First week of classes

Well I am happy to say that I have survived my first week of classes in France.  The process was hellish to go through picking out classes, some I intend to take and some I will take if I'm forced to on the grounds that the classes I want to take are 1. full 2. can't understand the professor or 3. the subject matter puts me to sleep.  Monday (Day one) I went to a French history class that is offered by the APA (Academic Program of Aix).  The professor's name is Claude and he is wonderful.  The makes history interesting and on the first day asked all the students in the class what ares of French history we want to cover during the duration of the semester to make sure we'd actually enjoy and get something out of the class.  You are not going to find this from a US college class.  In the US it's either you like it or you don't, but he wants to cater the class to what we want to know most about French history.  He started out speaking slow to make sure we were all on the same page and understanding the objectives of the class.  This professor also offers an oral expression class on Thursday nights that has been highly recommended to me, so I might try that class out next week.  After the French history class I have an hour or two for lunch and then I have a semi linguistic class called Language, Culture and Societe.  My professor's name is Alain Giacomi and he is the typical old french man who shakes and just wants to be your sudo grandpa.  He loved having so many American students in the class, and during his lecture of french slang, argot and pigeons he asked the American students to teach the french students a word of American slang.  So we taught them the word "jank".  For those of you who do not have "jank" in your vernacular this word could be used to describe something that is broken, run or doesn't work properly.  The french students didn't understand what we were trying to express with this word so we gave them the sentence, "Le FAC (the university I am taking class from) is jank".  I will add photos to my blog so you too can better understand the meaning of this word and hopefully use it!  Tuesdays I don't have class till 2:00 or as the Europeans say 14h (they run their days on a 24 hour clock, which becomes very confusing for an american).  I have found the fastest way to calculate their clock into one I can understand is to subtract 12 from what ever time it is after 12:00.  So 19h- 12= 7:00 pm.  I'm probably making matters more complicated, but it has worked for me so far.  My class Tuesday is History of France during the industrial revolution.  My professor for this class speaks very quietly, so I will be sitting in the front row next class.  He seems to favor the foreign students so I will be using this to my advantage.  He has a rather large nose and during the entire class he kept touching his nose (like some kind of obsession or habit) and I thought he was picking his nose.  Nope just touching it, a lot.  I have no class on Wednesdays, so this will be a good time to catch up on homework or take short day trips to Marseille or other close coastal cities.  Mostly definitely the beach once the weather warms up.
             
            
Side note here:  the weather here is not as palmy and exotic as you may think.  We have had rather blustery weather and lots of wind.  The only good time to be warm is to stand in the sun (which is hard to find in a city of tall buildings) between the hours of 1 and 2 or 13h and 14h.  So you may think I'm just soaking up sun and relaxing on the Riviera while my Indiana friends and family are mustering through sleet and snow, but no you are wrong.  There is such thing as cold weather in southern France and I can tell you all about it.  Back to classes.  So Thursdays I start out my day with a APA program required methodology class that will help us with our writing.  The professor for this class is my favorite professor I have this semester.  He has a slight lazy eye so I can't tell who he's looking at and speaks very slow and spittle forms in the corners of his mouth when he gets excited.  He's very much the typical old french man you come to France and hope to meet.  He offered help with our other classes assignments in the event we are stuck on our essays and papers.  I can just tell  he genuinely wants to help out a group of American kids to improve our speaking and writing abilities. I have this class with other students who are in my program so it's nice to come to class and see a bunch of familiar faces.  For my second class of the day I have to take a city bus to another part of town to the anthropology building.  When I got on the bus I felt I was back at IU for some reason.  I guess just the coincidence of taking a 6 bus to get to campus at IU and taking the Aix city 6 bus to get to class.  My last class of the week is Anthropology of Provence.  I think this class will be very interesting if I can ever understand the professor.  He has a pretty thick southern french accent and for the first half of the class lectured almost word for word out of a text book.  The class is in a pretty big lecture hall which totally different compared to all my other classes that are in typical classrooms with desks and chairs.  Luckily the professor set up the microphone system so I could understand him a little better.  I will definitely be making friends with the other french students to get notes.   Get ready for it:  NO CLASS ON FRIDAY! This is the first time I have never had a Friday class, ever.  Let me tell you, it's pretty nice.  I like being at home in the earlier afternoon doing homework because there is a live band that plays in the place (open square area) just outside my window.  One more note about classes.  Classes in France and probably most of Europe are structured very differently from the US.  Class meets once a week for 3-4 hours.  The number of hours your meet equals the course credit, so I am taking 14 credits which means I sit in class for 14 hours each week.  In the US it is much more common for a class to meet twice a week or an hour and a half or 3 or 4 times and sometimes 5 times a week for about an hour or less.  Class in France doesn't assign weekly homework or have several tests and papers throughout the semester but rather one final test or if your lucky a midterm and maybe 1 or 2 assignments.  There is no class participation (which I like) and the professor just lectures at you for the full 3 hours.  You do get a small pose or break about half way through the class to stretch your legs and go buy some vending machine coffee.  The rapport between professors and students is very different here.  In the US students are expected to remain quiet during class and speak only to ask a question of the professor out of respect.  In France students will conduct long conversations at a normal voice level and the professor does nothing.  This makes it difficult for foreign students to hear the professor's lecture when there is a constant hum of conversation in the room, but it's an aspect of the french culture I will have to get used to.
Our apartment is working out very nicely now that we have heat and hot water.  Thank god I no longer have to bath out of a teapot (I think I already told that story but just in case I didn't) The first and second nights after we had moved in our hot water was not working and our landlord tried to fix it but he is by no means an electrician.  The first night Cathy and I washed each other's hair our of a tea pot we boiled on the stove and the second night we had just enough hot water for one shower so I got to take a sponge bath out of said tea pot.  Quite the experience but never again.  We are in a great location to all the markets.  We are also right next to the bars, literally a 2 minute walk from our favorite bars and dance clubs.  This is good and bad.  Good for the nights when we want to go out and have a good time, but bad for the nights when we want to get sleep and the rest of Aix wants to party.  C'est la vie!  I am a 20 minute walk from campus which may seem far but in reality it's not farther then I had to walk freshmen year from my dorm to most of my classes.
Weekly observations:
1.  Cheese in France rally is better.
2.  France loves PDA (public displays of affection)
3.  France works on it's own clock and allows for breaks in the day.  (Stores are open around 9 and close at 7 and take a 2 hour lunch [I'm not sure how they actually sell anything])
4.  Consumerism of America has gotten.  I had a bad moment today and went to the grocery to buy diet coke and a bag of potato chips and went to a chic fast food restaurant called Burgers and Chicken to get a cheeseburger and french fries.  (I have decided this can only happen occasionally otherwise I will never be a true french girl that lives of bread and wine)
5.  cell phone service sucks in France (I don't get cell phone service on the main street of town... hm...)

Well faithful followers I am off to climb mt. st. Victoire tomorrow so the next time you hear from I will have another week of class behind me and have climbed to the highest peaks of on of France's most famous mountains.