What is this madness? All these things are simultaneously happening (just not all in Paris; two of the four occasions are happening here at the moment, though. Feel free to guess. University of Miami is on break, I think, and they are clearly not the ones getting snow, if that helps at all).
I haven't posted anything because if you said MIDTERMS, you are unfortunately right. Midterms (on top of projects, papers, and evil Global Orientations) have been taking over. One down, two to go, two papers, one presentation, and one final college supplement to finish in the next week and a half(ish). I get more work here than at New York NYU. I also had a super fun 36-hour stomach virus where I sat around like a sad bum and lost study time.
But today, I needed to get out of the house. I probably wouldn't have left my room here (and the messy paper nest of notes that I've been making/accumulating), but the host people just had their room re-wallpapered and were moving furniture around. I'm so happy that I did get outside today because it was essentially SUMMER! (If you stood on the sunny side of the street, it was short-sleeve weather; shade side, sweater weather. People were even wearing COLOR, not the standard black everything!) Definitely beautiful, but depressing if you're stuck inside studying. To those of you still taking midterms and freezing, you have it better! Enjoy the sun after you defeat the exams!
Are you out there science people? Nerdy friends?
I went to the Marie Curie Museum for some radioactive fun!
We were talking about spleens in my weird Paris Pairs class this week, and I realized I haven't taken a biology class in five years. How crazy is that?! I don't exactly miss science classes, but I do miss the influx of new information about how things work and current discoveries and theories. At least I can still go to Marie Curie's lab and gape at all of her incredible (and scary) instruments.
I wandered out of the museum and waved hi (again) to Marie Curie, and a handful of writers/philosophers/thinkers: Rousseau, Voltaire, Hugo, Zola. I didn't actually go inside the Panthéon because the line was almost as long as the line of desperate University of Paris students waiting outside the library to take an exam (or study some more?).
Then, from the top of the steps of this building full of exceptional dead people, I saw this:
Then from the spherical man, I saw this amazing castle-church.
St. Geneviève
French attempts du jour:
-Monoprix clerk talked to me in rapid French while waving a flyer that identified various types of apples. I could not follow what she was saying. She wouldn't stop talking, though, so after a long spiel about apples, I finally said something like, "uhhh...no thanks? I don't speak French very well," and then she seemed rather confused. I was also looking a plums, so...
-Slightly more successful conversation: Someone asked me for directions. This is hilarious enough when it happens, in New York or in Florida (actually, it never happens in Florida, for a good reason too...I still can only get to about eight places, and four of them might be the same place). Then, when French is involved, it reaches a whole new level of confusion. I was able to carry on the conversation in French as I got out my map. I actually was familiar enough with the area to point out the right directions to her (I hope).
Literary left bank of the Seine
Musée d'Orsay
The gold tones of this city was highlighted by the golden pink sunset
Tuileries
Now it's back to work. There has got to be a more efficient/just generally better way of studying art history. Stick figure masterpieces will have to do for now.
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