Day 140: Day 1 of French Uni

18 janvier 2010 (Day 140)
Today Hannah and I met up with Jane Bayly, the ISEP coordinator here, to figure out what the devil we were supposed to be doing. She gave us some insight and the recommendation to go to way more classes than we plan on taking (in retrospect this was the best advice ever). I went back home after our meeting, cleaned up and had lunch and then went to a class that wasn’t there. This one was my fault (as the rest of the ‘oops, no classes’ of the week were cancelled).
The first class Hannah and I ventured into was a psychology of health class. The professor was this young stickly looking thing with brown hair who does research in the psychology of health in France (along with a few others). She gave a little intro and then when right into teaching. This was a Freshman level class and you could tell. The students would not shut up! We were in a large amphitheatre and it was really hard to hear the professor. They were so noisy that the teacher gave us a 10 minute break to see if she could get the talking out of them. It didn’t work. It is funny, because these people are silent on the tram but when they are in class, wham! The broca’s area of their brain is suddenly activated. The teacher is great though, she has a powerpoint and then when she says important things she gives time to write down what she says, or what is on the powerpoint. Memo to self: must remember to pause when I am a teacher!
After psyc I went to what I thought should be a great class, “Geography: A Great Power.” The only thing is, they forgot this part of the title, “: Brazil.” The geography teacher was this cute short but large man in his 40s that was really funny, but a whole class on Brazil, no thank you. Hannah and I didn’t want to randomly walk out so we sat and doodled, occasionally paying attention. After 90 minutes we did finally sneak out though (it was a two hour class).
I went for a run on the track with Hannah. She didn’t last too long and I was doing a sprint workout, so I was a while. It felt nice to be outside though. It was cold, but it wasn’t raining!