27 janvier 2010 (Day 149)
Today was a brain boggling day. I had to go to French literature (which I have not been looking forward to). Lo and behold, my angst for the class was justified. The teacher of the 2 hour class is very difficult to hear and was blabbering on, mentioning at least 20 different names and the 1.5 hour class (which is more the “application” or lab class, if you will) talked about Marcel Proust in a very dull voice for the whole time. We are to read one of Proust’s books (Du cote de chez Swann, or Swann’s Way from In Search of Lost Time, his 7 volume work) and analyze the text, etc. The professor told us that the book isn’t interesting like the Count of Monte Cristo, that it will be difficult, and boring. He then proceeded to tell us a little about the book and Proust. The three most frequently used words were: homosexual (by far ranking as the number 1 used word of the lecture), love, and jealousy. Needless to say, I am really excited (not) to be studying about a homosexual’s in depth autobiography/novel.
Happily, my sociology of cultures class rocks. The teacher is this nice older gentleman with white hair. Once he found out we (Hannah and I) were American, (or more appropriately united statesman) he gleefully told us about every sociologist that was American and made fun of the French for us. Today we talked about what is “culture.” I love my sociology classes. They are so fascinating. If I wasn’t studying what I am, I think I should like to study sociology (and archeology and psychology). I don’t know what I would do with it, but it is sure that if I studying something in the French language (aka came to a university in France) I would study sociology.
After a depressingly dreadful time at the TD for French Lit (the lab class) where I found out I had to read this homosexual jealous love book (and therefore buy it) I went into centre-ville with a headache so I went and got some couquettes (I know, shame on me, I already had my pastry for the week). They were scrumptious. I went to a couple of the used book stores looking for Proust but I didn’t find any of his books so I went to FNAC (think Barnes and Noble on steroids) and bought a copy for myself and Hannah.
I did some yoga to finish my chillaxing time and then went to make dinner. My neighbor (who has a terribly hard name to say and even harder to remember) was cooking dinner for John’s (the Scotsman) farewell party. I pitched in my rice (we made a sort of fried rice: ham, peas, egg, onions). This was around 7pm. Around 8:30 since no one had seen John we went knocking on his door to surprise him. He wasn’t there so I called him. Apparently, no one had told him and he was out at a bar with a friend. He came back so that we could celebrate. During this time a lot of the Asians (around 5) were cooking French fries and turkey nuggets. They gave us some (we were all starving waiting for John), which I enjoyed thoroughly because I haven’t had fries in quite some time (and well, I’ve never had a turkey nugget).
John came and we ate the fried rice and had a lot left over. We also made crepes. They were also apparently spiked with rum for flavor, but only a little bit (or so I am told). Who would have thought of putting rum in crepe batter for flavor? Regardless, crepes with Nutella and whipped topping are delicious. It was especially funny cooking them because one of the Asian girls wanted to learn how so the Frenchies taught her and her boyfriend filmed, which included the epic crepe flipping. We stayed in the kitchen until we got kicked out (around 11pm I think), and then the talking got moved to the hallway. I said goodnight as I had to wake up for class and to help John take all his stuff to leave on a jet plane.
