Roses, Skateboards, and My First Day at the Sorbonne

IES sponsors a French/English conversation every Wednesday night. This past week, a guy named Farid brought roses to give to all the ladies present as a late Valentine’s Day gift. Talk about French romantic stereotypes…. Unfortunately, due to a subconscious habit of mine, my rose didn’t last through the night. I tore the petals off. I’m sure Freud would have a lot of say about this incident; probably something about deep inner anger. Usually I open/close a pen or my cellphone while talking. Sometimes, if I get extremely agitated, I wave my hands around. This week it so just happened that I destroyed a beautiful flower. ::sigh:: What is becoming of me?

I borrowed a skateboard from a guy at IES this week. It was a great board and I must admit that I had fun. I haven’t skated in years. It brought back memories of my spiky hair, chains, baggy pants and love for social disruption … some things will not pass away with age.

On other happenings, I had my first class at the famed Sorbonne Friday. It was quite scary. I easily found my way to the campus building by following a mass of young people from the Metro. When in doubt, follow the young! For history students, the Sorbonne has a building located in the north of Paris near the Porte de Clignancourt. Walking through the gates, I felt like I was in a teen movie. Crowds of students lined the sidewalk and stairways. I felt like there were one hundred eyes on me. I would imagine that if I had attended an urban high school, it would have been like that. I found the right room and went in. It was a class on Greek history – not my class. Apparently, there had been a room change and IES was left out of the loop. No worries though. I received a nice packet of information of ancient Greece and walked out of the room. I eventually found the right class and made myself at home. The class promises to be interesting. The only thing I’m dreading are mandatory oral presentations! Yeah, that will be fun.