settling in to my new schedule

Well, I made it through the first week of classes! Granted, two of my classes don't start til next week (and neither do my two dance classes) and one got cancelled this week, but still...
School here is definitely going to be a new and different experience. Classes only meet once a week for 1.5-3 hours depending on the class, and there aren't really assignments so much as the profs give us a bibliography for the class and it's up to us to read the books and whatnot. There are probably 20 books on some of the class lists. AH! I'm really going to have to make friends with the library...
Let's see...the classes I'm taking are:
Droit constitutionnel (constitutional law...that's the one that got cancelled),
Socialisme et social-democratie en Europe XXè siècle (Socialism and social-democracy in Europe in the 20th century),
Sociétés, Cultures, Politique: les clés de vivre ensemble (Societies, cultures, and politics: the keys to living together),
Institutions et vie politique comparées (Comparative institutions and political life...this one doesn't start til next week),
Introduction à l'evaluation des politiques publiques (Intro to to public policy evaluation...haven't gone to this one yet cuz I went to a different clas that was incredibly boring, so I'm taking this one instead :-P),
Portuguais: pratique de la langue (Portuguese! Yay!),
Capoeira, and hopefully Jazz if there's room...

And there you have it. My week in a nutshell.

It's kind of...I don't want to say disappointing, but I can't think of a different way to put it...there are a lot of other exchange students in my classes, particularly other American students. It's easy to pair off with them and talk to them, because I kind of know them from the stage. But we always end up speaking English. Oh well, they aren't from U of O, so at least I'm making friends :-P I'm really excited about my Portuguese class, though, because I'm the only anglophone in the class and it's a good class to meet people because we break off into pairs and whatnot. And hopefully my dance classes will be a good way to meet people too. :-)

Really this week was pretty unexciting. I feel like I've been really antisocial. I've hardly seen any of the other UO students and I pretty much hang out in the apt reading, go to class, and do other errand-y things (like stand in line for two hours to sign up for capoeira...ugh). And then in the evenings after dinner, Florence and I talk about whatever, and then I go to bed. I definitely need to be more exciting. I'm kind of jealous becuase a bunch of the other UOers didn't have classes this week, so they all went travelling. And here I was being boring and going to school. I mean really...who does that? I guess I'm lucky, though, because I finish before noon on Fridays and Mondays all I have is capoeira late in the afternoon, so if I want to travel I sort of have longer weekends all the time. Yay!

Anyhoo, that's enough for now. This afternoon, we are going to this concert-type thing...I think there are going to be readings from and/or about Paul Claudel interwoven with music. I'm not entirely sure, but everyone's on this Paul Claudel kick lately becuase I guess my host-dad's sister is friends with his grand son...something like that. So yeah, should be interesting...maybe I should do some research on Paul Claudel before we leave since I know nothing about him...

A tout a l'heure!