Le Travail...

This morning I met with Dickinson administrators to discuss my work study opportunities. It was important to reflect on several things before accepting the position:

1. Why is this starting in October? I've been living here for 5 weeks?

2. What regular hours will I be offered? Any?

3. What kinds of responsibilities will I have?

I received answers to none of these questions. Looks like I'll be working a couple hours here and there, "as needed". Huzzah.

On the plus side, I spent the next two hours helping to prepare photo boards for the Dickinson Center's upcoming 25th anniversary party! And they offered me snacks! So not a bad situation after all.

Other news: on the way home after work, I turned down a street and discovered a car inFLAMES by the side of the road. The firefighters hadn't even arrived yet. Of all days to leave my camera at home! Here's what it looked like:

Long overdue....

Bonjour tout le monde!

The last week has been pretty eventful. Wednesday marked the commencement of my psychology classes at the Institut Catholique. I'm taking three courses: Developmental Psych, Clinical Psych and Psychopathology, and Social Psych. Clinical went pretty well - the professor read her notes (*gasp!* no powerpoint!?) out loud, but was always willing to speak slower or repeat the information. One complaint about the course material - France is obsessed with Freud. In America, psychologists don't really teach his material. My course here is based on the "Freudian" system of classification. Ugh. I really enjoyed my social and developmental classes - powerpoints! The students in the classes are very nice. It's perfectly normal to check each others' notes throughout class, and one girl let me download her files of the prerequisite first-year courses! The 3.5 hour classes are pretty grueling. I took roughly 8 pages of scrawled, abbreviation-ridden notes during each, which means I'll need to type them. I was SO relieved to finally start classes. Psychology is preferable to the intensive 6-hour French grammar, history, and culture orientation course.

This weekend, Dickinson took us on a trip into the countryside. Saturday morning, I was running late, so my host dad drove me to the bus (love). We drove three hours to Conques, a village which dates back to the Middle Ages (of course). Apparently, the majority of these villages were constructed when someone chose to build a church, and a community sprung up around it. We hiked up a mountain to see a chapel -

the view was incredible! - and ate a picnick lunch at the top. Afterwards, we viewed the church and it's tresor. Yes. There was treasure. Lots

of gold-plated and bejewled idols. Next, our journey continued to Cordes-Sur-Ciel. The bus dropped us off at the base of the city. We HIKED up through tiny streets into the centre-ville at the top of the mountain, and got settled in our hotel. Our chambre was incredible. Heated towel rack, flat-screen tv, trouser press, awesome shower, a sink which resembled the Parthanon, and oh yeah- a PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE.

We ate dinner at the hotel Saturday night. Apéritif of violet liqueur, entrée of escargot tarte, plat principal of roast duck, and some tasty cake thing for dessert.

Sunday morning, we woke up to the best hotel breakfast of my life. Muesli, coffee, croissants, chocolate croissants, fresh fruit, yogurt, cheese, ham, and sausage. Soon, it was time to explore the city. Our history/art/French culture professor gave us a walking tour of the city, then set us free to shop and eat lunch. There were plenty of shops to explore: souvenirs, wine, even crossbows and foi gras. We found a restaurant for lunch, and divided up into two tables hoping for better service. Thirty minutes later, the other Dickinson table had received their food, and we had yet to see our server. This rendered me almost too cranky to enjoy the 40-person chorus seated across the room, who kept harmonizing French folk music. Eventually our table gave up, left, and found a lovely little shop for some ham and quiche.

After lunch, we loaded up the bus, and drove to a winery. We received a full guided tour by the owner. He showed us his pigeonnier (really old pigeon house), and garden featuring a fleur de lis topiary. He shared the funny story of, shortly after the end of the cold war, some Russian military leaders visited to learn how to make wine. His father was giving them a tour of the gardens, and appoligized that he only had the fleur de lis to show them, not the hammer and sickle. He explained the different processes for making red and white wine, and brought us into the storage and processing areas. This was followed, of course, by a wine tasting. Thanks, Dickinson College!

Other News:

Just a quick tidbit about class today. My clinical psych class is most definitely centered around Freud and psychoanalysis. Thanks, Professor. Now I know three-hours-worth of Freudian principles. 1 hour of lecture time dedicated to Freud comparing the human psyche to crystals. 1 hour dedicated to metapsychology, the basis of psychoanalysis. Basically, pseudoscience. This meant that a friend and I spent some quality post-class time in a pastry shop.

First Day of Classes!

Today was the commencement of courses at the Institut Catholique de Toulouse. This renders it appropriate for me to recount my experience, and perhaps add an analysis of French versus American university classes. This was supposed to be that post. But it's not. For reasons which will soon become clear.

I arrived at the ICT early this morning, and asked the receptionist (part of her job description is literally to give people directions) where my class was located. I found it, along with another Dickinson student. The door was locked (oh, France), but the arrival of other students confirmed that we were in the right place. The course selection functions differently here than at Dickinson. Students arrive at school with a set major, and within that major they are told which courses to take, with little room for electives. Unlike Dickinson, there is no battle to get "accepted" into certain courses. If you're a second-year psychology student, you receive your schedule, and that's it. This of course means that you take EVERY class with the same people, 3 years in a row. The group immediately recognized us as outsiders, and a couple girls started up conversations with us. 20 minutes later, there was still no professor to be found. The students decided en mass to leave. So we did, and returned an area where all the schedules and notices are posted. Our class had been cancelled! I spent the rest of the day attending a "welcome" persentation courtesy of the Director ("big boss" - a bishop!), then eating lunch in the cafeteria (scrumptious) with some new French friends - they even took us out for baklava after! Tomorrow I only have a Dickinson class scheduled, so hopefully Wednesday night I'll have some academic stories for this audience.

