What we have learned...

So, after two and almost a half weeks here in Montpellier, I have learned some things.  They are, in no particular order:

1) L'Université Paul Valéry is quite possibly, no scratch that, is the most disorganized organization that I have had the dubious and/or mixed pleasure of dealing with.  And I am being dead serious about this.  I found out why I couldn't sign up for classes before I left the States.  Turns out, nothing is concrete until classes start, if then.  And that's only the beginning...

2)Whoever told me it doesn't really snow in the Midi (or at least not in the Montpellier area)?  Yeah, totally lied.  It's snowed at least twice by now.  Twice.  Granted, it didn't stick, but still.  Twice.  Plus, it's more than a little chilly.  It's out and out cold.  Like Oxford gets cold in January, actually.

3)I take psychotically good notes in most of my classes that really require them.  I have been trained to do this.  It's all a matter of writing down a summary of everything that the teacher says. Yeah, my notes here in France?  They're considered lousy, because they don't have absolutely everything the teacher says.  Hopefully, this doesn't mean I'll be toast for the exams....

4)As always, public transport is a lovely, lovely thing.  Living close to bus stops is also a plus.

5)Heating isn't as good here as it is in America.  I believe this is because France is more concerned about energy conservation than we are, but I can't be sure.

6)When one is hiking in the Garrigue in the middle of winter, it is a good plan to keep moving.  Because your toes will start to lose feeling after a little while if you don't.  Also, when someone tells you to 'dress warmly' for the hike, they don't mean 'coat and sweater'.  They mean 'coat, sweater, sweatshirt, gloves, thick knit cap, thicker socks, oh, and if you can manage to wear two sets of pants at once?  I'd recommend it now'.  Trust me, I know.

7)I am not a mountain goat.  I am a human of meager athletic skill.  The scampering over rocks portion of the aforementioned hike?  Yeah, going to be tricky.

8)The French apparently don't like wasting money on two lanes of road in the mountains.  One lane can function for both directions!  Guard rails are also a waste of money.

9)Walking is good for you.  Expect lots of it here.

10)Chinese sellers go for good quality, no mark, good price.

11)When in doubt, take the cell phone with a flash light built in.  You'll thank me later.  Also, don't buy prepaid minutes.  There's a better way.

12)Everyone above the age of 16 smokes, with few exceptions.  Deal with it.

13)In America, if you're getting a group of college students together for social drinking, most of them will be drinking beer.  Here?  Just go buy a bottle or two of decent wine.  It's not like it's expensive, or anything.  And no, that actually wasn't sarcastic.  Good but nothing really special wine can be had for about five euro a bottle here.  And it's what students drink.


Other than these eleven things, I present to you  la Garrigue ( for which my host sister kindly corrected my spelling in the last post)

More specifically, I present to you La Garrigue outside of Montpeyroux, a little village maybe... forty minutes from Montpellier, where I and three other Occitan students spent a good portion of the day hiking with a local Occitan Language Club.  It was.... kind of frustrating, because so much of it was in Occitan, and I was freezing, but it was fun, too.  Afterwards, we went and hung out at the house of one of the students, a guy named Remy, as he lives in Gignac, which isn't too far from there, during the weekends.  It was nice to get to know people a little better, and I did get to try a couple interesting fruity things, one called Cogne (I think.  I'm pretty sure that's how they said it was spelled), and Kaki (no idea on the spelling there.  Please, please don't hold me to it.)  I prefer the former, honestly, but both were good.

Other than that, life moves on more or less as expected.  I've become a fan of the tv show Once Upon a Time, courtesy of my host family's affection for it.  I have yet to see something like the first half of the first season, though, except for completely random episodes, much like I have yet to hear the actual American actors say their lines instead of the dub.  My host family, by the by, remains great.  I feel very much at home here, and everyone's been extremely nice and helpful.

And.... that's about it, really.  I'll let you know what happens when something happens.

And So It Begins....

So, you know that slightly annoying professor that forgets to email his class to let them know that he has to cancel?  The one that unintentionally makes everyone show up for class, and hang out in or in front of the classroom for fifteen to twenty minutes, until it is deemed polite to just leave?  Yeah.  Just had that professor.  He has a class full of American students, because this is one of the courses for English speaking exchange students, most of us here for our first or second day of classes, and he doesn't show.  We are irritated, me especially, as I pretty much ran through morning routine to get there on time (my alarm decided it didn't like me this morning).  Sigh.  Oh well.  Such is life.

At any rate, I got to Montpellier at around 14:00 last Wednesday, along with 34 other students in the Minnesota program.  From the airport, the program sent us to Hotel Ibis, a what I'm pretty sure is Hampton Inn quality hotel just off La Place de la Comedie, the center of Montpellier.  After a little bit of exploring, most of us found food and crashed in our hotel rooms.  Thursday was a whirlwind of academic information, starting with a placement exam, and ending with a basic run through of the program's rules and expectations.

