A week in the merde!!

So I just returned from watching that movie about Daniel Pearl and it was so good; quite inspiring!!! I don't know if it's out in the US or not because this version was in French but I'm pretty sure it was in theaters. I had quite an interesting week and by interesting I mean it was full of ups and downs due to the fact that school started and I think I've been away long enough for the novelty to have worn off and now I'm just homesick.

School here turned out to be quite a shock for me. It is so different from home and I'm not exactly loving the system. Because of the fact that I don't have masters I'm registered as a first year masters student which means I'm with a bunch of archeologists with whom I don't have much in common and you can't actually find classes in other masters because there not listed any where. Everything here is very strict. Like professors don't socialize/eat lunch/do anything with doctoral students, masters students are treated like high schoolers and I'm kind of just swimming in the middle of the system. I have a desk with doctoral students (pretty cool, although the internet at my desk does not work yet) but I'm not a doctoral student. And all of the professors are 9-5ers and they actually want to fire one guy, who is Brazilian but did his pHd and post-docs in the US because he works too much!!! He's a real character.

However, the good news that after my 6 week crusade to register I succeeded and was able to obtain the final piece of necessary information for my carte de sejour so I should be having my medical exam pretty shortly and that will be lots of fun. It also means I'll have internet!!!!! Also, at school people aren't quite as friendly as we are at home. We are pretty awesome actually. But, I'm managing to slowly make friends. It is really hard though. I think I thought it would be easier after school started and that magically I would just have friends. So that was a little disappointing but can you do? I'm definitely learning a whole lot about the culture from it though.

So last night was the big France vs New Zealand Rugby World Cup match. The Rugby World Cup is in France this year and it is huge. I went to my bar, the Irish Pub that is owned by Frenchies but is really close to my house and they know me there. I ran into two younger English students who are here on an exchange in the store yesterday and invited them too so they got to mix and mingle with my bar friends who are mostly older, non-creepy men. But the bar was packed and the game was great. France pulled through for the win in the last few minutes and it was crazy all night. Every car beeped when they passed and it was just great. It was a little like when the Steelers were winning in 2005-2006. It was funny too because one of the English kids is randomly a huge Steelers fan so when I said I went to school there he got so excited. So that was fun. Well, I think I'm going to go eat but just wanted to give a little update. Hope all is well at home and email me!!!!

Good night and good luck,
(I need to think of a good sign off)