It has been another busy week in Chambéry with lots of classes, and more particularly class and homework preparation both here (for exams) and back at home for transfer credit. One of the biggest aspects of the French education system that is different from the American system is that students sign up to take a block of classes, with the same group of students, for all three years of study. This translates into several things:
1. I often see foreign students sticking to themselves because it can be hard to integrate into an already close-knit group of students
2. Classes can be modified at any given time and moved to a new classroom, a new time, or a new day, because all those students do that same thing... they don't have to worry about class conflicts. Of course this doesn't always work out for students like me who take classes in other departments and who occasionally will end up with two classes in the same time block.
3. You are automatically signed up to take your exam when you "belong" in your group. I am having an enormous amount of difficulty making sure I am signed up for my exams, and even more difficulty in certain departments where they "don't know how to sign me up" because I don't belong to their department. I simply do not understand how this is that difficult. And this is one of the universities branded "international" because of the number of foreign students that it welcomes on its campus... so how is this problem not resolved??! To be honest, there are not too many students who take classes from multiple departments, because most come from the European system which is the same, so they pick a domain and take those classes and they're all good. There are just the anglophone cultures which sometimes can be choosy, but in my case I am the only student (out of 6) who chose classes in multiple departments, and in particular in a department other than literature, since that is mostly what language students come to study. I am trying to work out getting signed into my exams now (the literature ones) because no other department had a problem except them. However, even if I do get signed up for my exams, I still may have a problem because between departments there is absolutely no communication and I may en up having multiple exams on the same day at the same time. Of course, no departments know their dates yet (after all they have 3-4 weeks before exams!! - who needs more planning time than that?) so I am unsure if there will be a problem of this type for me.
David and I are preparing for the arrival of my mom which is now only about 9 days away... woohoo!!! We have finished all the trip planning so actually I have been focused more on my schoolwork than on my upcoming vacation. Speaking of schoolwork, I am still working on preparing my syllabuses for transfer credit back at Miami but - you are never going to believe this - I still don't have my grades from Le Havre. I have contacted both the university and ISEP Washington. The uni said that they would be processed "soon" and ISEP said that they would speak to the university, so hopefully that will make the "soon"a "very soon". But honestly that is three months since I took my exams and I still don't have a transcript to show my university.
The French are incredulous sometimes.
Actually I think I'll stress that point. The French are incredulous sometimes.
Today, even though I had four hours of class in the morning, I am now free for the afternoon. Despite this freedom, David and I are planning on staying home and being productive so that we can merit some fun free time tomorrow. We are planning a bike trip (only like 8-9 miles away but completely up a mountain ridge) that will take us on a cool hike trip where we can see a border marker that represented the border between France and Savoie and also a cool "black lake" that supposedly really does look black. We'll see how that plays out tomorrow.
In general, life has been great in Chambéry. Not only is the weather absolutely stunning (clear, sunny, warm) every single day, but I am even starting to make some French friends in my classes. It was not as easy this semester for two reasons: First, I had just left some good friendships back in Le Havre that I missed, and I wasn't ready to replace my friends. Second, I had my husband back so I wasn't quite so desperate for outside social contact. And third, I came here during the second semester so the in-class bonds were already fortified during the previous semester meaning it is harder to welcome in a new student. It is especially difficult when you know that this student is going to leave in a couple of months. But, all that to say that yesterday I spent the afternoon with some friends from my econ class, talking about just friend-stuff (and also America because they often have lots of questions) and casually snacking. It was a good time.
This is a picture I took of our little balcony just before David and I ate our first meal on it. Too bad the pillows weren't matching... but other than that it was quite perfect. We had crepes stuffed with melted emmental and ham. Yummy.
Love to everyone back home!
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