And so it begins...

Ok, so I'm not sure if today was the 'official' first day of class, but it was the first day of school for me, the protagonist of this European storybook adventure. It's after a long day like today that one simply falls down, puts up their aching but educated feet, and drinks a hot cup of tea to smoke out the cold chills. Which is what I'm doing. I don't know where we last left off, but I'll just begin with the events of today.

My first class (after long internal debate over whether or not class ACTUALLY started today) was medieval history at ten this morning. Classes in France are once a week and two hours long, which seems great, but talk to me again when you're about to fall asleep and realize you still have an hour left of mind-numbing lectures. Even in French, they are mind-numbing. My comprehension level is still only so-so and I only understand about half of what happened once, a long long time ago in the West. There was something about corn and then something about silk. It will take some work. But after speaking with the professor, I'll be getting help when I need it and I'm not all that worried.
The next class was French & Communication, where the professor dashed all my hopes and dreams by telling me that I'll be attending the class at 8 in the morning on Mondays. Curse 8 in the morning. The American Ashton would be a little worried and nervous about that class since her French is terrible and the course requires her to do a fifteen minute speech in French. The French Ashton is just "ehhh whatever". It will all be over soon.

That's the blessing and the curse of it all. It will all be over soon. Yeah, it will be over and whatever fear, nervousness, anger, anguish, loneliness, or despair that I feel will be gone and in the past. I'll barely remember how I felt as I stood there, probably red faced and trembling, giving the speech once I'm back home. But it will all be over soon and all those good, happy, wonderful feelings and memories will be gone too. Blessing and curse.
The last class I went to today was economics - and that will be the last economics class that I go to. Right now it's kind of pick and choose and you can go and feel out the class to see if you want to stay. I don't want to stay. The worst part is that I totally understood the vocabulary, the definitions, and even the professor's French. I was on top of that whole language thing in that class. The part I didn't understand - the economics. I can't do or understand economics in English and there's no way doing it in a different language is going to be any easier. So I've decided to drop that one, take something similar if I need it when I get home, and not add that extra stress to my life.


I have a few more classes that I have yet to go to this week, but I'll make sure to document how they go either on here or in a journal to later type up on here. I have my first day of tennis tomorrow which I'm more excited about right now than nervous, but ask me again at 10h15 tomorrow and I'll tell you the nerves have taken hold. I bought a Babolat racket so now I'm like Nadal, who is the greatest no matter what anyone says.