bike riding is a lot harder than I remembered...

And bushes are good things to avoid, as are elderly couples, kids, lamp posts and brick buildings. Luckily I avoided all... except for the bush... Guess I'd better start over, well I should probably start from yesterday because I think that's where I left off.

Tuesday!
Today I had 3 classes planned: 10-12 literature francais (subsection about anthropology and ethnology), 2-4 Histoire des Relations Internationales, 4-6 Economie de la Transition. I woke up late (as usual) and ran out the door, late (as usual) but made it to the lit class early. That one is going to be difficult... the prof seems really nice, but its just going to be hard. 5 of the BC students are in that class, so we'll have eachothers' notes, but we need a french friend to survive - they write down EVERYTHING. in different colors, usually. So, we need to make friends lol. Then Caitlin, Rebecca and I got lunch in a Greek cafe place- I got a chicken sandwich and it was absolutely delicious! There's a lot of Greek and Indian places here (like our Mexican and Chinese I think) which, upon further reflection, actually does make sense since Greece is fairly close and India is closer to Europe than it is to the States. Anyways, lunch was good. Then Rebecca and I set off for International Relations. It turned out to be cancelled... so she went home and I chilled in the IEP cafeteria till my 4:00 class. Economie de la Transition is about, you guessed it, Transition Economics! haha, and the prof made a point about explaining how Transition Econ is different from Development Econ; the countries we're studying are already developed- most of them are part of the former USSR, so they were Communist. Others we'll look at were formerly Socialist (I think) and we're looking at how they transitioned from communism and socialism to capitalism or other political and economic systems. In short, it sounds awesome to me and I'm really excited! The nerd in me comes out lol, but the prof was really excited about it and made it really easy to follow (he spoke slowly and clearly and repeated himself a lot) and the material really interests me. We started by outlining communism and then we'll move on to what prompted the transition, the consequences, and modern economy.

Sooo I'm a dork and so psyched about my econ class! lol :) then I came home and had dinner with my family. We had salad (yay) and moussaka (not yay). And bread, cheese and mousse au chocolat. Then I skyped with Caitlin and Katie (yay). Then I went to bed.

Today, Wednesday was a pretty good day, but not as good as yesterday. I had another 10-12 class and that was it. My class was Actualités Francais, which is about French politics and current events. Which is pretty interesting but I didn't really like the first day, so I'm not sure I'm going to stay with it. It'll depend on my classes tomorrow probably. My prof is really cool, and teaches in a more American style (aka, homework and a midterm and final) but still pretty french (the homework is due in a month and is only a paragraph). But, we'll have tests on saturday... Ugh desicions desicions. I should probably stay in it and just take it pass/fail. But I'm really not sure, and I don't have to decide until next week so that's good.

Then after my class I went to go check on my student ID card (not ready yet ugh) and then went on an adventure to rent a bike. Succeeded in renting the bike, but riding it is a whole different story... I almost ran people over and then ran into a bush trying to avoid running over an old lady (I figure I probably made the right choice about that, but it was humiliating and kind of hurt.) Then again, I was an idiot and decided to ride home through the busiest part of town where there are only sidewalks (no roads or bike paths). So, maybe I deserved it a little. Feeling so off-kilter on a bike though did make me rethink my plans to immediately jet off for the pool (I think I'll save that for tomorrow or friday, even though I CANNOT wait to swim, I don't want to die just yet- I need some practice on my bike). Tomorrow morning I'm going to ride it around near my house I think before heading to class (class at 1 and 4 tomorrow). And then, hopefully, hopefully I'll be comfortable enough on the bike to try the 4.5 km ride to the pool (I know 4.5 km isn't that long, but its about 4.5 km's farther than I've ridden in like 5 years, so I'm easing into it lol) And that brings us up to now: I'm blogging and avoiding my bike for the rest of today haha.

Goals for tomorrow: get lunch stuff from the grocery store, ride my bike around and not crash into/run over/injure anything or anyone (including myself), get my student card and get to class on time! make if i'm especially motivated i'll go to Monoprix and get some paper and the bookstore for a english-french pocket dictionary... but that may be too ambitious ;)

so, till later, tu me manques et je t'aime!