to the Musée d'Orsay, which was absolutely beautiful. I don't know a whole lot about different artistic movements, but Impressionism is quickly becoming my favorite. I especially love Monet, and Orsay had tons of his paintings which was great. I really feel like being here has given me a new appreciation for art and art museums...I have never been one to go to a museum just for fun, but now I've really started to enjoy it. And Impressionist painting in particular--it makes me feel peaceful and calm but at the same time very alive. It's something about the colors, the technique, the subjects. It's hard to describe, and I'm not doing a good job of it at all, but it's a new experience that I'm glad I've started to embrace. The only problem with liking art is that it makes it difficult for me to not buy things at the gift shops--even if they're just post cards, I would love to have some kind of reproduction of all my favorite paintings.

On Monday, Nathan and I had our 2-year anniversary. Although it was sad to not be together to share it, he gave me what could quite possibly be the best anniversary gift of all time: he is coming to visit me in Paris. :) I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself. He'll be here for 4 days in November! It's hard for me to believe that he is actually coming since he worked so hard to convince me that there was no possible way he could. (He wanted it to be a surprise.) But yay!

Some things that may be coming up soon:

-Seeing a ballet at the Opera House

-500 Days of Summer at the movies

-Sushi dinner on Saturday night

-Concrete plans for London/Belgium

That's about it for now! I'm off to watch another few episodes of Gossip Girl (I think it's an addiction) and then to bed. Wish me luck for classes next week. :)