16 novembre 2009 (Day 77)
My internal alarm clock woke me up this morning before my battery powered alarm clock this morning, it was quite annoying. Regardless, I got myself out of bed to start the week half asleep! Luckily I slowly started to wake up in phonetics. Today we finished up going over nasal sounds, working on the nasal o. At fencing today it was Cami and me for a while and then two other girls came. I got whapped really hard in the arm and am excited to see the bruise. It is unseasonably warm here, not that I don’t mind. It has been around the 50s-60s lately, although it has gotten windier and it often drizzles. I tried to go buy those yummy chouquettes at the bakery by Talensac, but it was closed. While walking there I said ‘Bonjour’ to this woman who was pushing her baby in a stroller. She stopped, turned around and then asked me if she knew me, why I was saying hello, and that it was very nice that I said hello. Hopefully that gives you a cultural picture of how different it is here, you don’t say hello to everyone you meet. They might look at you funny and then interrogate you as to why you were being friendly.
We had a fun time in art history. Practically all of the class was about 15 minutes late (except the Americans). We talked to our professor a little bit. She has been teaching foreign exchange students for twenty years and thought that I was Scandinavian…yes! Success for the first time in France! The rest of the class we talked about probably one of her favorite painters, Chardin. He did oil paintings, mostly of nature mortes, but did some stellar pastel self portraits when he began to lose his sight when he got older. I ate some dry turkey and “cereal” (cereal being multiple grains I think) at the Rubis along with their delicious donut. They kick donut trash (except Tasty’s).
I got two very nice letters in the mail today, one from Grandma and one from Kirstin. I also did my homework (well some of it, it is never ending, let’s be honest), and emailed about 5 or 6 different people about next semester and other questions. And I’m going to get to bed on time…yes!
