Strasblog Part Three: Into the Third Week!

As I sat down to compose this blog, paused to think of the things I had done this week, a thought cropped into my head... "haven’t I just published a part? Like yesterday?" The answer of course is no, I revealed Part Two last Sunday. But the fact that last Sunday feels like yesterday, and my departure from Peterborough feels like the day before that has made me really wonder where time is going; is France in a Sky Plus-esque fast forward phase or something?! Crazy stuff...

Anyway this week, whilst not as topsy-turvy as the last two, has had the usual cases of ups and downs that have come to define my time in France. On the plus side, I have finally sorted out the mess that has been my timetable, exams and essays. This has been going on all week, and what better place to start than at the beginning... Monday.

Monday didn’t start out too badly; I had a pretty decent lecture in the morning and in the afternoon someone actually chose to have me in their group for the seminar presentations. It was incredible. Things took a turn for the worse when the lecturer told us we had an exam next week, something I was slightly concerned about mainly for the fact that no one had thought it necessary to tell me how French exams work, or if I could get out of them for being a foreign student.

Tuesday was the turning point this week, and for once I blamed my lecturer for talking absolute nonsense for five hours. I had stopped listening about halfway in, and this had left me prone to an out-of-the-blue question posed by the lecturer. I blagged a response and, without my knowledge, had accidentally signed myself up to an enormous piece of semester coursework. "That’s it" I thought, "Time to sort out exactly what I have to do for this. I can’t carry on for much longer having no idea what the coursework really involves". I got home, opened the laptop and composed some beautifully written emails that basically said I have no idea what I’m doing here. Like none.

The reply came on Wednesday. Leicester confirmed that I do not have to do semester coursework, only have to do twelve hours a week and can ask to complete exams as coursework rather than timed papers. It was like a wonderful epiphany had cleared my mind and lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders. All it took was a simple trip to the history office on Thursday to clear up the mess, and boom! I was done!

So here I am on Friday, with a heck of a lot more time on my hands! What am I going to do with it? We’ll have to wait and see, and if that isn’t a reason to read Part Four next week then I don’t know what is...

À plus tard les amis!

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