Feeling the Heat

Bonjour!

I hope all of you are doing well! I won't say that I'm homesick quite yet, but there are certain things that I miss about America.

Firstly, air conditioning. It's the simplest of pleasures and is absolutely taken for granted in America. I never imagined I would sit in a classroom 6 hours a day and not have air conditioning. So we're sitting in class, and it's a well known fact that you can see what's being projected much better if it's dark in the room. Well, the lights are already off, so the only thing left to do is close the curtains over the windows. There, that's better, now we can see the pictures of French hotel rooms more clearly. Only, with the curtains pulled shut, there is NO WAY for the air to flow through the room. So we sat there sweltering, sweating... one girl got up to get some fresh air and almost fell down the stairs, she was so dizzy from the heat. Ah, air conditioning, how I miss your cool breezes.

Secondly, punctuality. I understand that teachers are busy people and can occasionally get away with being late to class, but honestly, being late every day is unacceptable. On the first day, when we had the orientation, we were told very clearly, that on test days the student must arrive 15 minutes early or they would not be allowed into the classroom. Today was a test day, so all of us students who paid attention that first day arrived 20 minutes before class to be guaranteed admittance. We stood outside that classroom until 5 minutes after class was scheduled to start. Why on earth did I show up so early if the teacher is going to be 5 minutes late?!

Thirdly, preparedness. Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to explain how unorganized everything feels here. Here's just one example of what I'm talking about-- In class, we were told to take notes because the topics we were talking about would be on the test. Easy enough, right? So everyone starts writing down points from the presentation. Then, this teacher says, "No, no, I will give you this handout!" Alright. That's great. Where is it? "In the next class, this afternoon I will give it to you." Ok, but I need to take notes on it now. Then she tells us that we're allowed to have this handout while we're taking the test, and nothing else. But you're talking about a lot of things that aren't on this powerpoint... where am I supposed to write this stuff down if the handouts won't be ready for another 4 hours? (Sidenote: the things she talked about during those first 3 hours when we didn't have the handout actually were on the test. So, thank you for that.)

Enough. In my last post, I talked a bit about the things I would be doing this week. I'm happy to report that I opened  a bank account and registered for housing benefits! (I could write a book about how awful and backwards that ordeal was, but I'll spare you the trauma.) I only have a few more housekeeping items to take care of, thank goodness.

Now that I've ranted for too many paragraphs, I'll tell you about what fun we've been having!

In the past week, I've gone to a French Mass in a beautiful old Cathedral, meandered through a museum that was built over the ruins of an old church, and walked so, so many miles through town. (But that's ok, I think you get to see more when you walk.) The school is only 7 minutes walk up the hill, and city center is about 4 minutes walk beyond that. City center has basically everything I need. I could take the bus to other places around Poitiers, but I have yet to be so brave. It's funny how scary/intimidating some things become when you don't speak the language of the locals. I'm still not comfortable ordering my lunch.

My birthday was Sunday, but we quickly found out that this place is worse than Utah when it comes to everything being closed on Sunday. So on my birthday, we just hung around the house, then celebrated on Monday. I found myself craving chocolate, so we set out in search of a cute bakery or something of the like. We stumbled across an American-style coffee shop (called What's Up Coffee?), and I had to have this on my (day-after) birthday! It was really nothing like American coffee except that it was much bigger than the average French coffee. I got a Cappuccino Ice. It was basically just a plain Frappuccino. They didn't blend it very well-- the coffee and some ice settled to the bottom, and the creamy stuff sat on top. It didn't matter. It was so good to have cold coffee! I miss my Iced Caramel Macchiato! Along with this, I had a cronut with chocolate icing-- so good. I will be revisiting this place.

The rest of this week has mostly been filled with classes and meetings about school stuff. I was not prepared for the structure of the classes at this school. We got our semester schedules today, and Joe, Lizette, and I made a schedule with all of our classes on it, so we could plan when we want to travel. It's kind of crazy. I'm taking 3 core classes, 2 electives, a research project, a French Culture class (which we finished this week), and French language classes. With all of this, I'll only be in class for 36 days this entire Fall semester. French classes meet every Tuesday from 5:15 to 7:15. The rest of the classes (except the research project) meet for 4 days, six hours a day, then have a test or a group presentation/project on the 5th day. And that's it. For all of October, I'll only be in class 3 days. I don't know what to do with this kind of freedom (Is that even what this is?).  What am I supposed to do with all of my time?

On our consolidated schedule, we have 8 weekends with no class for 4 or more days. Can you image the kind of trips we could take on those weekends?! I'm so excited for everything I hope to do while I'm here!

I met some kids here from South Carolina who are Christians and hold a weekly Bible study every Monday night. We're reading through the book of Mark. I'm really excited about it! I was kind of worried about trying to find a church (they all preach in French, imagine that.), but this might turn out to be a good substitution until I understand the language a little better. It's so great how God takes care of us in all the areas of life!

I think that's all I've got tonight!

Je t'embrasse,
Sarah