Southern visits

Hello all, and happy December!

I hope that you somehow hold it in your hearts to forgive me, gentle readers, for having held you in suspense on my life happenings these past weeks.

Academics at Sciences Po have proven to be more time-consuming and challenging than I ever would have anticipated, but enjoyable nonetheless ; I feel as though I have learned a great deal, and a great deal more of how much I have yet to learn.

This past month has been filled with little but research and essays, and an increasingly-challenged and distracted mind has found it hard to fit time for a blog update in the gaps among Somali clan institutions, the position of the individual in public international law, the tensions between democratic global governance and collective security, and the Korean War's impact on the course of the Cold War...it all leaves me with a richer understanding of my studies, to be sure, but also feeling overwhelmed by how little I actually understand of what I study, if that makes any sense.

In any case, an update is more than appropriate, but how to fit all that which took place (outside of classes and schoolwork) in the past five weeks in a quickly and readable account is a challenge. I decided, therefore, to write about diverse events along the semi-unifying theme of "Southern visits": a visit to the Southeast of France, visitors from the South who passed some time in Paris, and a visit from French friends to a semi-Southern-themed Thanksgiving dinner.

A visit to the South of France: Gap, Briançon, and Grenoble

My Sciences Po buddy (through "le buddy programme" of Sciences Po's exchange program), Louise Perrodin, invited me to spend fall break (27-31 October) with her, Clémence and Louisa - two of her French friends - and Dmitry - a Russian exchange student, in a lakehouse near the city of Gap and in the city of Grenoble, in the southeastern part of France. Of course I jumped at the offer, not knowing when next (if ever again) I would get a chance to be in that part of France again.

I had very little idea of what to expect from an invitation to spend some days at a lakehouse in a part of the world I had never seen, but what passed was a wonderful visit in what was one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

The "lake house" (which is actually a full-blown house by any standard - spacious and solid yet at the same time charming, constructed of stone and sturdy wooden doors, furnished by comfortable sofas and kept warm by a large fireplace) is beautifully situated near the shores of Lac de Serre-Ponçon, some hours drive south of Gap, in the Alps's "foothills" (the mountains were still an imposing skyline, to be sure). Artificially made, the lake is nevertheless both enormous and, surrounded as it was by deciduously-forested hills and then, a little farther out, the snowy peaks, simply beautiful (and that was before it snowed the first night we were there). I snapped several pictures from the deck in the back and from the shores of the lake and will put them (along with other photos that correspond to this blog post) on Facebook as soon as I figure out how my user-friendly (but nevertheless a challenge, for this guy) iPhoto program works.

The time spent in that house mostly revolved around recovery from the mid-semester point : sleeping, eating, drinking tea, reading, and watching films, broken up by long, bracing walks down alongside the lake's shore or higher up near the start of the mountain's footpaths. The meals were definitely a highlight, as collective efforts led by Louise and Louisa produced crêpes with emmental cheese one day, raclette cheese warmed by the fire and cut in melted slices onto baked potatoes and salami another, and chocolate in various forms – bars of, nutella, or hot cocoa - almost continuously. The conversation that passed was also worth savoring, freely ranging along politics (the French are nothing if not critical of American politics, though not always unkindly so, and I am learning a great deal from those criticisms) and culture (my ignorance about American culture was once again revealed to me by conversations with Dmitry, who, though Russian, knows more about American literature and music than almost anyone else I know) without ever becoming abrasive and usually as warm and friendly as the roaring fire that we started on our arrival and didn't put out till we left.

All in all, those days at that lake house made for a wonderful convalescence from the first couple of months of schoolwork at Sciences Po.

From Lac de Serre-Ponçcon we drove to Grenoble via a small town named Briançon. Briançon is very much an Alpine town, quite near the border of northern Italy (the signs there were largely bilingual and the architecture notably Italian). It is small, quiet and charming, the town itself dominated by la Collegiale de Notre Dame et St Nicolas, a beautiful church, and the mountain above it dominated by fortifications built to defend the area from invasion from the east and since become cultural and historical landmarks. We were only able to stay in Briançon for a couple of hours before we had to leave for Grenoble, but it definitely was apparent from what little time we spent there that one could easily spend much longer taking in its particular prettiness, especially lit up at night.

We arrived at Grenoble late that evening.

The next morning, we took the little egg-shaped cable cars up the side of the mountain to the Bastille. This is not the fort-turned-prison that the French revolutionaries tore down on 14 July, 1789 (Bastille Day; the semi-equivalent of the American 4th of July), but is, rather, a mountain fortress (before "bastille" came to be associated with the Bastille in Paris, it only signified a fortress, generally) and an accompanying network of mountain caves that overlook the city, key components of the French alpine defense. There was a neat little military museum at the top that we visited briefly before hiking down the side of the freezing and fog-shrouded mountain.

