The Long Day Is Over

Today was our first day of class. We arrived barely on time because of direction issues. The metro is so busy in the morning! There are 15 people in our class so it’s a nice size for special attention. I’m really hoping I’ll improve a lot. So from 11-12:30 we went over class structure and received the final schedule of classes. Us USC IMBA kids got a messenger bag with a notebook, pen, arrondissement book/map and another guidebook of Ile-de-France (Paris and its surrounding suburbs). It was fun getting new toys! At one we had a nice lunch provided for us in a private lunchroom. There is a culinary program at the school so we ate specially prepared food served by a student. We were served champagne, a salad, ray (as in sting ray :-/), and a chocolate mousse citrus-y dessert. It was fantastic! Probably the best meal I will have while I’m here. So immediately after this filling meal, we have to take the TEF (test d’evaluation de français). We’re all in food comas and have to take a 2 + hour test. It’s the equivalent of the TOEFL but I think we took a shortened version. We’ll get our results Friday. It started out easy but got hard fast. We’ll see how I did. The first section was reading comprehension, the second oral comprehension, and the third grammar. We have to take the test again our last day of class to note improvement so hopefully it won’t be as hard the next go-round.

So after finishing this test from hell, I quickly checked my email and then went to meet with Peter (my wonderful American landlord). He cleaned up the ‘apartment’ some and got his stuff out. He’s going to go buy me a mattress and pots and pans. I’m going to start moving stuff in on Sunday but I don’t have to be out of the current residence until January 27th so I have plenty of time to move all of my crap. We went to a nearby café to go over lease papers and I gave him 1040 euros (2 months rent) for a security deposit. Yes, I said over a thousand euros. Do you know how much that is in dollars!?!? :’( Anyway, my rent will start on January 15th and last through August 15th so this works perfectly.

So I didn’t get home until 8:30ish. We have an early morning on Thursday. Class starts at 9 which means we have to leave by 8. So it looks like I’m getting up by 7. I thought I wouldn’t have to do that again this semester but oh well. I guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead or instead of doing anything during our vacation weeks, I’ll just hole up in my studio.