Ma Famille!

Its been a bit of a long week for me. My first exam was last Friday, and I had a paper (dissertation in french) due on Sunday afternoon... and my family is here!

The dissertation was particularly hard. The French have a different writing style than the American's. What is known as a 5-Paragraph Essay with a thesis statement in the United States would probably get a failing grade here. In France the "thesis" goes at the end of the essay. The writer works toward discovering the point of the essay. In place of a thesis, a french dissertation begins with a problematique, or a set of questions that proposes what the paper is going to discuss. I find that I actually write better in this form, unfortunately since I have to write in French, that little advantage is thrown entirely out the window. It's definitely slow going. The Chicago Center tries to help us as much as they can, however. They set up a series of meetings for us with "correcters" in which we sit down with a french person and go over format and language. Its totally helpful, although a bit time consuming.

The exam was no big. Just two hours on about 1000 years of history. It focused primarily on religion, although there was a bit of politics in it too (which was totally fab for me).

Friday after I sat my exam I went to go fetch my family from the metro station. Miraculously I got there and they were standing right outside. We ate lunch at a cute cafe across from their hotel, which was fun because the waitress was really awesome and helpful. Saturday, after my English conversation (which was totally fun), we met up at Notre Dame, and explored the Latin Quarter together, including the Jardin de Plantes. We got dinner at the Franprix (supermarket) on the Rue de Mouffetard, which is a pedestrian only street with food stores all over the place. We ended up getting a fried chicken and potatoes from a bucherie instead though. It was fab. Sunday I met up with the fam at the Musee d'Orsay. After we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, and then I headed home to do homework.

Its been totally great having my family here. Its fun to see them, and fun to share this city with them. I'll be sad to see them go on Thursday, but I'm glad they got to see this place, because it is definitely going to be an important piece of my life.