The rest of the day was spent walking through the streets of Grenoble, which were definitely different from those of Paris. For one thing, all of the public transit is above ground because the rock is less-than-conducive to subway construction; tramways dominate the city and, along with the gardens and semi-classical architecture (Grenoble is one of the oldest cities in France, dating to BC times), rightly gives it an antiquated feeling.

I definitely would have enjoyed spending more time there but had to leave shortly after dinner. My train was 1/2 hour late, but Louise and my newfound friends were kind enough to wait with me in the freezing rain until it finally arrived to take me back to Paris.

Visits from "the South"


Soon after I returned to Paris, I was visited by four University of Georgians (Universityans of Georgia?) who were studying abroad in Oxford, across the way. Two of them - Anisha and Blake - I knew quite well, and two I hadn't yet met. They had all four come to Paris to see what they could see, as quickly as possible, in four short days, and that I got to see them for two of those was a real pleasure.

Anisha, Blake and I passed a wonderful together eating a typically French meal (escargot, salmon, salad, duck, etc) in a typically French manner (ie, a quite paced manner; it took us somewhere around three hours to finish, I think). It was a wonderful meal (the first time I had ever been intentional to eat at a truly French restaurant) and it was a joy to be able to share with them a little of the past few months in Paris for me and, even more so, to hear from them the highs and lows of Oxford. More than anything, it was just good to see some familiar faces after a few months without familiar contacts.

The next day, all five of us UGA-ers met up for crêpes/waffles/gelato by Fontaine St. Michel for their final night in Paris; again, it was good to pass time among familiar friends, faces, and topics of conversation.

A short while later, I got to pass the evening with Howell, a friend from UGA who was visiting Paris, hearing from him the news around campus and sharing with him some of the highlights from my time thus far in France.

All in all, those few visits were enough to give me a bit of a taste of Georgia. I needed them/appreciated them more than I realized at the time, I think, given how long it had been since I had been without any semblance of familiarity. As much as I enjoy travel, new sights, and new experiences, and as much as these things are important and valuable, I do miss good ol' UGA at the same time.

A Southern Thanksgiving meets a French dinner party


One of my main extra-curricular/personal projects I had for this semester was to prepare a Thanksgiving feast to celebrate with some of the French friends I have been able to get to know since arriving a few months ago.

I had decided on doing this since mid-October, or so, and, since early November had been in the process of planning and gathering ingredients (some of which, like cranberries, which are indigenous to the Americas, are somewhat exotic in France, and thus take some time to locate).

Thus it was that, with some help of a missionary here in France, my landlord and his wife, and some others from 72 Sèvres (the church that I attend) - to say nothing of the numerous phone calls back home to mom and the many hours spent on various homemaking websites (I learned more than I ever wanted to know about green bean casseroles) - that I had a pretty serious operation planned for the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The menu, as I planned it, incorporated at least a few Southern tastes: Turkey, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, carrots, peas, Southern-style sweet tea, Coca Cola, and cider, with pumpkin pie and whipped cream for dessert. It promised to be a real feast, large enough to be French lunch and dinner, and, thus, eaten in the afternoon (much to the confusion of many of my guests, actually, who are accustomed to eating lunch at 13h00 and dinner at 20h00).

Though I faced a few serious setbacks during the morning cooking and more than one challenge threatened the success of the whole meal (such as molded carrots and a literal run to the grocery store to buy some more, the continually-clumpy gravy that I couldn't mix with a fork no matter how many times I tried, and other hilarities), it nevertheless turned out to be an edible, and, in some ways, even enjoyable menu with some really good conversation and cultural exchanges.

Explaining the history of Thanksgiving, the size of wild turkeys, the various North American and specifically Southern traditions, and some of the menu items (Pumpkin Pie, above all, was absolutely unknown to most of them, and cranberries were truly exotic to everyone there) to my French guests was an honor, and I hope I represented one of my favorite holidays mostly accurately. In any rate, beyond the bumbling French explanations of American and Canadian cultural traditions, the meal and the many hours of cards that we played afterwards passed well, to the extent that I would call my first Thanksgiving away from home a success (to which no small amount of credit goes to the aforementioned people who helped me).

On that note, let me just say to my many faithful readers, friends and family, Canadians, Yankees and Suth'ners, one and all, then, that I wish you each and every one an ex-post Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry start of the wonderful Advent season. Hopefully I’ll be able to be a bit better about updating with shorter, more frequent posts over the winter break.

Joseph

De la musique, potpourri de Paris

Bonjour tout le monde!

Et pardonnez-moi for not having updated this blog in such a long time!

