i suck at updating my blog

---

unfortunately, when i go to update my blog, my internet won't work. we have such crappy unreliable wireless, it really makes me angry. so typically i find myself updating my blog at 1 in the morning, like right now. oh well.
so classes continue here.....not really getting any easier, but hopefully by the 4th class i will get an idea of how to understand each professor, and how they talk, etc. how to take notes as they are mumbling at incredible speeds....in french. so that's school. right now i'm working on trying to figure out what exams/papers i will have to do and making sure i can do them either before the vacances or at the end of exam week. as of right now i plan to be home in burlington from the 21st of december until the 13th of january.....but classes here start back up on the 5th, but it just seemed so pointless to be for such little time so i decided to just tell my professors i already bought my plane ticket and that i need to make special arrangements for my papers/exams. which is no big deal because i'm an exchange student, and because a lot of the exchange students who are only staying here for a semester need to do the same thing. but yeah.
what else? i met with my french partner for my tandem class (1 on 1 conversation) for the first time the other day. my partner (typhaine) is sooo nice. we went for coffee and she says my french doesn't suck but i think she's just being nice. anyways, i'm really looking forward to meeting up with her once a week, i think it's really going to improve my french....and i plan to do the class for the entire year so yeah....should be good. i think that's about all for school in this past week.
i had a really great weekend. yesterday ivi and i grabbed some lunch at a kebab shop and ate on the steps of the opera house and then we went and walked around vieux lille for a while, et puis we went to the zoo!!! which is free here (so cool). it's not like a super amazing zoo with every animal ever, but i was still pretty impressed with it, and it was free.....so i can't complain. and after that we ate churros and walked around a little more, did a little bit of shopping and went home. and then today we went to two open air markets and i got a lot of awesome stuff for a little amount of money, like avocados and a mango and a comforter for my bed, and some plates and bowls for guests i invite over to eat and a nice sized wok for making awesomely delicious meals. so that was fun, and then i did a little bit of homework, met up with a friend in a very cool café and did some more homework while drinking chocolat chaud (it was very european) and the atmosphere was really great. then i came back home and made a delicious meal (with my new wok!) and yeah. overall a very good weekend.
i'm hoping for a good week. it doesn't look to busy, so hopefully i'll have some time to exercise!!
but it's approaching 1:30 in le matin and i have to wake up and learn in 7 hours. sooo i'll stop this entry here.
à bientôt (hopefully?)
p.s. i'll add pictures of the zoo soon!!

---

Photos

red panda!
cutest animal ever.

freaky owl
i was quite proud of this picture, because i had to take it through a fence.

hahaha
there was a guinea pig at the zoo

brutal fight
they were very close to poking each other's eyes out with their rhino horns. it was intense.