Aix and Beyond: In the French university system classes only meet once a semester

The first week of class began at the IEP and my semester in France is officially up and running. Somehow I lucked out and I don't have any courses on Mondays - meaning every weekend is a three-dayer which is exciting. That allows me to have a bit more freedom when planning and taking trips to the surrounding area or abroad. Tuesday was supposed to kick off the semester with my class on contemporary middle eastern politics, which I was looking forward to - after a week of meandering around the city or lounging around the dorms I was ready to get into the meat of things and meet some kids and see if French university would be the death of me or not. Unfortunately, our professor wanted to extend his winter holiday for a couple more days and never made an appearance. I was more than a little stressed trying to figure out when and where the course was since the university infrastructure in France reminds me of Afghanistan: bombed out and depleted (to quote a one Silky Johnson). You have to have a student card to log onto the Intranet - which supplies updates about courses - but, of course, I don't have one yet since I just registered, and beyond that the French students in my classes with access to this information were left confused as well. So when I finally arrived (about 30 minutes early), I took a deep breath and relaxed. However, the course was supposed to begin at 4 p.m., and unbeknownst to me French students are not interested in arriving early and not a single student showed up until exactly 4 o'clock - meaning I was left sweating bullets thinking after all my planning and forethought, I was inevitably in the wrong place. Once the other students did arrive we stood in the hallway and chatted for about 20 minutes at which point the french kids said that we'd hit the magic number for no-show teachers and we could all leave. Thus, the day ended before it had really begun.

Tuesday signaled my first day in France where I actually had class - unfortunately I was supposed to have two, but once again a professor was MIA. My first course of the day started at 10 o'clock. I walked into the door of my contemporary Russian geopolitics course to be greeted by a professor who wholly looked the part - turtleneck shirt, tweed blazer, close-cut salt-and-pepper beard. He asked how many of us were international students and when everyone single person raised their hand he laughed and said "Welcome." He was energetic and genuinely interested in the topic. I was unsure before the class started whether or not I would be able to understand his lecture, but after the 2-hour class I would say I understood and could re-articulate about 85-90% of what he said which made me feel much better about the semester.

The professor also had a great sense of humor and told us a little anecdote about France: After God finished creating the world he decided to admire his work. Glancing over the globe he realized that France seemed to be at the center of it all - it had mountains protecting it to the East, access to the strategically important Mediterranean sea to the south, a coastline leading to the North Sea at its top and, to the West, a massive border with the Atlantic Ocean. All of this suggested to God that the French state had an unfair geographic advantage over all of the other European nations. In his head He could see the balance of power tipping in favour of the French - an unjust outcome in the mind of a benevolent God. So, to counteract this incidental imbalance the Lord did the only thing he could - he created the French people.

Needless to say, this went over quite well with the foreign students.

After class I grabbed lunch with a friend of mine name Frances before meeting up with some other students to relax for a bit. The weather was fantastic today - warm and sunny with no wind. The winter sales started today, as well, so down town was buzzing with people. Once everyone had finished eating I took off and wandered the city a bit - half looking for some leather boots (sneakers seem a bit out of place here) and half looking to explore someplace new. After cruising around for about an hour I headed home to decompress before my next class - which was supposed to start at 6 p.m., but once again the teacher never came around so I got to go home early.

At 8 two of my new friends - Manon and Angela (the former a student from Vienna, the latter from Louisiana) - came over to my batiment (residence hall) we made some dinner. Nothing fancy, just some sauteed chicken with pasta with pesto and a salad with apples, brie and olive oil. We talked for a bit and then they took off for the night leaving me some time to relax, write this entry and hit the sack.

Tomorrow I only have one class, an economics course, which is stressful only because there might be some math involved - if I'm lucky the professor will show up, if not it'll be another easy day of drifting from cafe to cafe for coffee and enjoying the sights.