Fear not, however, a fresh excuse is prepared ; my laptop burned out a little over two weeks ago. While I have been able to get by using the computers here at the Sciences Po library, that little hiccup, which should be resolved by this Friday, I hope, has nevertheless limited my ability to use a computer for other important things (like keeping all of you in on the loop of Paris!)

I titled this update the music and potpourri ("miscellanea") of Paris ; the recent weeks have been full of many new experiences and memories, (many, but not all, related to music) that I am eager to describe - in a roughly chronological order, by my best efforts.

I begin my day, nearly every day, with a 40 minute ("door to door") commute using Paris's regional network of trains and its metro system, taking a commuter train into the main station that services the southern part of Paris, Gare Montparnasse, then take the metro to the St. Germain-des-Prés quartier of Paris.

All flavors of humanity use the metro system. Businessmen and businesswomen, each bedecked with scarves and pointy shoes and wheeling their little suitcases behind them in a frantic hurry, tourists bedecked with all manner of clothing expressing their love for Paris or their respective countries and lugging incredibly heavy duffels or hiking sacks, students carrying art portfolios, instruments, backpacks, etc., every one fighting to land a foot on the floor of the metro car that guarantees them, it is understood, right of entry regardless of if the buzzer sounds or the red light flashes, every one tentatively reaching for some manner of support when inside the jolting, accelerating car.

There are those, whoever, who use the tunnels for purposes other than the metro, the literal flip side of Paris that spend probably as much time below ground as above it; the homeless sleeping on ledges and newspapers and trying desperately to drown out the (neverending) noise and lights, the muslim widows (presumably) kneeling quietly and open-palmed at the foot of staircases, and the musicians seated on the benches or standing in the corners. These latter play any and all manner of instruments - accordions are the favorite, to be sure, but guitars, saxophones, violins, and flutes and even xylophones have been featured - and some of them can quickly become familiar faces.

Two musicians stand out in my memory and are worth taking a moment to describe ; one, a rotund and doleful man who sits on an amplifier and plays Bach and Latin music each quite sweetly on his accordion, the other, a thin and balding man who, seated next to a CD player blasting some classical piece for solo flute, "plays" a reed pipe quite animatedly in efforts to convince the uninitiated that the sound of the flute is emanating from his own lungs.

*Please see CORRECTION at end of post.

Culturally enriching some of these musicians can sometimes be, I have also been able to take advantage of some other opportunities to experience Parisian art, music, etc, two in the past month that really stand out in my mind:

The first was the night of October 7, when Vincent, a friend from le 72, the church I attend, invited me to accompany him - as he had a subscription that allows for him to bring a friend - to a showing of Dom Juan, by Molière, at La Comédie-Française, the oldest theater in Paris. The actors were, of course, marvelous, and convincingly unfolded the story before my eyes without much use of the aid of props or of set, and their dialogue was wonderfully animated, a real encouragement to continue to learn the beautiful French language. Though, to be entirely honest, I had some great difficulty understanding the actors for the first portion of play -- and most especially when they made fun of the Marseilles-ean (a port town in the south of France) accent -- the expressiveness of the actors and the text of the play that Vincent had brought allowed me, by the end of the piece, to understand at least 80 percent of it. 

The second was much more recent - just this past Saturday night, in fact (the 20). Étienne, a friend from Sciences Po (and 72), who is something of a jazz aficionado, suggested we go to Le Caveau de la Huchette. Located kitty corner across the Seine from Notre Dame and in a bizarre pocket of ethnic restaurants and various theaters, spectacles, etc...this hole in the wall jazz caveau (literally "vault", as in a family's wine cellar or something similar) was fantastic, and probably the best place I have been to in Paris at night so far. A building that dated, according to Étienne, from French Revolutionary times when it served as a prison, it was transformed after WWII into a now fairly-famous jazz club, a remnant of American culture that the GIs left behind, apparently. The walls were covered with gargoyles, torchholders and signs from hundreds of years ago, and the dance floor was covered with elderly gentlemen and gentlewomen doing the be-bop or swing incredibly spryly and with the most charming dignity, along with younger folk observing these experts in admiration and trying to emulate ; counting those of us "just there for the music", crammed into red benches ringed around the dancers, quite a crowd was listening to the band up on stage. The atmosphere was fantastic and the music group - a bassist, a pianist, a drummer, a trumpeter, a clarinetist and a trombonist - was a delight.

Other than a few cultural excursions such as these above (or dryer but also interesting visits to museums and the like), my life over the past couple of weeks has really consisted mostly of the routine, which I have grown to enjoy.

Classes have continued to go well (though admittedly too quickly, as I wait for my computer to be fixed and to be less constrained to the library hours to effectively work), and I continue to enjoy my studies.

