god, i hate mornings

Now I remember why I wrote so infrequently last semester - CLASSES! Time just disappears sitting in CMs (cours magistraux, the equivalent of lectures) all day long. Luckily, I've taken a much calmer approach to the whole registration process this semester. I'm done worrying about credits or fulfilling requirements from back home, because there's no way of knowing how it will all calculate out in the end.

Today, I had class starting at 8am until 6pm (with two 2-hour breaks, thank goodness). I haven't been this tired in awhile -- probably because I haven't been to school in awhile. All in all, my courses are actually shaping up to be pretty interesting this semester:

Civilisation and Culture (XIX century): The notion of sublime in literature and painting
Media Cultures: The history and role of the media in France
Cinema
Introduction to Aesthetics/Art History/Regard
The construction of the European community

Tomorrow I'm sitting in on my first Italian class. I hope I haven't completely forgotten everything!

fydor's day at the opera

Finally started work on my Pass Culture (7 shows for 33 euros) with a matinee of Serge Prokofiev's operatic adaptation of "The Gambler" by Dostoyevsky.

The production itself was much more coherent than the one I went to earlier this month at the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse. Unfortunately, it was really hard to follow the story since they didn't give out any kind of free program - and I can't think of any theater experience where it's more important to understand what is going on than an intellectual Russian opera!

All of the performers were very impressive, though. The orchestra played beautifully, and I was especially touched by the performance of the lead soprano. I'm hoping to catch another opera performance before leaving Lyon, and hopefully one in French this time around!

my new boyfriend

Voici mon nouveau copain, Guillaume.

Ha, I wish. I got a message last night from a friend about the première of M. Canet's new film "Espion(s)" at the Pathé Bellecour, at which said actor would be present. Super excited, I bought tickets right after getting out of class this morning and arrived at the theater an hour early. A benefit to living in France is that people are definitely not as celebrity crazy, and people were relatively calm during the screening.

The film wasn't great (I would even go so far as to say it wasn't good) but Guillaume was super sympa, as they say...answering every question fully and with an evident passion for his work.

He also spent quite a bit of time joking around, and was certainly the most entertaining of the panelists (which also included his leading lady and director). For example:

Q: Why did you decide to do this project among the many you are being offered?
A: Well, I had a great first meeting with the director. We got a along really well, smoked some weed...(he was kidding, obviously)

Q: What is it like kissing (your leading lady)?
A: I had no problem with it. And I invite you to come down here and try it.

Sigh. How dreamy.

back to school with barack

Last night, the whole Pellet clan and myself gathered around the television at 6pm to watch the Obama inauguration. Looking into the sea of people, I imagined my friends from home somewhere among the crowd, cheering and soaking up the joy that was that incredible day. Franchement, I feel like I could have picked a better year to go abroad. This is probably the most momentous, historic occasion that I will ever live through, and I could have been in the middle of it all. These are the only times that I have regretted leaving Georgetown for a year.

But today, going back to school, it felt so nice to see my friends, to not be stressed or confused, and to be excited about classes starting up again. And I felt so proud to be American, more than I ever have in my life. Clearly, I'm not the most patriotic of people (I did decide to spend my first presidential election year abroad, after all), but this gave me a burst of joy inside that I never thought politics could produce.

the land of fondue and watches

Just got back from a day trip to Genève. My purchases today reflected (almost to an embarrassing extent) some widely-held Swiss stereotypes:

A) A Swatch watch, which I adore and hope will inspire me to actually wear watches.
B) Fondue, a 16 euro lunch which was worth every centime.
C) Chocolate. Need I say more?

The city is very charming, with a teensy old town and a chic commercial district along the bank of its famous lake. It also has a very international feel, not only as a result of the United Nations base, but also because of its diverse, multi-lingual population. I also noticed lots of people getting onto local commuter buses with ski/snowboard gear, which gave me the itch to go to the mountains and give my new ski pants a whirl.

can't sleep

Aside from the above (which isn't really news), the week has been a mix of extreme laziness and extreme busyness. Yesterday, I took a day trip to Burgundy (which I didn't realize was the English version of Bourgogne until about an hour before we left) where I ate mustard, spice bread, and admired very beautiful (and expensive) bottles of wine. Dijon was the main stop, a small but charming town that takes the owl (chouette in French) as it's mascot. One of my friends met a very friendly woman on the train who invited us to her place for lunch. See, French people are almost ridiculously nice!

Anyway, I woke up in alarm yesterday after realizing that I never told my host family I'd be out of town for dinner last night. Blogging is a way for me to put off going down to apologize, even though I know they won't be hard on me or anything. I just don't like doing things wrong, but I'm just going to have to take a deep breath, suck it up, and do it.

berlin, here i come!

Yesterday, my friend Agnès came over to the apartment to plan our trip to Berlin next month. We're skipping 3 days of classes to attend the Berlinale, one of the top 3 film festivals in the world. This is seriously a dream come true - and I'm so excited!

I hate to admit it, but I felt pretty popular yesterday. I saw 3 different friends, one who left this morning to return to the States, Agnès, and a Canadian friend who I went to the theater with. We went to the Théâtre de la Croix Rousse to see "Le Nouveau Testament", a play by Sacha Guitry that deals with adultery among the Parisian bourgeoisie in the 1930s. It was an interesting play, but the production could have been better. The stage was set up like an impossibly humongous living room with at least 20 couches, some of which were used as seats for the audience. There were also strange video screens used intermittently throughout the play as stand-ins for movie theater screens and windows into the thoughts of one of the main characters. But I wasn't too impressed by the overall production, to be frank.

Friday night was the big dinner with the Georgetown group. As predicted, none of them are people I see myself hanging out with on a regular basis. They are nice enough people, but they have gone out to bars for the last 3 nights in a row (I went out with them on Friday, but declined yesterday night because I was really tired coming back from the theater). 5 of them will be at Lyon 3, but who knows how things will develop over time.

I'm on my way to meet two of my Japanese friends to plan a little trip to Dijon for this week. With no exams or classes, I'm going to try and make a few other day trips too - possibly to Grenoble and Geneva.