First Week of School!

Today is Saturday and I can't believe that I'm already done with my first week of school in France!  What basically happened at the beginning of the week is we recieved the results of our placement tests (I didn't do too shabby!) and were assigned a level of class we were going to be in.  Within that level, we have a mandatory 6 hour Langue class and were given a list of all the possible classes we are able to take this semester.  For that first week, we were instructed to attend whatever classes we thought would interest us and decide which ones we want to ultimately take so that we can officially register on Monday!  There were fun things like theatre, art history, and even a singing classes once a week that I think I'm going to take!  So I've decided that in additoin to my Langue class and the 2 classes I have with Dr. Schoolcraft (amazing man...he's been so helpful and here for us!!)I am taking histoire de France, grammaire, and France au quotidien (class about the social aspects of French life) which will all essetially "combine" and trasfer to 3 hours worth of French credit at Texas A&M.  It is going to work this way because those classes are so easy.  They don't require textbooks (except the history class) and there is no homework.  So in all, I will come out of this program with 15 hours of French class credit; 12 hours in 300-level and 3 hours in 400-level.

On another note, I must say that I have yet to meet a rude, snobby, mean French person like the ones you hear about.  Every single actual French person I have met in Angers has been kind, sweet, helpful, and many have a hilarious sense of humor!  All my professors are so nice, which is a relief!  There is also another thing I did not expect......I think probably about 2/3 (honestly!) of the students in this program are either Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.  It's so bizarre, I just never would have guessed that students from that area of the world would be so interested in learning french.  It's kinda of funny too because they all speak english a million times better than they speak french!  And for a lot of them, it's their second semster at the university!

I am going to my friend Ashley's house today (she's from Buffalo) because her host family wants to have us over for "le gouter" which means "taste" or "snack" in french.  Apparently they are going to make us lots of crepes so I'm really exctied to do that!  .....in other news, my mission of the weekend: find cheap nail polish remover.  A bientot mes amis!