Le premier jour de classe

One day of classes down, many more to go. Day started off on a bad note. Nothing particularly bad happened but every day that I wake up before 9 is a day that starts off on a bad note. Got up around 6:20 because I figured I would have to reset my hot water heater in order to take a hot shower and heating the water usually takes about 20 minutes. The trip to campus also takes about 30-35 minutes since it was prme rush hour. However, I turned on the hot water right away. I figured since I was up so early, the water just didn't have a chance to cool down from the last time I pushed the button the previous night. Took a shower, made a pbj and I was on my way out the door for my first day of classes in a foreign country.

I had class from 8am straight through to 2pm. That is 4 classes, one and a half hour each, back to back to back to back with about a minute break between them. Good thing they are all on the same floor of the building. After those 6 solid hours of class, I had a much needed hour and a half break only to have another hour and a half class which ended at 5pm. I was the only American in 3 out of the 5 classes today which is a unique experience I will say.

The whole situation was not very good since I felt like I was in high school again. Right when the class is supposed to start, the professor closes the door and nobody after that may enter. If you are early, you are on time. If you are on time, you are late. And if you are late, don't bother coming. If you are a minute late, you miss class that day. There is no going to the bathroom during the classes. There is no leaving the room whatsoever. One of the advisers said that they must structure the school like this because if they didn't, then the French kids would take advantage of the situation and show up when they wanted to. As a result, the American students get punished. One and half hours of imprisonment with forced education.

I understand the bit about the French kids being a bit juvenile. Every time the professor took a breath, the kids would turn around and start talking to eachother. I thought that the days of teachers telling the class to quiet down would have ended somewhere in the high school years. I was sadly mistaken. I don't know if the kids were just overly happy since it was the first day of classes or if they are just that rude and middle schoolish. All I know is that they will have a rude awakening when they go to American universities to study.

The classes are on the small side so that is good. All of the classes are in English which is even better. BUT now I am that strange foreign kid. Most of the classes the professor goes around the room and calls out the attendance sheet, and as soon as you say here, you are automatically an American. That is if they couldn't tell you weren't French already by the way you dress, the fact that you don't smoke, or the fact that the guys aren't wearing girls pants, have Italian leather shoes or a matching briefcase bag.

My international marketing teacher is a Irish-French woman who has normal English with a little Irish twist. My American history teacher (ironic class I know) is a German man who is staunchly pro-American which is to my benefit. My computer science teacher is some flavor of South-Eastern European with good English. My French teacher is French which is good since there is no English in the class. And last but not least, my international business law teacher is AMERICAN. He is pretty much set for life I'm guessing since he has offices in Lyon, London, and New York. His French s is decent but he has no accent which is comforting to hear. All in all the English from the professors is good.

Didn't get to meet most of the French students but a couple that I did talk to were very nice. Some others were still stuck on the whole fact that I was from America and I'm sure they had their own opinions. All in all, the day went well. Very long, some of the classrooms were extremely hot (which caused some body odor problems but that is another issue), and I was pretty close to starvation but I managed to get through the first day. The good news about the whole situation is that since I had 5 out of my 11 classes today, my week is pretty much half done. Stay tuned for my complaning about more of the "French way"