The lectures in my history of international relations course are especially stimulating, both in terms of sheer content and in terms of the lively personality of the professor, who prefaces such and such an insight with "Néanmoins...toutefois, cependant...Je vous rappelle que vous ne pouvez rien comprendre de la première guerre mondiale sans...", (which is to say, "Nevertheless...nevertheless, nevertheless...I remind you that you cannot understand anything insofar as the first world war is concerned without..."), before bringing up some personality trait of a famous leader, an anecdote concerning a diplomat, a reigning philosophy of a society at the time, or some historical reality of contemporary importance that has since been lost to the sands of time etc. Both the content and the perspective are French, of course, which means that they are at the very least...fresh to a student of an American background.

In the other course I mentioned in another blog posting, I believe, L'Arc des Crises, I gave an exposé with a group on the problem of Somalian piracy in the gulf of Aden. I found the subject very interesting learned a pretty good deal. Piracy is just the tip of the iceberg, really...Somalia itself has had a really rough go of things with the "international community" as well as with its own power players; colonized by the Italians and British, mashed into a republic for the UN, brutalized by a Soviet-sympathizing dictator, and manipulated by various east African imperial states in their proxy wars and by the United States in the war on terror, the country has for over 20 years been in utter anarchy, seeing the failure of over a dozen transitional governments and the rise and fall of various local groups. But I digress ; needless to reiterate, I am enjoying the gritty subject matter that my classes are covering.

Speaking of grit, I won't presume to say that mine has gotten any truer for the past boxing lessons I have been taking, but I have been learning to take a punch. And how to give a few, as well. Our coach is an excellent instructor, and I really think I am learning quite a lot ;
"Left foot forward, chin tucked, step with your punches and keep the same distance from your opponent! Circle with him! Mais non, c'est une danse! Harass your opponent with your left and wait to use your right - take advantage of your reach! Ouiah!! Super, super."...
...even if I am also suffering a fair deal ;
"Box in place, box in place, sautez!! sautez!! un, deux, trois...dix. Et bien continuez...Pushups, one two...ten Tenez! TENEZ!! (hold, all of you) Bien...soixante (sixty) secondes...trente seconds...Tenez! Bien."

In any case, between the boxing class and Ultimate Frisbee, I am getting a bit of exercise each week so as to stay in decent shape. Nothing remotely close to the level of exercise I had on Myers Quad playing ultimate at UGA and not nearly as much as I would welcome, but it at least puts a dent in the calories packed on by the pains-aux-chocolats and the occasional mille-feuille.

Well, lessee...a piece of Parisian trivia is as good a note as any to end on, I suppose.

My last name in French, when pronounced "zhear-bear", means, really, nothing beyond my last name. It can also be a French "-ER" verb, however, pronounced "zhear-bay", which itself has two meanings. The first is an older definition related to gerbes, the French word for bundles of wheat, and means, well...to bundle wheat (surprise). The second, and much more current, definition, is vomir, which is a verb meaning, so far as I can understand, "to violently toss one's cookies", i.e., "to hurl".

On that lovely note, I close.

Joseph

*CORRECTION : The thin, balding man who "plays" the flute next to the CD player blasting classical music is not done any favors by the acoustics in the Parisian metro. While I was originally entirely convinced he was a fraud, I have since come to believe he is a fantastic flautist who would gain more from his talents by killing the CD and just playing solo. I even bought one of his CDs, and believe it to be him. I guess this just goes to show how little I actually remember of music and how careful one should be before jumping to conclusions.

First couple weeks of classes, first new friendships

Bonsoir!

It's around 20h00 (8:00 p.m) over here, which is why, properly speaking, I couldn't greet you all with a more typical "bonjour." :-P

Also, for all the grammarians who are cringing a little bit at my title's failure to capitalize every major word, please don't be upset at me : that's simply a convention of the French language.

And, as for the fact that I am writing this post three weeks after my last one, despite the promises to try to keep them bimonthly...the French's sense of style includes being fashionably late, and, yes, that, too, has rubbed off on me.

OK, OK, excuses I am trying to pawn off on cultural reasons aside, I am sorry for being so sporadic with the blogposts, and, I suppose, with the grammar, too. I'll try to be more frequent (current) and short (read-able) in what I write in the future!

Here are some events, impressions, etc, from these past weeks:

CLASSES...

...at Sciences Po have definitely picked up steam! I am finding myself pretty consistently challenged by the workload, in terms of sheer quantity. The never-ending challenge of not just working, but working efficiently to clear up space and time for other things is definitely good for a thrumming and busy daily rhythm. I am slowly but surely learning to digest political science journal articles more and more quickly, having to read them on the computer and take notes on what is important.

