What a stressful week!

If you were wondering no, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I'm sorry I haven't been able to update in a while, this week was really busy and stressful for me. It was by far the most stressful week here in Paris thus far. The stress really didn't start until Monday after class when I got back to the apartment and started studying for my final test in my art class. The test was over Gauguin and VanGogh which doesn't seem like it would be that daunting, however, they were the only two artists that we covered from the end of the last test. We spent 3 whole days on Gauguin alone. I think the professor was obsessed with him or something....he was pretty cool. I spent over an hour on Facebook talking to Katie trying to figure out what their most important paintings were and what was going to be on the test. Yes, I used Facebook to study, usually I just use it to distract me, but not this time....it was very important.

The test was alright. It was just as long as the last one because we had to answer two essay questions. We had 3 choices and had to pick 2 out of the 3. I was really confident on one of the questions where I had to analyze 3 self portraits by Gauguin, but the other one I chose had to do with the use of color in 3 different paintings. Two of the paintings that were on there I didn't know their titles so I sort of made them up. So hopefully I'll get some credit for that. The questions about Gauguin were really specific. For example, where was his mother born....I answered France because well, I really had no idea. The right answer was Peru....who knew? We have 2 classes left and I'm not entirely sure if we're going to have a final exam, she really hasn't said anything. After class I came back to the apartment and started getting my speech ready for cinema.

I was pretty worried about my speech because I'm not very good at speaking in front of people, let alone speaking in French. My presentation was about Jacques Demy, a French director. We got our tests back and I got a 14 out of 20. I was so happy because it was so much better than my first test grade. We went over the test and then this other girl gave her presentation about Agnes Varda, who was married to Demy. My presentation went pretty well. Michel (the prof) only corrected me on one thing, and he said it was really good, so I was happy with that. We watched "Lola" and ended up getting out a class late but I didn't mind because the movie was really good. I was really glad when Wednesday was over because it meant that there was less to stress about.

I noticed that stress here in Paris having to deal with school is COMPLETELY different than stress about school at U of I. Back home a stressful week would be when I have 2 papers due, a test or 2, and homework from other classes all to do in one week. But here what I had to do would be a piece of cake back home.

Thursday I had my meeting with Dr. Costello to talk about what classes I'll take for the next semester. I'm taking one of his classes....I hope it's good. All the classes that I really wanted to take of course ended up being on the same day, so the classes I'm taking I'm really not that excited about. They sound interesting but I didn't get to pick a fun class. Although, all the classes I am taking count towards my major, so that's good. Dr. Costello told me that I could take a class at the Sorbonne (this fancy French school) where I would be in a class with French students but I decided not to take it because it starts 2 weeks before the classes at the Catho do, and I don't know how confident I am with my French to be in a class with a bunch of Frenchies. I think I'd be really intimidated! So I'm sticking with the Catho. After the meeting I walked through the Luxembourg gardens to school, grabbed something to eat, and waited for class to start. Literature was interesting. I have to take the continuing class next semester with the same professor. I really hope it's more interesting than this one has been. I was in a really bad mood after class. I really don't want to go into why, but people were just telling me what to do and I really hate when people do that. It seemed like they were making decisions for me which I really didn't like. I'm 21...I'm a big girl now and can make my own decisions.

To make matters worse, I went to the monoprix by the apartment and waited in line for 30 minutes to buy 2 things. For some reason the woman working at the cash register decided that she needed to look for this other womans receipt while the line at the register grew longer and longer. Finally, another worker jumped on the other register and I was about to go to it when she said that people could only use check or carte bleu (debit cards) at her register because she didn't have any cash in the drawer. So, of course I get stuck waiting on the other woman because I knew they weren't going to let me use my carte bleu on 4 euros. I was really ticked off. Couldn't she have waited until her line died down to look for the stupid receipt? That seems like the logical thing to do. Whatever.

Today I had a mini test in my phonetics class and I think it went pretty well. The only problem I had was the guy who was sitting next to me, who's never there by the way....he just decided to show up today for some reason, he was talking really loud into his microphone I couldn't hear myself thing. Seriously, the dude was shouting. After class Amber and I were supposed to go to Les Halles to return some stuff but she wasn't feeling well so I went by myself. I bought some nice purchases at this store called Etam....I won't say what they are because that would be a little weird. I went and returned my stuff from H&M and got 20 euro put back on my card. So in reality, the stuff from Etam only cost me 2 euro. I also bought this huge purple scarf that was only 3 euros. I love les soldes!!!!! (that's sales for the non-frenchies out there). I went to Starbucks because I really, really wanted some and read my book for a while and then headed back to the apartment.

Sam is coming to Paris tomorrow, he goes to school in Versailles, so we're gonna do something....I really don't know what yet, but we'll figure it out. I also have to figure out what I'm doing for semester break. Hopefully Katie and I can get together for a bit tomorrow and figure it out. I think she's trying to get into the class at the Sorbonne so her break is going to be all messed up, so we'll see what happens.

I guess that's it for now. Sorry for not updating. I'll try to update tomorrow!

A bientot