a very long post

[15 février 2009]

First things first: Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

I hope you ate chocolate.

Anyway, have I got something special in store for you! That's right, I'm going to recap this last week or so! How exciting! Seriously, a lot has been going on. I feel obliged to give y'all the lowdown. Before I start that, a side note: I have a project this weekend. I'm going to start uploading my pictures from last semester / winter break. Seriously, I just realized that I haven't put any pics online since probably November. I suck at this...

Ok here goes:

VENDREDI (friday) : The day of the suburb conference. I spent the day in Dreux, a small-ish town about 2 hours from Paris by bus. Getting there was quite fun. I had to be at the NPNS office at 6:30 am, because that's when the bus was supposedly going to leave. I should have known better and realized that when the French say "We're leaving at 6:30" they actually mean "We're leaving whenever we damn well feel like it because we're French." We didn't even load onto the bus until around 7:30. But I just chilled and napped on the office couch, so it's all good. Once we got to the conference hall, Jef (aka Jean-François) handed us all our guest badges and led us to the "Association Village", where we breakfasted on croissants and café. The conference was divided into two parts: a big hall where the debates and speeches would take place, and the "Village" where each association had a booth set up kind of like an involvement fair at DePaul. I had the choice of either chilling at the booth and schmoozing or watching the debates. Hoping to see some first class arguments, I chose the debates. Since the whole conference was about "Espoir Banlieues" (the suburban development program I talked about in an earlier post), the debates focused on social issues in the suburbs. It was a pretty cool set up. A panel of experts sat on stage, fielding questions, while a pair of real life TV personalities called on audience members and asked for testimonies, suggestions, questions, etc. It felt kind of like a big talk show. Pretty interesting. After the debates, Fadela Amara came on stage to give a super long speech about the program. It was interesting, but I honestly didn't learn much from it. I had already done quite a bit of research on the program for NPNS, and Fadela's speech wasn't much more than a summary of what they were doing -- lots of generalities, vague promises of "change", hope for the future (Ring a bell, anyone?). Anyway, then we got lunch, waited around for a while, shook hands / schmoozed with Fadela, and got back on the bus. All in all I had a really good time, and it seemed like the NPNS team had forgiven me for my disastrous first days back at the office. Woot!

SAMEDI (saturday) : The day of welcome. IES organized a welcome lunch at the Atelier Guy Martin -- a pretty well-known cooking school / restaurant. The welcome lunch was originally supposed to be on a boat, cruising along the Seine, but one of the students had an internship at the Atelier last semester, and she suggested doing the lunch there as a way to "bond" and "have fun" while "cooking". She's obviously never seen me in the kitchen. I mean, don't get me wrong -- I make damn good macaroni. Just don't ask for anything much more complicated than that... Anyway, we scrubbed up, donned white plastic aprons, grabbed some knives and veggies, and went to work. We ended up making some kind of vegetable risotto (maybe?) stuff with really juicy chicken. To top it all off, we had chocolate soufflé for dessert. Amazing. And you know what? It kind of made me want to start cooking for myself more often. It's kind of nice. Later that night, my friend Kamila invited a bunch of us IES students over to the apartment she shares with her Polish cousin. Apparently, the cousin just recently became a naturalized French citizen. So they decided to celebrate the occasion with a fête. It was a really great time. I met lots of Kamila's Polish cousin's cousins, French friends, and even some of the IES newbies. Great times were had by all.

DIMANCHE (sunday) : The day of rest. Seriously, I didn't do anything. Ok, I watched some Seinfeld, but that's about it. But I needed it. I was tired starting to get the sniffles... more on that later...

LUNDI (monday) : The day of classes starting! The day began with a course on the history of modern art. We're starting with the impressionists and working our way up through the 20th century. It seems like it's going to be a big repeat of a lot of what I studied in my Aesthetics class last semester, but I have a feeling it's going to be more in depth. We actually have quite a few museum visits planned for the course, so it should be pretty cool. Next up: Lectures de la Bande Déssinée, aka Comic Books Class! I've been pretty excited for this one. Comic books in France and Belgium are pretty darn important. Plus the professor (who I also had last semester) is hilarious. It should be a great time. Finally, my first real class in a French university -- Christian theology and inter-religious dialogue. It's going to be tough, but it's a very interesting topic, so I'm not too scared. Anyway I've got Ellen in the class with me, so if anything it will be entertaining.

MARDI (tuesday) : The day of "Back in high school for a day!" This was a fun one. I woke up extra early, blew my nose for probably 10 minutes straight, got dressed, and headed to the Gare de l'Est train station to meet Mar and Jamila from NPNS. Tuesday is usually my full day in the office, but Mar called me the night before to see if I wanted to go with her to talk to a bunch of high school students instead. I obliged. So we took the train out to Chelles, another small-ish town outside Paris. We set up shop in a class room, then welcomed our first group of students. We gave them a 2-hour presentation of what NPNS is, what kind of work we do, why we do it, and what they can do to help stop violence against women and promote respect at their school. It went pretty well, and I actually enjoyed it. I was starting to feel a bit ill, though, and found myself blowing my nose about every 5 seconds. Not so great. Anyway. After the first presentation, we got to eat lunch in the cafeteria, amongst all the students. We had the option of eating in a special room with the teachers, but we declined. Gotta be with the people, you know. After lunch, we gave another presentation to another group of kids. Then we eventually made our way back to the station to hop a train back into Paris. By this time, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, but you wouldn't have known it if you looked at me. I was feeling pretty under the weather. Mar noticed, so she told me that if I was still feeling crappy wednesday afternoon, I could stay home instead of coming into the office. Once I was back home, I did some reading for class, then went right to bed.

