Graduation ceremony

Hello readers, this time around I would like to tell you about the days I spent visiting my friend in Paris and how my experience was like attending a graduation ceremony in the Diderot University. This was the first time I was attending such a ceremony other than the ones I had attended to at my home university (University of Perugia, Italy) and I noticed some diffrences which gave me a new insight of how things roll around here.

The big day

Since the graduation was scheduled to be in the afternoon there was no rush in waking up early, but nonetheless, a group of friends were coming for a get-together later that evening which meant that we had to prepare the food in advance so that was the first task to take care of that morning. But y'all know how it is when you start preparing food, it is hard to finish getting everything ready on time; at around 14:00 a friend of ours came by to pick me, another friend and of course the soon to be called graduate and drove us to the university.

After hitting some wrong turns and trying to avoid the infamous Parisian traffic as much as we could, we got to the big campus area and the external apperance of this buildings just caught my attention: the vibrant and strong colours they had on their facade with the day light gave them such grace that I for once never noticed.

The big ceremony

It all took place in a small hall with a red carpet and red cinema-like armchairs and as the time went on it started getting full until people had to stand at the end of the hall. Let me start by pointing out one big difference compared to how we did it in my home university and that is: as the soon to graduate students were being called upfront to receive their degree, a representative professor was giving for all of the students a quite elaborate description of their portfolio, speaking also about personal and accademical developments throughout their studies. This fact took me off guard because in my home university I am not sure if my professors have such detailed information about the students to describe them with such care and attention. Of course I am not expecting every professor in my university to do the same but one thing is for sure, that this shows that there is a relationship between the student (knowledge seeker) and the professor (knowledge giver) and that the gap between these two figures is such that by the end of the day the knowledge giver was able to speak about his knowledge seeker in front of a crowd without deviating from the real traits of the student.

Another funny thing that happened but I suppose it was just an accident, was that the responsible person that had to sign on the graduates degree certificate was running late due to traffic and the best part was that the othe panel members were very calm and actually started to make some funny jokes about it. Though my French is in a status that I refer to as 'work in progress' I was understanding most of the talking (except for one of the panel's member presumbly a professor, who spoke with a rather odd accent) and I was loving the French flowing through my ears. I guess I've always had an apretiation for this language.

Reception time

By the time every one had their degree certificates and had their pictures taken it was then time for the delight or as one would say 'la cerise sur le gâteau': outside the small hall there was an exquisite assortment of canapes with one side dedicated to salty and another to sweet treats. I quickly made my way to where I saw this lovely dessert:

Apart from a couple of other things I tried I continued to go back for more of this sweet yellow soft dessert. Right on one corner I found the unbeatable French champagne and the rest was history... What better way to celebrate other than taking a sip of that bubbly champagne and letting it give you that tickly feeling on your tongue.

By the end of this whole celebration, as a tradition, I had to take a souvenir to bring back home with me, something that would remind me of that day, so I took the champagne glass I was drinking from. What can I say, souvenirs are part of someone who is going around places and don't get me wrong, I do this beacuse I firmly believe in the simple concept of exchange material goods and not owning them, maybe I'll expalin this idea next time.

Last day in Paris

So on this day with some friends we went out for lunch to an Ethiopian restaurant in Paris. Even though the first restaurant was closed we managed to find another one and as we got inside I saw these two beautiful Ethiopian women in the kitchen preparing the food and at that instant I was transported back in my home country Ethiopia where our loving mothers were always there to cook good food. Our plate was looking something like this:

As my two other friends were not from Ethiopia, I had to teach them how to eat properly and by that I mean to eat with your fingers, without using cutlery and I have to say they learned fast, maybe it is because they were very hungry!

Talking about Paris without any pictures of the Tour Eiffel is just not doing justice to this city of marvel.

So that's it for now. Cheers for my fellow readers.

(P. S. If anyone knows the name of the yellow dessert, please let me know).