Highlights from this weekend:

Friday we received a tour of the ICT campus from another 3rd year student. It's a tiny place, but pretty nice. My only complaint is that not all the buildings have identifying marks that they belong to the college, and not all the classrooms have numbers? That should be interesting.

Saturday we explored some of Toulouse's "Journées de Patrimoine" - meaning that there were all kinds of events throughout the city. Most museums are open to the public and free, as well as churches and private homes that are otherwise closed to the public. Same goes for Sunday. I'll have the pictures up soon - we saw le Palais Niel, l'Hôtel du Barry, as well as several incredible churches.

Gagnant!

Tonight, some Dickinson people and I participated in a "France-Etats Unis" happy hour. This is basically an organisation which brings together people from both countries interested in making friends from another country, as well as practicing their French and English speaking skills.

Beforehand, a few of us met up for dinner at a tapas bar. Not only was dinner delicious, but at some point during dinner a woman came over and offered us free alcohol as part of a "51 Brand" promotion. Then she gave us free hats. We proceeded to wear the hats for the remainder of the night. Throughout all this, the bar kept playing songs from the movie "Blues Brothers." Good times all around.

The happy hour was excellent. I met adults from the area, mostly working Toulousains who wanted to speak English with us. This was fine, as we responded in French. I look forward to attending more of these events in the future.

http://www.franceusa.org/

Mecredi Soir

Tonight, I watched a bio of President Ronald Reagan with my host parents. Quote of the evening, courtesy of my host dad (translated from French):

"Ah! Ronald Reagan! If I was American, I would vote for him!"

Flight of the Français

The past week has featured quite a few points of interest...

Last Tuesday (sorry for not posting sooner!), Dickinson brought us on a

trip to a castle in the Pyrénées. We hiked for 30 minutes STRAIGHT UP the mountain, through fog, which was pretty cool. The picture below shows the mountain. Where the road enters on the far left is where we began, and hiked pretty much straight up to the top.

That tiny thing on the mountaintop is actually an enormous medieval castle. Below, you can see the village where we ate lunch! Lunch (no surprises here) was fantastic! They served us a quinoa salad, trout, and pasta, as well as an amazing apple tart dessert, coffee, and pitchers

of wine. The trout was served WHOLE, which was an adventure by itself. All courtesy of Dickinson!

After lunch, we went on a kayaking journey through the mountains! This featured beautiful scenery, ducks, and a couple mishaps. A friend accidently hit me in the face with an oar, my kayak partner and I got stuck in a tree, and a few other girls fell in. Our kayaking leaders were pretty amused by all this. Good times all around. Plus, I arrived home that night with a sweet black eye/battle wound to show the family. That day also happened to be a grève day, meaning everyone was on strike. The buses and metro weren't working, and people were protesting in the streets. Too bad we weren't around to fully experience it - though they're common enough, I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities. We arrived back in Toulouse that night, soaking wet and starving (a miracle after the amount of food we consumed at lunch!), and headed straight out for kabobs! SO AMAZING. For those of you who aren't familiar with the wonder of kabobs, it's basically an enormous hunk of meat, lamb?, usually displayed in shop windows spinning next to a heater. The cafe workers literally SHAVE off hunks of greasy meat and put them in a naan sandwich. Clearly, this is my new favorite food.

A la Campagne

Seeing as the rest of last week didn't feature anything particularly exciting (piano concert, Place au Jacobins, churches - check out the pictures I posted online!), I'll skip directly to this weekend! My family invited me to their country cottage for the weekend. Two hours of winding roads outside Toulouse, near Bergerac (as in Cyrano, for my fellow Francophiles), we made it. Their home is pretty sweet, located on its own hill, with an ENORMOUS pool and beautiful view. I spent the weekend swimming, dining, and immersing myself into their family culture. I learned that they love whiskey-coca, and that they can spend hours debating politics over food, and that everyone in their family is a fantastic cook. Saturday, I accompanied them into town to check out the weekly markey, which was very typique and fun. That night, a friend of theirs invited us to dinner in their BEAUTIFUL home. Legit, it was furnished somewhat like a hybrid of these two pictures. Dinner lasted three and a half hours, which was pretty cool.

Sunday, I went tomass with Madame (en francais!) which was thoroughly enjoyable. Afterwards, we had an interesting discussion about catholicism and religion in general. For lunch, we had crab, still in its shell. The family was asking me if I knew how to eat crab. I answered that I was more familiar with lobster. They were VERY impressed. Thanks, Cape Cod roots!

WAIT. I forgot to mention the hilight of my weekend! I flew in my host dad's plane!

That's all for now~~~ Please send your responses/questions/witticisms via email or facebook, and I'll be sure to respond or post them!

Choses Intéressants...

Today was important for several reasons:

1. I began choosing courses. For serious. Looks like i'll be taking the required "how to take a class in France" required by Dickinson, possibly a photography course, and a bunch of psych classes at the Institut Catholique de Toulouse (my family informed me that people call it the "le Catho" or something... weird). I'll be choosing either 2nd or 3rd year classes (scary!), plus it would appear that there's the opportunity to do some reseearch within the department.

2. Bonded with my host family today. Spent some time discussing current events and politics over a bottle of wine. C'est la vie.

3. My host family owns a PLANE. I now have a new goal going forward...