the "first" day of school

I pretty much don't get any credit at ucla for the classes I’m taking while in paris. I already took farsi for two years  so I have more than enough language credit. And I've taken all my lower div classes so I'm basically doing this whole study abroad thing for the experience. The only thing I can potentially attempt to get credit for is contemporary art so I wanted to make sure that I was enrolled in that class no matter what.

Of course when I got my schedule last week at orientation the first thing I noticed was the fact that I wasn’t enrolled in the one class I needed! I tried to remain calm and politely asked/demanded to decrease my french class hours (who am I kidding, I’m not going to learn french in three months) so that I would have time to take the art class. The woman program director (who happens to be gabriel’s wife, remember he’s the guy who cracks me up for no reason?) said that I would have to wait until after the oral placement exam to make sure I’m in the right level.

After the exam, I reminded her again that I needed the art class instead of the extra french class and she said that she would try her best. The next day I happened to be in her office and figured I would ask her for my new schedule only to find out that she had forgotten to change it for me! She said she would give it to me the next day, friday, the day we went to versailles.

On the way to versailles I see this other lady who works for our program handing people their new schedules. Surprise surprise, she didn’t have mine. I asked her to have the office email me my schedule so that I would know where to go on monday. She said that she would, but didn’t. Come monday, I was schedule-less. Having no idea what to I figured I would just follow my old schedule assuming that not much had changed.  I’m done assuming things while in france.

So I get to class and sit through the introduction waiting for the teacher to take role. Apparently learning about our horoscopes in french can’t wait a minute so she decided to skip role and jump straight to our first activity. Luckily I started to doubt what I was doing there so I went and asked her to see if my name was on her list, it wasn’t. She made me wait an hour, until after our horoscope activity, before I could go to the administrative office.

By the time I was finally allowed to leave I go to the office only to find another 20 international students sitting there just waiting. Even though there was only an hour of class left by the time the secretary printed out my new schedule I figured I should still go so that I don’t get marked absent. I asked her where my class was so she looked at my schedule, told me the room number and then paused. Turns out I don’t have class on mondays.

Of course I had told cell phone-less dorene that I would wait until she got out of class at one so that we could go home together. I figured I would try to be productive during the three hour wait and catch up on some blog entries. I found a sign for a library and just headed in assuming I was allowed into the university’s library, being a student at the school and all. Again, never assume while in france. I got the worst stares from the two librarians there, one who was beyond cross eyed so his stare really freaked me out. They didn’t speak any English but I was basically told that I was not allowed into that particular library.  By then I had decided to give up and found a spot on the bench in my school’s cute little courtyard and started writing about my trip to versailles. I guess waking up early for no class was worth it in a way, not.

After wandering around school for a bit, me and dorene decided it was time to do something we couldn't do in los angeles. I was going through a healthy period that day so I asked dorene if we could go running around the park below the eiffel tower. Apparently it is the most anti-bizarre parisian exercise and it was still really nice out so  I thought I would make the most of it. Since we were running low on metro passes we decided to figure out how to walk to the eiffel tower from our apartment. 

While I was tying my shoelaces dorene decided that she wasn't going to run with me because she was tired. She also decided that having a bowl of ice cream before our little adventure would wake her up a bit. I then decided to document the fact that she was wearing exercise clothes while eating ice cream. She then decided to take awkward pictures of me attempting to stretch.

After our 25 minute walk to the park I was already a little tired, but not tired enough to not enjoy the beauty that is the eiffel tower. I don't know why me and dorene are obsessed with the eiffel tower. I think its because it makes us realize that we're actually in paris. Once we got over the fact that the eiffel tower was in front of us, dorene found a bench to scrapbook on while I went for a run. 

I ran around the park twice, with a five minute break in between. And by run I mean a slow jog but still I didn't stop! At first I found a runner and just followed him to figure out what the exact running path was, but by the second time around I was a pro. The top part of the path is the sidewalk right across from the tower, where all the tour buses and tourists are. I had to weave in and out of tourists! How parisian and cool am I?! 

It was so much fun. I can't believe I just used the word fun to describe a run but I mean seriously it was perfect. I hope the weather stays the same so that I can go again next week. Maybe next time dorene will actually join me, maybe.