TGIF

Well it's vendredi (Friday) and I am very excited for this weekend. This week has been super busy but in a very different way from the business of the week in Paris. I have been in Dijon all week, wrapping up Dr. Barbour's French Civilization course. We had two tests, one on Tuesday and one yesterday. The one on Tuesday went very well and I am waiting to get my score from the final contrôle (test). Interspersed with Dr. Barbour's tests and the first two France Contemporaine classes (those are with a professor from the University of Burgundy named Brigitte Sabard) and orientation activities at the University. Prof. Sabard has been teaching this course to Wake students as part of the Wake-in-Dijon program for a long time. It's basically a sociology course about French culture. I've never taken a sociology class before and I am excited for it. Our two classes this week were mostly theory and explaining the course and our final projects, but next Tuesday we're actually getting into the material. For our final projects we do a 30-minute presentation on an aspect of contemporary French culture which interests us. I think I'm going to do mine on the organic food versus local food movement in France. It might seem kind of specific, but I spent a little while talking to a Dijon native about it the other day and there seems to be enough cultural significance behind the subject that I hopefully I can find plenty of information.

I was waiting to write a blog post until today because this morning we received the results of our placement tests and our schedules for classes at the university. Everyone in our group placed into level 5, the highest level. There are three sections and we're split up amongst them. But unfortunately my schedule is still up in the air, because the schedules we received today show all of us have classes on Fridays. In the past CIEF (the division of the university which organizes the French classes for international students) has made sure we have Fridays free in order to facilitate travel. We were told by Dr. Barbour that we would not have classes on Fridays, so most of us have already booked flights/hostels/train tickets for future weekend trips. Apparently this was the first year CIEF did not first consult the Wake professor about the schedules, but since the system has been the same for at least the last 5 years, Dr. Barbour didn't anticipate a problem. So she's getting it sorted out today.

Whichever day/time, my classes will include grammar, oral and written expression, and oral and written comprehension. There are also two sets of optional "conférences culturels" offered on Thursday evenings: one on wine and wine-making and another on the history of gastronomy. I am going to try and attend on the weekends I'm not traveling. Future trips: Vienna (next weekend), Dublin (beginning of November), Prague (long weekend in November).

It has been nice to be back on a university campus. The campus here seems to be a bit more spread out than Wake's campus, although that might just be my perception because I still don't really know my way around. The "orientation activities" this week have been a little awkward because the Wake group is sort of doing its own thing in relation to the general CIEF program. The CIEF "winter term" starts next week and goes through the end of January - following the regular university schedule. Many of the students at these orientation activities are just arriving in France this week and so they're totally new to Dijon - the bus system, the train system, where to eat, etc. I honestly haven't spoken to anyone yet (which sounds bad, but really all we've done was take a test, take a tour of the library, and get our schedules), but it seems that the students are from all over. I know there are a lot of students from Canada and there also seems to be a strong showing from China and Korea. On our library tour I think someone mentioned they were from Russia. There are a handful of students who appear to be studying in France as a retirement activity (they look to be 60+). My impression is that a lot of these students are studying here for the full year - the school year runs from the end of September/beginning of October through the end of June. I know there will be other students in my classes, hopefully I will get to meet some of them on Monday.

Things continue to go well with my host family. I ate dinner with them Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. On Wednesday afternoon I met Joseph at his office (he works on the university campus) and he showed me the studio where he films and the computers he uses to edit the films. The building where he works makes all kind of multimedia items related to agricultural education, so I also met some of his collegues who make the CD-ROMs which come in biology textbooks and the courses or videos you can buy out of catalogues (either for institutions to purchase and show to their students/employees or for individuals to purchase). It was kind of interesting to see how they do it, since it's something I have used in the past, but never really thought about how it was produced.

Last night was supposed to be my first Ultimate practice with the university club team, the Discjonctés. Practices are Monday and Thursday nights, indoors on Monday and outdoors on Thursday. Unfortunately it rained heavily late yesterday afternoon and the captain informed me that practice was cancelled. But I'm going to go on Monday night! I am really excited about it. I've missed playing Ultimate and hopefully this will be a great way to meet other French students.

A la prochaine! (until next time)