La semestre a commencée!

Well, again, it's been a week since I last posted an entry but I'm going to warn you now, that I may not have time to post as often as I did at the beginning. It looks like I will have a LOT of work on my hands and a stupid amount of reading to do which means less time online.

Anyways, here's a brief overview. I'm afriad there aren't many pictures because I haven't had much chance to take any :o(

Monday - Holly and I went in very early (8am) in case any of our modules started that day. Luckily none of ours started that early so we had plenty of time to sort it out; in fact, my first class didn't start until the following day so I was pretty pleased with that :o)

I'm going to be taking the following classes:

• L3AN6212 - Découverte de l’Angleterre médiévale - This is a 2nd yr class


• L5ANH301 - Histoire de la langue - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5ANL303 - Littérature - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5AN6311 - Civilisation de la Renaissance - This is a 3rd yr class


• L5AN6318 - Littérature américaine - This is a 3rd yr class


• M1AN403S - Shakespeare et son temps - This is a Masters/Postgraduate class

Am really looking forward to getting to grips with them all! Shall I remind everyone that I'm in my SECOND year! :op Not being big-headed at all. . . hehehe!

We DID discover the Shakespeare company bookshop on the edge of the river though! It is an English bookshop on the ground floor but when you go upstairs, there is a sleeping area for penniless writers to use when they can't afford to rent a room, and, thousands of old books that you can sit and read til your heart's content! It was utter heaven to us!

This is the "Wall of Love". It is a mirror where past visitors to the bookshop have left little messages thanking the owners for welcoming them with open arms. Holly and I plan to leave our own little message here just before we leave Paris :o)

As you can see, Holly dove straight into the books. . . :op

We stayed to read for a little while in the shop. This was on the upper floor.

We also found a book written by one of our lecturers at Brunel! :o)

Back to the studies, the Renaissance class was my first, on Tuesday:
The class was fantastic; to begin with, I was the only student in the class, so the professor just started describing the course to me, but gradually people started to arrive until there were 4 of us pupils (most people though that this week was purely admin-related and that the classes don't start til next week. More fool them :op). After one girl, Vanessa, mentioned that the Sorbonne is like a maze to try and find all your classrooms in, the professor took the word "Maze" and used it to give us a history of how the idea of a labyrinth came into British theatre through greek mythology (which I adore!!) and then found its way into Shakespearean plays! It was so interesting, and I wrote pages and PAGES of notes on the topic! It was the perfect first class for me, and I can't wait until next Tuesday!

After this class, I didn't have any schedules classes until the next day so I decided to explore the other Sorbonne building which is on the other side of Paris, at Clignancourt. This turned out to be a long-but-well-worth-the-trouble plan as I got lost trying to find the building. However, when I had worked out where I needed to be, I climbed several staircases and found myself in the English department where I signed up to take the Medieval England course. As luck would have it, the class was due to start in an hours time from when I arrived, so I went in search of something to drink in the cafeteria before settling myself to wait outside the room. That is where I met Gwenn :o) She introduced herself and explained that she was also taking the same class as me, and after we had chatted for a while it was time to go in.

I spent the first 20 minutes of the class feeling utterly bewildered; the professor was speaking entirely in French and the only reason that I did not speak up sooner about the fact that I was finding it difficult to understand, was that I knew she had not yet begun teaching. She gave us some printed information (in English, luckily) on how to do research, on the topics we would cover, in French libraries and then started talking about presentations we would have to do in class. At the first available opportunity I explained to her that I was English and would find a lesson taught in French very difficult to cope with, but she told me not to worry because the classes would be taught in English. Panic over, when the lesson ended, Gwenn and I got the metro home together because as luck would have it, she only lives 2 minutes away from us! Literally across the road!!! It's amazing!

Wednesday afternoon was the Literature class: Holly and I are both in this class, and we both managed to find the room by ourselves even though the building is like a rabbit warren! There are so many staircases that you have to think really carefully about which one you need to climb to get to certain rooms, especially as they aren't always connected by adjoining floors, so when you go wrong, you have to go all the way down again!
Anyway, in the class we have a mad teacher who phrases things weirdly, makes things more complicated than they really need to be! We also met a German exchange student, Siri, who is also on the Erasmus exchange, and, luckily for us, she speaks excellent English :o) Siri and I spent the lesson laughing at the professor as he asked everyone absurd questions. He asked me to explain something in a line of William Blake poetry and when I answered with words like "sibilance", "assonance", "lyrical" and "trochaic meter", he was stumped. He just kind of looked at me as though I was speaking another language and then he moved on as if nothing had happened! :op Looking forward to more lessons like that? Hmmmm. . . I'm not so sure!

Thursday was a totally wasted day in terms of lessons: I was supposed to have my Masters lesson on Poetry and the Poetic style in the afternoon, but as there was the option of a tutorial around noon, I decided to go to that and speak to a professor about the course. When I got there, I got chatting (in French) to a really kind Parisian girl who was also doing the course but she explained to me that it would be taught in French and that I would probably find it extremely difficult. Worried by this, I went into the room and spoke, in English, with a very pleasant male professor who agreed that with only an adequate level of French, that I would find the course impossible to comprehend. Disheartened by this, I asked him if he knew of any other courses I could do (I have a quota to fill in order to complete my term here and I have a certain number of classes to take if I want to qualify).
He was extremely helpful and gave me lots and lots of advice for other Masters classes. It would seem he is keen to get me on a Masters class rather than a 3rd year class like my other modules. Bless him :o) I did see him later on in the corridor and he stopped to check up on me and see how I was getting on with things. Awww!

Anyways, my American Literature class has been changed to Fridays now, so I went to that yesterday and it was good :o) I have a lot of reading to do for it, but it would appear that most people are having problems getting hold of the texts very quickly.

I hereby URGE universities everywhere (especially the Sorbonne and Brunel): PLEASE release your suggested reading lists BEFORE the start of term! You really cannot expect us to have the texts, let alone have READ them if you only give us 1 week's notice!

Anyways, rant over, I believe I have brought you up to date :o) I feel proud of myself, and, to celebrate I am going to make myself Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner :op

Will write again soooooon! Don't forget to comment :o) xxxx

P.S. here's a funky video of some street entertainers (only the best for you darlings!)