Friday meant more academic talks, these focused on explaining the mysterious workings of the French university system (which can be a little.... insane at times), and several hours spent pouring over course catalogs so that we could find the courses we wanted.  For me, this was pretty simple; even before I realized that I was going to be taking fewer hours so that I could do research, I was going to be able to take.... pretty much whatever course I wanted, and I'd probably be able to get Ole Miss to count it towards my French major, or maybe somewhere else.  It wasn't like I had to meet super specific requirements.  I've already finished all of those that I could actually meet here.  Some of the students from Penn State (scratch that, actually, all of the students from Penn State, and there are plenty of them here with the Minnesota program) were pouring over the course catalogs and going through intense debates over whether various courses would meet super strict requirements over there.  I love having a more lax school!  At any rate, I wound up taking fewer hours so that I could have more time to do my research, and now I'm taking the required Français comme Langue Etranger (French as a Foreign Language, i.e. French as a Second Languae), an optional requirement of French Academic Writing, and Civilization du Sud (Civilization of the South) for my classes with English speakers, then Occitan pour les Non-Specialistes (Occitan for Beginners), Civilization de Occitanie (Occitan Civ), and Linguistique Medievale (Medieval Linguistics) for my integrated courses.  Should be interesting.

So far, I've been to Linguistique Medievale, both my Cours Magistrale (Lecture) and my Travaux Dirigé (Discussion) sections.  That.... pretty much makes up my Mondays, actually.  Wake up, go to CM, spend an hour and a half taking psychotically good notes, leave, go get lunch/hang out at the Minnesota student office, come back, go to TD, spend an hour and a half taking psychotically good notes, leave, then either take the tram back, or go hang out a bit and catch the one that will let me get the later bus.  The class was.... well, it was tricky, because I got everything, but it was kind of hard to get everything into notation, because the professors talk really, really fast.  One of the other Minnesota students, a girl named Emily (Li for short) is in the class with me, and as I get along with her really well, I think we'll end up pooling our resources to get better notes.  So, other than the fact that the CM was in a room that I swear was hidden, and trying to write like the wind on notebook paper with waaaaay too many lines in a language other than English, the CM went fairly well.  The TD was harder, more because I'm now terrified of translating Old French, but then, as my area of interest in terms of French Literature is the Middle Ages, it was going to happen eventually.
The fun part for yesterday's classes really consisted of trying to get the photocopy exercise packet that we needed for the TD.  We went to the copy shop that Mme. Nicolas had directed us to, and asked for the packet.  They didn't have it.  Now, we needed the packet to do half of our homework assignment.  Granted, it isn't due until next Monday, but still.  It's nice to get these things out of the way, and it looked like it was going to be pretty much required.  So, I went back this afternoon after my Civilization du Sud class got canceled.  Fortunately, they had it this time, for the fairly cheap price of 3€.  Such a relief.  I'll probably get at least half of my homework done tonight.  The translation portion.... may get put off for a while.  Can we say 'procrastination of unpleasant things'?

I have my Beginning Occitan course later this... well, the class starts at 17:45, so maybe 'afternoon' isn't quite the right term.  All the same, it's going to last about an hour and a half, and should be at the very least interesting.  I'll let you know when I know.

On to the non-school related stuff.
I met the Dequéker family Thursday evening, and personally, I think that I lucked out.  They're incredibly nice, and happy to have me there.  I think it helps that I have enough English that I can actually talk to them, and that I seem to fit into the family fairly well.  Everyone's been really helpful, and I think that I'm going to get along with them just fine.

Grabels, the suburb where I live, is a bit out in the boondocks, like Lamar or our subdivision in Springfield.  However, unlike my homes in America, it's pretty easy to get to Montpellier.  There's a bus stop about five minutes away from the house, and the bus comes by roughly once every 45 minutes to an hourm, which can be a bit of a problem if you miss your bus, but as the tram stop is only a mile or so away, walking isn't out of the question, either.  I walked there this morning, and my biggest worry was wondering if my non-existant sense of direction was going to strike again, leading me in endless circles and forcing me to miss my class.  It didn't, fortunately.  I managed to find it by following the very convenient bike path.  Sure, it was a twenty minute walk, but since I was planning on taking the 11:48 bus for a 13:15 class, I had time.  The walk was very pleasant, leading to the other very nifty thing about Grabels:  it's right next to La Garringue (please don't hold me to that spelling).  For those of you not in the know, La Garringue is an area where there are absolutely no buildings, no construction, nada.  It's like a little piece of the countryside right outside the city.  It kind of reminds me of a mini, kind of hilly Lamar, actually.  It's very pleasant, all the same, and it makes the walk to the tram station much more pleasant.

That's about it for the moment.  If things change, I'll let you know.