The material itself is not too difficult to understand, except when it is written in French; this is actually a minority of the time, however, even in the courses that I am taking that are taught in the French language, mainly because the field of international relations has been dominated by anglophone academics; about 30% of the total of the material I will be reading will be in French, so that helps keep homework manageable.

I am finding myself enjoying my courses, which usually cover either material that seems either very current and relevant or material that is conceptually complicated and theoretically interesting, if not always both. :-P

One course that I would say is both embedded in current affairs and is also conceptually interesting is called L'Arc des crises (Arc of Crisis) and covers the region from the Indo-Pakistani border to the Sahel (band of terrain right below the Sahara) in Africa. The course is basically an examination of current crises in this area from the theoretical framework of modern geopolitics, so I am learning a good deal of geography (which, sadly, most IR majors lack a decent grasp of) and current events (which, again, most IR majors know little about).

This last class was about Al Qaeda in Mali (AQMI) and what their basic strategy is constrained to, given the people and terrain of that region, for example. Sometime soon, I will be giving a presentation with a group of two other students on Somalian piraterie, something about which I have been wanting to learn more.

The other courses are all interesting as well. One is a French course, which is extremely helpful, one covers the transition from war to peace in Africa, another the theory and current institutional framework(s) of international law, and, the last one, the history of international relations, painted, of course, in broad strokes.

It is very interesting to see what comprises important history in international relations for a European professor in comparison to that which is important to an American one; their understanding of history seems to be much richer for the longer view of it that they are accustomed to holding. The class before last, for example, covered how the Anglo-Russo imperial competition, from before Great Britain's sea prominence of the 19th century to the Cold War of the middle 20th century, has had incredible impacts on the world today. Truthfully, though I had read of the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia in European history in high school, it wasn't mentioned in a single IR course at UGA, which were mostly focused on current international institutions and current American commitments abroad. Interesting to see how different perspectives can be, depending on the age, location, and size of a country.

So far as I can tell, the professor for that course, Dr. Pierre Grosser, eats books. He is so delightfully full of anecdotes and consequences of those anecdotes concerning various wars, political bargains, and imperial machinations that his lecture, though it is the fifth and sixth hour of my Friday, is downright enjoyable to attend. I will be doing a group project for that class as well, and, though I am sure that his standards will be high, and difficult, I am actually looking forward to writing the essay.

The two buildings where all but two of my classes take place are typically Parisian. The way the city is constructed, there are no gaps at all between buildings along the streets; each address runs right into the next. Sciences Po's two main buildings are on adjacent north-south streets, with a courtyard/garden with trees and small stone benches, running east-west between them (forming a sort of "backyard" for each building"). Though usually crowded with students milling around, sitting and talking on the lawn, or smoking on the edges of doorways, I can almost always find a place to sit and eat a sandwich. The buildings themselves are, of course, stone, with old marble staircases and cobblestone courtyards, and the rooms evoke the early 20th century, generally, with old wallpaper and even older ornately framed mirrors adorning the walls, and smaller (to be honest, relative to my size, frustratingly tiny) wooden chair-desk combinations for the students.

FRIENDS

I can spell the word with an an "s" here! God has been so incredibly good to provide me with some fantastic friendships here in Paris, even before the first month of Sciences Po has finished.

At Sciences Po, I have become familiar with most of the faces of my peers in smaller classes and gotten to know some of the students. A great many of them are international, which is always interesting, but I have also gotten to know some native French students.

One of them is my Sciences Po buddy, Lou, with whom I met for un café a couple of weeks ago. Though we have not met again since then, as we had planned, to discover the Louvre together, Lou has actually invited me to spend the autumn break with a group of friends at a house by a lake in the southern part of France, by Italy. They're not yet sure if they will be going, but if they do, I am told I am more than welcome to join!

At Eglise Evangelique 72 Sèvres (le 72), the local church I have been participating with here, I have gotten to know Mario, a missionary originally from Texas here in Paris, and Étienne, a student at Sciences Po and La Sorbonne from Alsace, pretty well. I usually meet up with them on a Wednesday or a Thursday for lunch and Bible study at a local campus. Right now we are working through the book of Timothy.

One of the highlights of this past week for me was this past Saturday afternoon and evening. Étienne and I went to Jardins de Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens) to eat dinner and play chess, then to the 12th arrondissement to watch the new Jason Bourne film. The film itself was so-so, but it was great to get a chance to destress with a friend over a game of chess.

