Final Exam in France

YAAAAAAAAYYYYY! Even though I am not actually graduating like a lot of my friends back home, I am here to say that I just took my last final in France, ever! It was over 18th century literature, and it was a written literature analysis with a 4 hour time limit. Originally I thought that surely I wouldn't need that much time for the exam but as it turns out I wrote for three and a half hours which is just insanely too long for the human brain (and hand) to try to concentrate. I am afraid that my handwriting did suffer a little near the end. Actually, nothing suffered as much as my conclusion, but I just couldn't stand to write one more sentence at that point and I felt confident that I had already obtained a very good grade. But, for memories sake I would just like to quote my final sentence, which is shameful, but amusing. So after having indicated that I was concluding, in summing up the innovations of 18th century literature and how it worked to promote public speculation and ideological criticism, I said :

"Le théâtre du XVIIIe siècle était bien unique."

Which might translate best as, "Indeed, 18th century literature was quite unique" except that the word "unique" in French means more, "of its own type", as opposed to weird or strange. But yeah, pretty much the weakest concluding sentence in the history of all papers ever. But I think after writing what I estimate to be well over 1000 words and 5 full pages over a time period of three and a half hours, I am allowed to be cut a little slack.

Either way, David and I are now officially done studying and we are on full-time vacation with a little bit of vacation planning. We are predicted to have wonderful weather tomorrow, so surely we will set out on a hike of some sort to enjoy more of our last two weeks in Chambéry. And speaking of leaving preparations, I heard back from Numéricable today (our internet service provider) that they received my request for cancellation and we are 100% on track to get that taken care of at the right time (not too early or too late) which is quite a feat in and of itself. As for closing down our bank accounts we have set up the appointment, and we will soon be all cash and no card in France, which will be a little weird. Also, we have purchased all of our train tickets for all of our 5 weeks of vacation except one because there is a little problem with the SNCF, France's train company, recognizing the existence of the ticket shown online... I am sure they will catch up with technology eventually.

All that to say, I AM SO EXCITED! I have finished the studying part of my study abroad and I will soon have a very fun vacation and then be back home in the US! NO MORE FRENCH UNIVERSITY! WOOHOO! And though I say that now, I know that I will miss a lot of this once I am back in the US. Ok well I am starving after that exam so I am off to cook dinner. On tonight's menu: Carbonara Pasta and a Frizante red wine to celebrate. Yummm.

I know that I don't include my meter picture in my blog very often, but I have continued to keep my excel document with at least 3-4 ratings per week since the beginning of the school year. Today I thought I would include it since I was extra happy (=