Around the World...and then some

First week of classes

This whole past week has felt very much like the first week of high school, except in all the good ways. I go to class at all too early an hour (9:00...completely unacceptable), have lunch, go to more class, and come home. Classes seem good; teachers seem nice enough. And, for the most part, I find myself understanding what they're talking about. I've sat at lunch with a group of people from one class, only knowing one of their names, and only understand about 50% of the conversation, but I sat with them nevertheless. One day, I sat with an American girl from one of my classes, understood a whole lot more of the conversation, and smiled for making friends, even American ones. As far as exciting, this week was anything but; however, it seemed like a very normal first week, and that alone made me happy.

As far as classes go, I'm really satisified with my schedule. The 9AMs almost every day are balanced out by no class on Fridays, which is perfect for traveling. I'm taking lots and lots of linguistics classes that Middlebury would never offer in a million years (lexicology, phonology, history of the French language), one history of cinema class, translation and interpretation. My translation and interpretation classes are the ones I'm most excited for. In each of them, there are French students and anglophone students, and sometimes we translate from French to English, sometimes from English to French, and we discuss what you can and can't say in each language. It seems like great practice for my language skills, and is really interesting as well.

I looked at the school calendar today, and with adding in breaks and trips I already am planning on taking, I can practically feel the semester whooshing by my face already. But as long as time flies when you're having fun, I suppose I'm ok with that...

posted by Becky @ 12:54 PM