Jardins de Luxembourg is an enormous public park and garden in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, not far from where Sciences Po is located, in the center of the city. Built centuries ago by the widow of Henri IV, Marie de Medici, it still has a little palace, its accompanying large fountain, and the French Senate's building located there. The garden itself is home to myriad gravel paths that twist around old, worn statues and older crooked trees, along with joggers, sunbathers (in the summer) and retirees reading books and smoking or playing Pétanque (Bocce ball) and laughing. In the northeast corner of the park, between the Senate building and an entrance, there are various tables set up where those old men not reading or playing pétanque or sunbathing gather to play chess with a quiet intensity interspersed only by the tic-tac of the game clock, or, near the end of the match, the chortling of the player who is making his opponent squirm.

The gardens are honestly one of my favorite places so far in Paris, and I hope to be intentional to spend more time there, playing chess, reading, or just enjoying creation in that haven surrounded by the bustle and noise of Paris.

In addition to Mario and Étienne, others at le 72 have been incredibly friendly and kindhearted. I have gotten to eat with these folks after church Sunday nights, gone on walks/tours/balades (a very Parisian thing to do) through the city with them, learning about the history as I went, and just generally feel very much welcomed by their words and deeds.

One funny example that I feel obliged to share, if only by my promise to share with you my embarrassing moments along the way, is a man at church I have gotten to know over the past month, who corrected me recently on the cultural understanding of la bise, which, for those of you happily uninitiated, is the "kiss" on either side of the face that the French do in greeting. Not all of the French, however, greet in this way, as I found out when, after I gave la bise in greeting, he told me that it was really something done between women who are friends, or between men and women who are friends, or, if between men, men who had basically been through the trenches of war together. I, of course, was as childishly embarrassed by my error as I was by the idea in general and by my failure to properly understand it the weeks previous. He assured me, though, that he wasn't offended, but, in the typical French fashion, wanted to correct me for my benefit in the future. I will be sure to keep the rules of la bise in mind in the future!

Well, on that sufficiently long ending note, I think I will call it a post! I hope all you who read this are well, and thanks to all of you for keeping in touch and for all of your prayers - they each and both are highly appreciated!

Bonne nuit!

Joseph

Logement, la semaine d'accueil et le premier jour des cours à Sciences Po

(Lodging, Welcome Week and the first day of classes at Sciences Po)

Bonjour à tous!

Wow! It's kind of embarrassing how long it has been since my last (and first) blog post. If this rate of posting degenerates further, there will likely only be a half-dozen more before I am back stateside, in which case I'll end up having to explain Paris to y'all again through extended conversations and pictures (something I am planning on doing anyways, fortunately :-] ).


LODGING

Quite a lot has happened since my last post.

I am now no longer living in a hotel, for one thing. I moved into my apartment two weeks ago (that long ago already? time flies here!), so am very well-adjusted to my domestic surroundings. The apartment is more than enough space for a 20-year-old university guy, but not so much that I feel agorophobic; a "two piece" apartment, it contains a bedroom and a sitting room (the two pieces) and a kitchen and a bathroom., each very well equipped.

The apartment's decor ery much something one would expect to find in the proches-banlieus (close suburbs) of Paris, with pastel wallpaper and typically European furnishings - a folding table for dinner for one or for two, smaller wooden chairs, a large wooden "buffet" in the sitting room, and pictures and paintings of the old country all over the walls.

In terms of location, it is located just next to the train line, a short walk from the station, which is great for the morning and evening commutes to and from school, and which also means it is a short walk from those businesses that usually spring up around train stations. It is a couple of minutes walk from a student-priced grocery store, a boulangerie (baker's - the boulangerie is an icon of French daily life, and I can see why now, after having eaten several fresh baguettes since my arrival), a post office, a pharmacie, et cetera.

I have, then, in the course of the past couple of weeks:

     - done laundry (dried in the French manner, on racks in the middle of the sitting room, of course),

     - equipped the fridge in the kitchen with all the necessities (bread? check. lunch meat? check...handy
      dandy, signature pea-green plastic sandwich box? check...) and some of the luxuries (e.g., two
      1-kilogram glass jars of Nutella) of a college student,

     - gotten a haircut (though I know I am advised to be as Roman as a Roman when in Rome, I really could
      care less about fashion even in the city best known for it: I essentially paid 14,50 euro for a rather
       incredulous French hairdresser to give me a buzzcut),

     - and, using the gas range in the kitchen, safely made spaghetti (a veritable culinary feat, for me).

WELCOME WEEK

Sciences Po's Welcome Program for international students took place the week of Friday the 24 August to Friday the 31 August.

That first Friday was a welcome session held in Emile Boutmy (the founder of the institution that became Sciences Po) Amphitheater. It, and, as it turned out, the rest of the week, quickly became a speed-writing session as I frantically took notes on all that was unfamiliar to me.

The French, in my experience thus far and from what I have gleaned from others in conversation, are generally much more strict about form than most other cultures, but most especially more strict about form than Americans. It comes out in the way they dress, the way they eat, the way they furnish their buildings, etc - on one level, it seems to be quite the virtue, but, when taken one level too far, seems insane. Think of the Germans and time, for example.

