Woot for for free museums until midnight!

Hello friends!

I hope you’re doing well and that you’re enjoying this late spring weather. I surely am…as I am not a fan of the dead of summer in the South. Too hot for me.

So, last week I turned in my mémoire (a really important paper), which made me so incredibly happy. Though I was not a fan of the mémoire during the semester, I was so proud of it when I finished. And I think I did a really good job on it. The first week of June (exam week) we will have la soutenance, which is when we will have to defend our mémoire in front of a jury of 3 professors. Gross…I’m not looking forward to that one. But I think once it is over, I will appreciate having done it. It’s definitely good practice for grad school.

Last Friday I took a test on the book Sido by Colette…I’m anxious to see how I did, for it was by far the hardest test we had taken in my literature class. However, I will have to wait until next week for the results. My literature class is only on Thursdays and Fridays, and we only have classes Monday - Wednesday this week…which means SLEEEEP! I’m super excited about that one. I’ve been on a really weird sleeping schedule lately, which translates into I haven’t gotten any! So I’m thrilled to have nothing to do for a few days, though I have already filled the 4-day weekend up with little adventures with a few friends. :)

This past weekend we had La Nuit des Musées. Most of the museums in Angers were open from 7pm until midnight, and entrance was free. So I went to a few museums with one of my friends, Huan, who is from China. We went to the Galerie David d’Angers (sculpture museum), the Musée de Beaux-Arts (an arts museum), and the Musée du Château de Villevêque (a castle). It was so awesome. And, what is even cooler than simply getting into amazing museums for free, I saw one of the paintings we had studied in my art history class by Ingres. I was stoked! (Though I was surprised by how tiny it was!)

After the museum adventure, we went out for some cider and just walked around the city for a while…though that didn’t last too long, for it was after midnight and freezing cold. So yeah…not a good idea in general.

Sunday, a lot of the French students left the foyer to go home, for their semester is finally over. I know the medical students were certainly happy…they had the concours this past week, which is an extremely difficult test that decides if they have to repeat the year or not. And it’s insanely competitive. There were over 900 students taking the test, and only around the top 100-120 get to move up to the second year of study, and everyone else (including the 121st person) has to redo the year. However, you only have two chances to pass the concours, and if the second time you don’t make it into the first 120 spots (or however many there are that year), you don’t have the right to try again, so you have to choose a different major and start over from the beginning. My best friend in the foyer, Floriane, is studying medicine and just took the concours for her first time. She will have the results on June 18th, and I really hope she gets it…she worked Sooooo hard. I asked her why so many people choose that field of study when there are obviously so few spots available when it comes to passing the concours. She explained to me that though the concours is extremely difficult and is considered to be academic hell, once you pass it and finish the rest of your studies, you’re sure to have a job, especially if you live in a rural area. She said that the smaller towns are really having issues with not having adequate medical care, so the residents must go to the closest city to be treated…which is ok I guess until you really have a serious medical problem and there is no one to treat you. So, Floriane said that a lot of small towns have associations and whatnot that will pay you to finish your studies after you pass the concours if you promise to work a certain amount of years in their community… I think that’s awesome. I think that’s what she is planning on doing, for she comes from a pretty small town outside of Le Mans, which is an adequately sized city between Angers and Paris.

Anyways, like I was saying, a lot of the girls have left the foyer, and day by day the foyer population gets smaller and smaller. In June, it’ll just be the foreign students and an equally small handful of French students. The Department of Languages and Literatures at the University of Angers, a public university, had a lot of strikes during the semester, so the students want to have a semester “blanc” which means there wouldn’t be final exams (b/c they rarely had class to prepare for them!), and everyone would receive 10 out of 20 as a grade for the classes…which is a lowish B - high C in the US I’d estimate…though I’m not sure. Anyways, the university considered it, but all universities in France are under a contract with the Minister of National Education, and if you don’t abide by the guidelines, your diplomas are not recognized by the state. Anyway, the minister would not allow the university to have a “semester blanc” so the semester is instead being prolonged, and their finals won’t be until the last week in June instead of…well…now. Needless to say, the students are not very happy. Which I guess is somewhat understandable, for a lot of them had jobs and internships lined up that now have to be either postponed or cancelled altogether. I know that is the case with at least 2 girls in the foyer.

So yeah, lots of action over here in France. And I love it! I am so sad to think that I have only one month left. Ugh…let’s not even think about that! Right now, I’m just trying to learn as much as I can, enjoy the (FINALLY) warm weather, and profit to the maximum from my time here in this truly extraordinary country!

I’ll keep you updated!
HMA

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Part of trip: Study Abroad Semester in Angers, France (Spring '09)

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