MERCREDI (wednesday) : The day of brewing maladies. Not much to say here. I went to class despite my continued ailments, pockets stuffed with kleenex. And oh did I use those tissues. Faucet-nose is not one of my favorite feelings. After my Bande Déssinée class ended at 2, I was still feeling gross so I decided to take up Mar's offer of staying home for the afternoon. She sent me an email, though, asking if I could still do some work on a new project. She needs me to write up fact sheets about some of the tenets of NPNS. Since I wrote a huge paper last semester on Laïcité (secularism) in France, she asked me to start there. So I told her I'd work on it that night, then send it to her thursday morning. I spent the rest of the evening watching Seinfeld, working on the fact sheet, and sleeeeeeeping. There's nothing better when you're not feeling so hot. I still refused to take medication, though. I just drank some tea and let my body work everything out.

JEUDI (thursday) : The day of redemption. By the time I woke up on thursday, I felt muuuch better. I was still a bit congested, but I could actually focus on work. So I finished the Laïcité worksheet, sent it off to Mar, and grabbed some lunch. Ellen sent me a text telling me that I'd gotten a package at IES, and I needed to meet with the staff anyway, so I took the métro to the center. The package turned out to be the amazing Valentine's present from my mom (thanks again!). Next I just needed to talk to Marie in the IES library about fixing up my schedule. Apparently, the Institut Catholique decided to cancel my course on Judaism, so I needed to pick a new one to replace it. Unfortunately, Marie was nowhere to be found. So I just chilled in the computer lab for a while before heading back home. After dinner with the family, Ellen and I decided to hang out at the Louvre. We met there a little after 9:30, so the museum was closed, but we just wandered around the outside and admired the building itself. It was nice to just hang out and discuss whether or not the pyramid belonged there.

VENDREDI (friday... again) : The day of... not much. Now that I sit here trying to remember what I did on friday, I'm drawing a blank. I'm sure I did something during the day, but it's really not coming to me. It must not have been very exciting, I guess. Anyway, I ate dinner with the family, as usual, then afterward we all sat together in the dining room and watched Persepolis on the family computer. It's a movie based on the Bande Déssinée of the same name, written by Marjane Satrapi. It basically tells the story of her life -- growing up in Tehran, Iran, during the revolution; going to high school in Vienna, Austria; moving back to Tehran before finally settling in France. It was really cool, and I've been wanting to see it for a while now, so I was pretty happy. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be studying the BD in my class later this semester. I guess a head start doesn't hurt.

SAMEDI (saturday... again) : The day of love. This was a fun one. I met up with Genna, Kamila, John, Emily, and Alex at the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens) for some wandering and chocolate-eating. It was a beautiful day, and I could think of nothing better than strolling through a park, making snide comments about statues, and eating Twix and Toblerone. Perfect. After the park, we made a stop at one of our favorite (read "cheap") bars in the area -- the Gentleman. It was pretty packed, and the TVs were all playing the France - Scotland rugby match. I'm sure this is something important, but as I don't follow the sport, I'll have to fill you in later. I'll ask Jillian. Anyway, after a couple drinks, we headed over to Kamila's place to make some dinner. We originally planned on having shrimp alfredo, but we couldn't find any suitable frozen sea creatures. So we settled on veggies -- a nice alternative. Next, the girls were all planning on heading to what I think was supposed to be a "girls night" at Brittany's (another DePaul student) apartment, but John, Alex, and I decided to tag along anyway. And it was great. Very classy.

DIMANCHE (sunday... again) : The day of... well, today. I haven't done much, as I usually just chill on sundays, but I did make the trip up to Montmartre. I spent most of the afternoon up at the Sacré Coeur Basilica. After chilling and reading for a while outside on the steps, just looking at the city stretched out in front of me in the sunshine, I went inside the basilica for a vespers service. Very nice. And full of nuns, which I love. And it was surprisingly exciting. They have a "no photo" policy, so every five minutes or so, a worker has to reprimand someone sitting in the pews, or walking around the aisles, for snapping illegal pictures. I even saw one guy get chased outside by a worker trying to take his camera. Hilarious. Other than that, I've just got homework, dinner, and sleep on the schedule for the evening.

Well, that was exhausting. And probably really boring to read. Seriously, if you've made it this far without falling asleep or forgetting your name, I salute you. If I could give you a high five, I would. Seriously.

Happy Travels

-- Cody