On the level of methodology at a rather-established Parisian university, then, the French are seemingly obsessed with form. Take the structure of a dissertation (a 4 hour long written exam conducted in some undergraduate courses) or an exposé (an oral presentation lasting exactly 10 minutes, no more, no less)...a plan with two parts must have two subparts per part, each subpart having, naturally, two points, whereas a plan with three parts must have three subparts per part, each subpart having, of course, three points. To write or speak otherwise would create an unbalanced, ugly monstrosity of a work.

I am, perhaps, ridiculing this cultural tendency too harshly, however, for I will admit that I appreciated the challenge of not only trying to express ideas clearly, but, even, elegantly, in French, during the course of the practice exposés and debates of the methodology course. The content of that methodology course and of other various seminars was immensely helpful and well worth the additional fee of the welcome program.

As it turns out, in fact, I have less than a week from today to be fully prepared for my first French presentation for an actual grade - next Monday morning for my class on the transition from war to peace in Africa, I am supposed to have something prepared on the African Union. I hope, however, that the methodology course from last week will help what will probably be a dubious first grade.

Grades, by the way, are likely to be lower than I am used to : in the methodology instructors' loosely-quoted words, "by tradition, the French grade out of 20, where 20 is reserved for God, 19 is reserved for the professor, nobody ever gets 18, and 17 is for the model student...in fact, 13 is a very honest grade." Something else I won't be used to is the system of grading on a strict curve - highest 10% get an A, following 25% B, following 30% (the plurality of the students in a  course) C, etc...all good motivations to work hard, I suppose, but really brutal on the ego.

FIRST DAY OF CLASS

Was today!

Thankfully I only had two classes today (Monday) - one (the transition from war to peace in Africa) in French and the other (Public International Law) in English.

Each class session at Sciences Po is two hours long, which is part of the reason why I am so grateful to have started the week off on a slower pace.

The pace, in general, should be quite amenable, given the commute into universersity; I don't have any classes on Wednesday or Thursday, which should provide me with some solid time to work on homework at my apartment without having to take the train into the city (not that walking around in Paris is ever a bad thing at all). My week ends, however with eight hours of class on Friday, and, with just three fifteen minute breaks, those hours will likely see me cave to a French obsession even more powerful than form: coffee.


In any case, classes so far are interesting, and not too daunting, except for the length and, to an extent, the language. I am signed up to take about 3/8 of my credit hours in English and the other 5/8 in French, and that is the part that is proving the most difficult. For those of you know my academic habits, I learn by writing. Writing notes in French takes up just enough mental concentration, however, to distract me from the lecture in French to the point where I will be unable to understand him/her. I hope, however, that after a few weeks of classes, I will be up to speed and able to understand all that is being said while taking notes.


It seems I have again written too much for this blog post and made it cumbersome to read in one sitting, so I will cut it to an end here. In any case, I need to stop now to plan out transportation to gym class tomorrow (who knew the French had imported Ultimate Frisbee?)

Joseph

Bienvenue chez mon blog!

Bonjour!

Y’all probably knew I couldn’t resist the Parisian greeting, eh? Or, for that matter, the (failed?) attempt to blend some good ol’ Suth’n drawl and Canadian vernacular. And though it seems like I have been resisting starting this blog and keeping you all informed, I actually have so much that I am eager to tell you: I will try to constrain my usually verbose and extroverted nature, however, to a first blog post of reasonable length, hitting the basic facts and highlights.

This blog will (hopefully) be a weekly to biweekly update while abroad as an exchange student at a Parisian university during this academic year (August to June). I hope to fill it with updates, encouragements, requests, and highlights from my studies (French-and-English-taught international relations courses at Sciences Po, towards an undergraduate degree in that field at the University of Georgia), new acquaintances (of which there are a few) and friendships (which are rapidly forming), cultural activities (soccer – oh, pardon! le football – is high on my to-do list, and that should provide readership some amusement) and gaffes (more laughs, hopefully), cuisine, et cetera for my family, friends, and other interested persons.

I arrived in Paris on Saturday, 4 August 2012, after a brief layover at Heathrow the night before. The traveling, though tiring, was on the whole remarkably pleasant for plane travel, which owes mostly to the sympathetic and generous stewardesses (a double breakfast and free dessert!).

I got there so early (classes at Sciences Po start in September) in order to take Alliance Français (AF) classes – classroom instruction on the French language bought per the week, essentially -- to give me some momentum for the courses taught in French at Sciences Po.

