EBS en France: Un DQ, un salon musical, et une explication du texte a Paris III...

So Sunday, I had day number two of my swim meet. I only swam the 100 back -- because my coach was nice enough to scratch me out of the 200 free. I qualified first for the Senior/Junior age group, and then came home to nap and eat after the morning session. I went back to the pool around 3:30 to warm up -- and then had the joy of sitting around getting cold for the next hour and a half! Well all that waiting was for nothng! Because I got disqualified! I would have won, but apparently, I kicked a bit on my stomach after I flipped over to do my turn. OH WELL. I had my bit of frustration -- but such is life. I guess they just don't like Americans!

I bought a ticket for a "Salon Musical" at the Opera Garnier on Sunday night. At only 10 euros, it was hard not to! The salon musical series takes two composers at a time, and then a selection of musicians from the Opera orchestra played a piece of each composer. Sunday's performance was a piece by Rimski-Korsakov and then one by Popov. Both pieces were really nice --at first, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a full orchestra, but the small group of musicians turned out to be really great. My seat wasn't too amazing, but I still had to find the usher to unlock the door to the "box" where my seat was -- I shared it with this couple who I know more about than I EVER wanted to know, a seemingly normal woman, and these two Asian ladies who stood the entire time and didn't stop taking pictures. But other than that -- it was a lovely evening.

Today, the weather finally turned from bitterly cold into somewhat mild -- and there was even the scent of spring in the air! It's been so nice. I can only hope it continues. Today was also some what of a nervewracking day -- I had to give an "explication du texte" o about 30 lines of 16th century French poetry in front of my class at Paris III. Alain helped me last night with understanding it and some of the prononciations which definitely helped. I still got up and I'm sure that I turned about as red as a tomato and felt like I had sweat dripping through my shirt (attractive, right?). I made it through -- and my professor said that I expressed myself well in French (hooray!) -- and that I only misunderstood the last 6 lines...it definitely could have been worse. And she said that even people are French have difficulties with it! And I'm glad it's over!

I almost forgot! I had a wonderful start to the morning with the mail -- I got a package from my father with some great file cards with my name on them! Which I'm sure will be incredibly useful. And I also got a great package from the TN Aycocks! They sent me a box of brown sugar, a big bag of chocolate chips, the Harper's Bazaar Fashion Guide to Personal Style (which looks great!) and a cute little bag.

Alrighty! I think that's about it -- I took yesterday off to swimming which was glorious -- and I'm contemplating continuing that vacation...but I'll try to make myself go tonight.

Here are a few pictures from the past few days --