Ça commence

This weekend we went to Giverny for our little orientation/get to know each other thing. It was a weekend filled with food, Impressionism, boring lectures, long bike rides, gigantic arachnids, adorable houses, beautiful French countryside, and wine - many, many bottles of wine. It was good to get out of Paris for a little while, which I think may be a bad sign if I'm saying it this early in the game. Things are just different everywhere else. Americans (and a lot of other people, for that matter) tend to think that Paris is all there is to France, but the truth is that things are only "French" in the Parisian sense inside the environs of Paris. In the country, things move a little slower, people are a little more jovial, they speak a little less English, portions are a bit bigger and nature actually exists! And staying in a room as big as my apartment in a huge country house just made all of us depressed to come back to the city and our humble - really humble - abodes.

During the weekend, we had little conferences on the programs that we're in (there are three master's programs) and the classes we have available to us, which was good because no one in the program knew what we were doing. It turns out this isn't as much of a bullshit program as I thought it was, or at least it doesn't seem that way right now. I'm going to have a lot of work to do, but the other students are relatively cool, and the professors and directors seem relatively personable, so hopefully there won't be any crying or any problems a quick verre de vin rouge can't fix. So far, I'm taking all of my classes with the program, but I might take a film class at Paris 7 (a university here) on French cinema between 1945 and 1960 and its relation to the United States, because it kind of seems like it's exactly the kind of thing I want to study, and maybe something I want to write my thesis about. The thing is, it's at 9am on Fridays, and as of right now, I don't have any Friday classes, and I'd really like to keep it that way so I could maybe take a weekend or two to travel this semester because once I start writing my thesis, I won't have time to breathe, let alone jaunt around Europe like I did last time I was here.

I really don't know what I want to do with my life, and that's starting to become a problem. It's not just the actual tangible issue of not having any plans, which worries some people (ahem, parents), but it's a major difficulty when talking to people here. I was talking with one of the professors who was supposed to assess our language level and make sure we were taking all the right classes for what we wanted to do, and I had no idea what I wanted to do, so she had no idea if the classes I was planning on taking were going to help. We kept going 'round and 'round in circles, "Well, this is something I'd really like to study more," "Oh, well that's good! You can definitely write a thesis on that." (five minutes later) "Well, I'd really like to study that too," "well, that's a good way to go too." When I tried to explain to her that I study for love rather than obligation, she just came out with the French philosophy of it all: "You have to figure out what you're going to do before you can pick what you're going to study." And, yes, this does make sense from a logical, efficient point of view. But for someone as indecisive, ambitious, and interested-in-everything as I am, being forced to pick your career at age 12 like they are here is extremely problematic. Yeah, I know how much everyone hates that word, but it really works in this situation, so deal with it.

Last night was the first meeting for the theater company. I thought there were going to be 15 of us, but there were only five, which I think actually worked out better for the director. He wants to kind of streamline the company into a core group of people that actually care, and make it into a more professional group than it has been in the past. The whole time I was sitting there listening, thinking, "ok, well I'm just a temporary member, I'll help with what I can, blah blah blah," and then towards the end he said, "well, we're five for the moment," including me as one of the main people. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside, even though I know I won't be doing as much work as everyone else. He finally revealed his big project which is, in a word, monumental. If we pull this off, it will be the single most important production for the company and for anyone that works on it, and if it's a success - which I think is inevitable, it'll catapult the company to actual company status, I think. I really want to talk about it, but because nothing is final and I don't want to get into legality issues - and really, this is HUGE, I won't. I'll just say that I'm really excited to work on it, and hopefully I'll be able to make it into some part or the whole of my thesis, because it's kind of perfect.

Classes start at Paris 7 this week, NYU next week, and everywhere else either that week or the week after. Sometime this week I'm touring the big academic library, taking a boat ride, and seeing the gardens of Versailles with all of the fountains on and music playing. Other than that, I have some free time, so I'll do some more exploring, I think. I have some bureaucratic stuff to take care of, like my metro pass and museum cards, but for the most part, I have nothing to do. I'd go to Germany or something if it weren't for the fact that I can't leave the country until I get my residence card (silly rules). I think today I'll head up to Notre Dame and maybe over to the Marais. It's nice out, so maybe I'll be French - excuse me, Parisian - and bring a book to sit on the bench and read, after stuffing my face with the best felafel in the world.

I have a very good feeling about today.