Anyways, after arriving I took the train from Orly airport, located a bit south of metro Paris, to Arceuil (“ahr–coy”), a district that is in les proches-banlieus de sud (“the close (southern) suburbs”) of the city and is a 10 minute metro ride south from the center of Paris. I might say a word more on this later, but the metro system here is efficient and, because my written French is faring pretty well, fairly easy to use, taking you anywhere from central Paris in under an hour.

Thanks to the generosity of my sister and the perks associated with her employer, I am, at a veritable college student’s price, living in the lap of luxury in a Marriott hotel in Arceuil. I booked the hotel for two weeks because of that advantageous price scheme and my general discomfort with the idea of finding permanent lodging in any other way but being on the ground, in Paris, able to explore, discover, inspect the options, etc...

As it turns out, it’s at an incredibly convenient location, just a five minute walk west from metro line B, which, as one of five metro lines (A-E, I believe) that connect to smaller metro lines (1-14, I think), runs north-south throughout the center of the city. In addition to the metro stop being nearby, the hotel is actually just across the street from la Vache Noire (“the black cow”) shopping center, which has a grocery store (which is the only type of Parisian establishment to house cheap food, but is that food ever delicious!). It is also right next door to a movie theater, where I have been able to practice my French by watching dubbed versions of Batman, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Abraham-Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (the latter two of which I highly recommend, in all seriousness, and the lattermost of which is apparently a ubiquitous success in Europe).

My first full day in Paris was incredibly exciting and helpful. I woke up Sunday morning (05 August) and, doing a little bit of Google research from names dropped during a series of e-mail exchanges with individuals recommended to me by various friends and family, was able to find a French church I figured I would try attending in metro Paris. As it turns out, that decision has been the most important I have made since coming to Paris, and quite providential.

That first Sunday morning at “le 72” (from its address), after a really refreshing service, I inquired after someone mentioned in that e-mail, and, though I could not find that particular person, I was, by various conversations, quickly was direct to a Mr. and Mrs. Jean-Pierre and Sabine Ja--b--c. As it turns out, that elderly Parisian couple has a fairly spacious apartment in Malakoff (another proche-banlieu just a short ways west of Arceuil) that they let out at well below market price (typically quite high in Paris) as a ministry to students who come to Paris. A girl who was considering it turned it down not too long ago, and the German student who had been living there this summer is to leave August 19.

It really turned out to be an incredible timing, incredible location (twelve minutes by walk + train from Sciences Po) and incredible pricing (at least 200 euros less per month than I anticipated paying) for an apartment, and quite the answer to some prolonged prayer this summer.

Le 72 has also provided some kind acquaintances from conversation before and after the service and from a picnic held just this past Sunday night - a lot of natively French persons and a lot of expatriates from a long list of countries, some francophone, some not. Those folks, along with my classmates at Alliance Français (AF), are proving to be some good starting friends/practice in French conversation and cultural practices.

The rest of my first week in Paris was really uneventful, but really, in retrospect, necessary to acclimate to being in a foreign city on my own. I recovered from sleeplessness and a mild bout of sickness, worked to take care of logistical difficulties (e.g., banking) in France, and did a few touristy things (a very interesting visit to Hôtel des Invalides and Napoleon’s tomb there, followed by a piping hot, incredibly buttery croissant while walking to la Tour Eiffel being the highlight of those touristy things thus far).

AF classes started today, and they were quite excellent. They are housed in a very tall, fairly thin building (typical for Paris) on a pretty and quiet road just to the west of Luxembourg Gardens. The building is fairly old; to get to class I can either take an elevator the size of a telephone booth (no exaggeration) or climb five flights of marble stairs, which are worn down at an angle toward the side bannisters from hundreds of thousands of AF students who climbed the steps over the past century and from those who had climbed the steps before them.

The professor for my class – Laur, is her name – is animated, engages the class, and corrects my mistakes – a cultural tendency politely practiced by most of the French I have met thus far, actually, which I very much appreciate.  My classmates will change week to week, but are very much an international group - Japan, China, Italy, Britain, Vietnam, and Brazil were all represented today by a class of 10 students - la langue française really is the lingua franca for that room. Though four hours of class a day might grow to be long or tiring, I really did enjoy the instruction, and I anticipate her teaching and conversation with the other students will help my French grow quite a bit.

I look up from this post that I have been writing and see that I have failed in my attempt at brevity, but I hope that I at least fulfilled my intentions to cover the basics of what I am doing here, in Paris, and the highlights of my first full week.

Thank you so much for reading this blog and other e-mails, writing (e-mailing) to me, praying for me, and encouraging me during these first days. Thank you, each and all, as well, for your various ways of preparing me for this next year – they are truly too many and too large to enumerate here. I really do appreciate it, friends!

Enfin…au revoir!

Joseph (pronounced “Zhjozeff” over here, of course)