The first lecture

You can spend as much time on the beach, sit in the warm sunshine and eat as many croissants as you want but the reality of the situation always hits. I'm in France to have fun (a lot of fun) and to STUDY.

I have lectures everyday, except Thursdays. Today was my first lecture of the semester. The first day I would become an official international student, experience another university's teaching methods and [hopefully] learn something new and sit in a 3-hour lecture (they are only 2 hours in my university): exciting, but nerve-racking too. I usually can't sleep if I'm nervous about something I'm doing the next day, but I slept like a baby last night! Off to a good start...

My housemate has the same class as me so we made our way to the university campus together, quite early because I had some paperwork to fill in for my home university. With at least an hour to spare, we went to the canteen for lunch and managed to beat the massive rush hour queue. Spaghetti bolognese. A very good day so far...

When we stepped into the classroom, my housemate and I were trying to figure out if our lecturer was French or English, but he kept saying "hello" in both languages! In fact, he wasn't French or English. He was Dutch. And he was quite, erm, eccentric, shall we say. He spent the first half of the lecture taking the register, asking us where we were from and, if he didn't know the country well, to draw a map of it on the whiteboard.

My turn:

Lecturer: Gabriella Westhead?

Me: It's Gabrielle... *so tempted to say Sir*

Lecturer: Wasn't there an angel called Gabrielle? 

Me: That was Gabriel.

Lecturer: Are you an angel?

Me: Of course *cheeky smile*

Lecturer: No, you're not.

Me: *shocked face* Why not?!

Lecturer: Angels do not have a gender.

End of conversation

It was actually a great "lecture", if I can call it that. The content of the course really hit the nail on the head in terms of my interests in the field of Media, the other students (who are mostly international) were really friendly and we have midterms. I've never done a midterm before! I've only heard about them in American films. 

Great metaphor.

I can't wait to see what happens in next Friday's lecture. Oh wait, I probably won't be in the next lecture. I'm likely to be in Spain, along with the rest of the other undergraduates for an integration weekend trip! I just have to find the money to pay for it...