Les jours occupes!

Well I just got back from watching this movie for my history of France and Africa class -- it was really an amazing film, but ridiculously depressing. It was called "L'ennemi Intime" and told the story of a French army regiment in the French-Algerian War...and it was quite something. I didn't know that apparently France only declared it to be a "war" in 1999 -- and before that it wasn't considered anything huge. This movie definitely says otherwise -- I would highly recommend it. But make sure to have something happy to do afterwards, and I would suggest not watching it at night....

As good as it was, it was just a long day in general which didn't really help! A good day, but a long one. I started the day off with a swim -- my coach is trying really hard to get me to speed up my arm rotation speed in backstroke....which is kind of working...but after last night's intense IM workout which was quite difficult, swimming quickly was pretty hard.

From the pool, I went to my Pensee Economique class at Institut Catholique -- where I think I finally confirmed that we do not take 15 minute breaks after every 45 minutes for the students' sake, but so that the professor can go smoke a cigarette. Oh well, whatever works I suppose. I took it as a hint when as soon as she said we were going to have a "pause", she grabbed her coat, purse, and bolted for the door.

I'm beginning to enjoy the French university standard: the coffee vending machine. There's one each at Reid Hall and at Institut Catholique -- I've come to really like the "cafe + cacao" option, which for about 50 centimes pops out this little cup of stuff! Which isn't half bad, and sufficiently wakes me up. So I waited in line this morning during our first "pause" for my caffeine fix.

I headed home for some lunch after that via the grocery store where I found, to my surprise, marshmallow fluff! It will be come evident why I needed such an atrocious substance later in the week....but it was the only item I was purchasing, and needless to say, the older gentleman behind me in line definitely had some judgement in his eyes. He doesn't know how delicious it will become....

I finished up the rest of the stuffing I had made for our Thanksgiving dinner last week -- which was still incredible (if I'm being modest...), and then headed off my France/Africa class. After that, it was back to Reid Hall to pick up my play ticket tomorrow, and then off to go walk by the apartment that we're renting over Christmas, and then back to class at Institut Catholique, and then back to the Middlebury center for the movie, and then finally home! Whew.

It's been wonderful to see that Christmas has truly come to Paris -- there are lights everywhere, and being that it's been pretty dreary out the last few days, the lights even during the day are spectacular. The window displays have been pretty amazing too!

Well I'm going to head to bed -- it's been a fairly tiring couple of days! But luckily my week slows down for the remainder...except the end of the semester is coming up...and I have an architecture final to study for on Monday! It's always something....

Here's a picture of my favorite spot in Reid Hall -- which overlooks the courtyard:

A bientot!