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
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