Oh La Lauren

merveilleux mardi

joyful, joyful, oh happy day. i can only express how happy i am today in song lyrics from Sister Act.

I went to bed at 1 last night without having studied for Soc. Tried to wake up at 6 but my body absolutely protested, so I ended up waking up at 7. I got to Paris VII early and went to a place called Presse Cafe to grab a drink and study…this place was awesome and I’m sad I didn’t discover it earlier. So zen, very big and simple, and my hot chocolate was fantastic—it must be due to that weird French milk. Even though I knew it would be a long day, I knew it was going to be a good one because it was the last at Grands Moulins.

The other American students used computers to look stuff up during our open-note essay, but I didn’t (Lexy went on Facebook instead of lookin words up). My topic was Agrégation, Ségrégation: la mixité sociale une utopie? (Aggregation, Segregation: Is Social Diversity a Utopia?). I could have written more but when I only had half an hour left I got tired of writing and just turned it in.

Then I went to try to print out my literature paper but guess what—the printers are this school are so ghetto that they don’t even have Microsoft Office. No, just Open Office. So I went back to SBC to print and then back to Paris VII. I decided I would stay for all of lit class and study for my history exam tomorrow.

So 10 minutes after class is supposed to start, Claude is not there. She never showed up.

READ: MY PROFESSOR FAILED TO SHOW UP TO HER LAST CLASS. Not even so much as an e-mail. This truly signifies how useless the French university is. But anyways, I was glad I went to say bye to Elien and Jacek and Mara. Jacek was so cute, his lips were just really chapped. I went to try and find a mailbox for Mme Millet, left it with her secretary, and was like, GOOD RIDDENS Paris VII! Though I went to the library and wrote on the bathroom door a little story for the French girls to read.

After my afternoon opened up I decided to hop on the nearest bus, and saw it went to the Institut du Monde Arabe, which I’ve heard is an awesome building, so I hopped on. For some reason though, the bus took a detour and I ended up going to the little Christmas market at Saint Sulpice. Then I walked from there to Odéon and to Blvd St Michel in hopes of finding cute shoes, but no luck.

Tonight Steph and I went to Le Kitch Bar, the bar right next to my house, finally! It was really comfy in their…the people seemed cool…the atmosphere felt like it belonged on Coventry. We had the famed “Shrek” drink, which at first, as Steph said, tasted like pine tree, but then we grew to like it.

Anyways, Paris VII was in no way an awful experience—I’ve come to understand what the French university system is really like. And it makes me all the more appreciative of my university in the US. So there!

History of Paris exam tomorrow. While it’s been probably my favorite class here, the level I care about this exam right now, from a scale of 1-10, is like, 4. Whatever happens happens, and I’ll pass. But once it’s over, the pressure is on—how do you spend your last day and a half in Paris? :-/