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O Fim duma Viagem

I never could get the hang of Thursdays

FRANCE | Monday, 28 Sep 2015 | Views [399]

Because I switched my French class, I no longer have a five hour break on Thursdays. Instead, I have a class from 10:45-12:45, and then I'm done. That class was topology. He didn't get around to defining homeomorphism, which means that the material ... Read more >

Tags: books, math, topology


And on Wednesdays I question my sanity

USA | Saturday, 26 Sep 2015 | Views [306]

I'd succeeded in changing my TD section, though it didn't feel like a terribly dramatic change. It was the same day of the week, same time, same building, and even the same floor. Basically, everything was the same except that the professor was different ... Read more >

Tags: music, pastries, russian, topology


A Night at the Opera

FRANCE | Saturday, 26 Sep 2015 | Views [424]

My first scheduled activity on Tuesday was a harp lesson. Taking advantage of having a harp in my apartment, I was able to run through the piece one final time the morning of my lesson. So I could determine that I'd neither forgotten the piece nor gotten ... Read more >

Tags: analysis, music, opera


One of these Mondays I'll do something fun

FRANCE | Friday, 25 Sep 2015 | Views [343] | Comments [1]

Monday being the one weekday that I don’t have any classes, it tends to be when I schedule or plan on getting around to doing all of my boring things. Other times, it ends up being when other people ask me to do things. Those both turned out to ... Read more >

Tags: apartment, banks, registration, rent


Chez François Hollande

FRANCE | Thursday, 24 Sep 2015 | Views [753] | Comments [1]

Saturday and Sunday were the journées du patrimoine. "Journées du patrimoine" being French for "for two days, and two days only, we open a lot of buildings to the public for free."* Saturday plans being what they were, I didn't have the ... Read more >

Tags: beautiful houses, palais elysee, president


Cooking and Harp

FRANCE | Tuesday, 22 Sep 2015 | Views [488]

Saturday was a cooking class. Joe, Megan , Maria José, and Aimé were also signed up for that session. (This was the second of three sessions, each with a cap of six people.) The cooking took place at a private house about an hour from ... Read more >

Tags: cooking, food, harp


My first in a long string of very long Fridays

FRANCE | Monday, 21 Sep 2015 | Views [321]

My Fridays begin at 9 in the morning at Juisseau. Except, seeing as I don't live right there, and even if I did I'd still need time to get ready in the mornings, this required getting up significantly earlier. Early enough that the sun had not finished ... Read more >

Tags: analysis, history of math, international students, math, phonetics


Topology and languages part two: the easy version of Wednesday

FRANCE | Sunday, 20 Sep 2015 | Views [425]

Thursday required me getting up in time to be at a 10:45 class. It is one of only two morning classes I have this semester. Life is rough. The class in question was topology. I think it won the dubious title of most comprehensible topology class ... Read more >

Tags: banking, french, math, sunset, topology


I'm not sure what language this is, but I think I understand

FRANCE | Saturday, 19 Sep 2015 | Views [275]

You'd think that, after one week of classes, I'd have enough familiarity with my schedule to be able to match names to numbers. Certainly, when I'm looking up the classrooms for the TDs, I'd pay accurate attention to which class I'm going to be going ... Read more >

Tags: math, russian, topology


And so another week of classes begins

FRANCE | Friday, 18 Sep 2015 | Views [401]

Analysis has grown on me every time I’ve taken it. The first time I took it, I liked it, but it was basically just a math class. A math class that involved more rigor and writing than I was used to, but nothing super special. The next analysis ... Read more >

Tags: analysis, food, harp, math


Mondays, Mondays

FRANCE | Thursday, 17 Sep 2015 | Views [379]

Since I’d designed my schedule to not have classes on Monday, I didn’t have anything I needed to do when I woke up in my own apartment the next morning. So I decided to finally get around to something I’d been meaning to do for a while:... Read more >

Tags: artichokes, cooking, food, kitchen, shopping


About suffering, they were never wrong, the old masters

FRANCE | Wednesday, 16 Sep 2015 | Views [406]

Sunday, Laure had to work, so she arranged for me to spend the day with some of the other anglophones from the day before. This turned out to be both Sarahs, because they were up and the other two weren’t. (To make matters worse, American Sarah ... Read more >

Tags: art, books, middle ages, museum, renaissance


Hosts and Families

FRANCE | Tuesday, 15 Sep 2015 | Views [324]

After getting up on Saturday, Laure gave me a mission: to go to the bakery and pick up the viennoiseries she'd ordered. To help me with this mission, she drew me a map. Her theory with giving me this mission was that out would allow me to ... Read more >

Tags: barbecue, coffee, family, guitars, wood


From Paris to Dijon

FRANCE | Monday, 14 Sep 2015 | Views [326]

Friday morning was rather lazy. I packed for the weekend, sorted through papers, and cleaned the apartment. After lunch, I headed to the university for my last "math" course of the week. Really, my only history class, since if it was a math course, ... Read more >

Tags: history, host family, math, trains


And then there's topology

FRANCE | Sunday, 13 Sep 2015 | Views [242]

I didn't realise until I got to campus that my next class (by process of elimination, that one had to be topology) that this class did not take place at the same lecture hall my previous one had. In fact, this one didn't take place at a numbered lecture ... Read more >

Tags: campus, dijon, math, topology


Aimless Wednesday

FRANCE | Sunday, 13 Sep 2015 | Views [259]

Wednesday I had no class. This was not a typical thing, but since most TDs were nonexistent the first week, it was true this week. This gave me a full day to myself. I caught up on the emails I needed to write (intended to catch up on the blog, but ... Read more >

Tags: books, language, registration


Analysis: an oasis of clarity and reasoning in the vast desert of the real world

FRANCE | Saturday, 12 Sep 2015 | Views [286]

Tuesday began with a meeting at the Brown in France office of how to live like a real Parisian. Specifically, how to live cheaply in an expensive city,like a real Parisian student. Tip number one: live at home. If your parents have lived in Paris ... Read more >

Tags: analysis, cheap, math, university


The Ultimate Scavenger Hunt

FRANCE | Friday, 11 Sep 2015 | Views [301]

On Monday, I had two things I needed to do: meet with Stephanie about the pro-seminar and go to the university to see if I could have any luck registering for Russian. I also had things I wanted to do, like get internet working again. (I had eventually ... Read more >

Tags: gardens, pro-seminar, registration, seine


A Palace fit for a king

FRANCE | Thursday, 10 Sep 2015 | Views [395]

On Sunday, we met in Paris to catch the RER to Versailles. Besides the people in the program and the tour guide Guillaume, we were accompanied by Stephanie’s sister, Erin’s husband and two children, and Cambria’s parents. Cambria’... Read more >

Tags: art, fountains, gardens, history, mythology, versailles


A Saturday to call my own

FRANCE | Wednesday, 9 Sep 2015 | Views [375]

There was absolutely nothing I had to do on Saturday. No group activities or meetings with my landlady. No apartments to visit or courses to register for. Not even any homework, since the course with Christine had ended and the regular university classes ... Read more >

Tags: books, free time, shopping, tea


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