Un mois chargé de vacances!! (a month filled with vacations!!)

So I am very happy to be updating yall with a rather HAPPY blog this time! Of course, that's not to say that every day is just so fucking magical (cause it's not!) but I have had quite a few good days and good experiences to talk about. So last week was my first official "full" week of school since my other two classes started up at the fac (fac is short for "faculté de lettres", or the school of lettres and sciences). So last Wednesday I went to my psychologie clinique (I assume yall can figure that one out) class. It was, well, horrible. It was a huge lecture filled with about 200+ 1st year students. The people around me talked for the entire lecture and it was VERY hard for me to understand what the professor was saying because she kept using very technical words in the field of psychology which I obviously don't know in French. Halfway through I decided to leave the class and I ended up dropping it and taking another history class. Phew! That's over with!

On Wednesday afternoon I had my Philosophy of Education class, which I ended up really liking! The teacher was RIDICULOUSLY French though. Halfway through she assured us that we will always get a pause in the middle of class because she needs to have a cigarette! lol

On Friday we had our first Introduction to French University Methods class. I think it's going to be one of the most boring and most pain in the ass classes that we have to take. And apparently the professor asked one of our program directors how much work he should be giving us a week and she told him 2-3 hours. 2-3 hours!! That is ridiculous!! Im sorry, Im studying abroad. Yes, Im here to learn and to study, but I am also here to learn things OUTSIDE of a school context. Sheesh.

On Saturday we had an outing to Nîmes, a city in the south of France about an hour and a half west of here. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I got some really cool pictures too.

View of Nîmes from the top of this old Roman tower we climbed up. Beautiful view!!

We stumbled upon a professional photo shoot going on downtown.

Our last stop was to see the Pont du Gard, the oldest and best-preserved Roman Aqueduct in the world. Here's a pic with me and some of my good friends on the program. We got some awesome pictures here at this place.

Everything else here is going quite well. I have for the most part well adjusted to living here, although I am still adjusting to school. To be honest, I have done literally NO schoolwork since classes at the uni started. It's very hard for me to know what to do because the professor just hand you out a bibliography of 20-30+ books for the class and then all you are graded on is the final exam. It just makes me really stressed out that Im NOT stressing over schoolwork for once. Im afraid Im going to fail, even though I know I won't. But oh well, I said this was a happy blog, right?

So to wrap it up, I will tell you guys about some of my exciting, upcoming plans! October is going to be a busy month for me! I am going somewhere every weekend! This last weekend we went to Nîmes. Next Sunday I am going to Monaco for the day. The weekend after that I am going with two friends to Montpellier for the whole weekend to visit another one of our friends who is studying abroad there. Then a week after that we have another group outing, this time to Avignon and Les Baux de Provence, which my French dad tells me is absolutely beautiful. Then the last weekend of the month I will be spending my Toussaint (All Saints) holiday in Toulouse. I have some friends who are going to Barcelona, Spain for a couple days and invited me to go, but it was too complicated for me to coordinate meeting up with them so I decided to do some exploring on my own. Toulouse is a rather large city of about 450,000 residents in southwestern France. I am excited to get out and explore things! It should be rather exciting!

Well, I am done with this update. I have to go prepare my lesson plans for tomorrow since that is when I start teaching!! I am excited, but nervous!! Wish me luck!!

Paix,

Doog