first week of school

if you thought your classes were hard, think again. (ok maybe they really are, but bear with me right now). taking classes in a foreign language in a foreign system is all kinds of hard. between trying to pick classes that sound interesting, hoping that these classes will actually transfer back, and finding out if you can actually understand what's going on when you show up, there is a lot of stress involved.
for eap kids, we will be taking 6 classes total.    
    one is called SLM (its some class we will take for 3.75 hours every week - in one sitting - that is for international students to continue to help us with the language).
    one is a class we only take for half the semester, and i will start that in november.
    then we get to pick our other four classes. this is where things get a little complicated. the french system is very different than the uc system. instead of getting to pick all of their classes every year and take them whenever they want, they basically have their whole year already planned out for them (and all at one campus - oh yea, there are three here). for uc kids (aka eap kids) this makes things a little more difficult. we are allowed to pick any classes we want to try to complete classes for our major. but this doesn't always mean they will be at the same location. for instance, i believe all of my classes are going to be at the bron campus... except the SLM class (and probably the half a semester class), which will be at the quai campus (where we had the ILP (intensive language program)). by the way. these are in complete opposite directions from my house. and on wednesdays, i might have a morning class at bron, and an afternoon class at quai. good thing the public transit here is really good, or that probably wouldn't end so well.
    so anyways. because we get to pick our classes, we have to go to a bunch the first week to check them out, and then we will pick later. as a result, i went to 9 classes this week. one was cancelled though because there was a strike yesterday. some of them have been scarier than others, but i'm really hoping i will survive this semester. luckily, it looks like i wont have to take the one that scared me the most (a small class where the professor and students all spoke really fast and i was the only international student). i still don't entirely have my schedule figured out (due to one class being cancelled, and not knowing about another one till after it had already happened). but so far it looks like i will be taking: 1. the SLM class. 2. Lyon ville d'histoire (a history of lyon) - this may not transfer back for me, but i figured hey, as long as i'm here, i might as well learn a little bit about this city. 3. a sociology class (problematique de genres) - this is the one that was cancelled though, so i'm still not really sure. 4. a social psych class (but this is the class that i haven't been to yet, so also unsure). 5. a developmental psych class (which we are trying to figure out if we need to go to the section for... the section has its own amount of units and its own final, but the two are related.. so it could replace a sixth class? we're still working out the details on that one..). and 6. a cognitive psych class. and 7. the half a semester class. ok i realize that adds up to 6 instead of 7, but that is because i am still trying to figure everything out.. but i more than likely will be choosing 2 of the 3 psych classes.
    another interesting thing. i don't exactly know how semester schools work at home, but at my quarter school we have each class two or three times a week. here, we will only have each class once for an hour and forty five minutes. cool right? oh! and i have mondays off :) ...unless there's some section that i can't change and don't know about yet... but let's hope not. because having mondays off will make it a lot easier to travel. and actually, if i choose not to take the cognitive class, i might have fridays off too! that would be amazing.
    i am also figuring out very quickly that if i am going to survive i am going to need to borrow notes from french students. but i'll start with that next week. it's going to be hard for me since i'm used to being the one taking notes for other people... not the one receiving them... but i guess i better get over that. hey. maybe it will be the perfect way to make french friends :)
     oh. i guess sorry about the lack of pictures. maybe i will remember to take some of the bron campus next week - which by the way, is super confusing to navigate.  sometimes to get up to the second floor you have to walk up some steps, down some others, and finally up some others. i swear it makes no sense - and if you try to ask someone where something is, half the time they don't really know either. awesome right? but at least their version of a bigger campus (because bron is a lot bigger than quai) is still small in my book. i guess that's what happens when you attend a big public california university.
    but at least as of right now, i have made it through my first week at a french university (and its only 1pm :))!

oh. and i realized i arrived a month ago! man time flies fast. :)