"We are all human beings" (more pictures coming soon!)

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In the shoddy hall kitchen this morning, I heated up some milk to make hot cocoa with the mix I bought last night at the Intermarche. I ate dry cereal and drank the cocoa as I did online French grammar exercises. Though I've attained a strong level in French, I make mistakes all day and so I've instituted a regimen called "PRACTICE FRENCH GRAMMAR EVERYDAY OR ELSE!" It's going well so far.

Today, my school orientation revealed to me that the French university system is quite complicated and bureaucratic (surprise? not really 😊 ). I'm going to start looking at courses and registering soon because courses start Monday, though nothing is settled until the end of January. The fac (campus) is composed of really old buildings, and the halls are a maze-like weave of honeycomb. I met Cyntia, from Canada, again there--I'd met her originally a few days ago. We walked around after wards, and Regane called to see if I wanted to see a movie, so Cyntia came along too. We saw "Une petit zone de turbulence" (A little bit of turbulence), a comedy about a crazy family with lots of problems. It was pretty good, but I didn't catch everything with no subtitles.

Back at the dorms, I was in the kitchen making pasta and two west african guys come in and start talking to me. They were REALLY friendly, and talking about what upstanding people west africans are. One in particular was very friendly, so I headed back to my room. Cut to: later tonight, Cyntia and another American I've met, Ashley come over to make hot cocoa. In the kitchen, one of the West African guys was still there and chatted us up for a while. He went on and on about politics and race issues, waving his large ebony hands in the air saying: "We are all human beings! And what we've got to do is make the change. All of us here in this room! It's up to us!" Sometimes we werent' exactly sure what he was talking about. And then he was saying we should have a meeting to get to know each other, and he kept referring to this unannounced future meeting.

Meanwhile, we're trying to look busy preparing the cocoa and saying "Uh, hm, yes, hm...." trying not to encourage him. Suffice it to say, we were happy to get back to my room! Ah, the adventures of meeting new people!

PICTURE UPDATE: more pictures will be posted soon! My mom has sent my camera charger in the mail, so with a week I hope to have my camera working again. Then I can take pictures of Besancon and show you all the place where I will be living for the next 5 months!

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Comments

[katy flinn]

west african men trying to win you over -- that's what i'm headed for! can't wait for pictures.

[Awilliams]

haha! good luck!