January 30th Wednesday

I had my alarm set for 8:30 but I didn’t get up until 9:00am. We all got ready to go to our first class. I ate my fruit muesli cereal and yogurt again for breakfast. We walked toward class fearing we might be a little late. We actually arrived before anyone else.

Karuna joined us in class again. I really like Padis’ classes. He’s much easier to understand because he talks so slow.

We stopped by the cafeteria to grab lunch afterward. I love the cheap little menus they have. I was able to get a ham baguette sandwich, an apple, and an orange juice for €2.80. It’s definitely much cheaper than anything near our house. This was why we grabbed some lunch and then took it back to the apartment. It was raining pretty steadily outside and I’d left my umbrella at home. I snuck random bites of my sandwich as we hurried home. Once there, I hooked up my computer to charge it for the next class and ate my lunch. I also read a bit for Irondelle’s class.

We made our way back over toward school. Irondelle’s class went better comprehension-wise. I even almost spoke in class but I wasn’t quite certain of the answer so I stayed quiet and timid.

After class Amanda invited me to go to a round table with her that evening. Adrienne and Karuna ran off to try to catch Astrid and talk about the program. Leonel joined Amanda and me. First we stopped off at my apartment since it was on the way. I made myself a little peanut butter and honey sandwich for a snack to hold myself over. I grabbed an iced tea for the road.

Leonel’s friend called him and needed his help for something so Leonel had to go. It was just Amanda and me. We walked down Rue de l’Université. This was the same group that Adrienne and I had gone to for the talk about renewable energy. The talk tonight was called “D’où vient le malaise de la jeunesse française?” (Why is the French youth so upset?) It was a very interesting talk. The statistics were also very interesting. When asked the question “Do you think you will have a good job someday?” 60% of the American youth said yes when only 27% of the French youth said yes. I didn’t realize that Americans are so optimistic but with all the questions asked I found that I would answer yes as well. I have lots of magazines and books from it with the rest of the statistics. It was a very interesting discussion. I am excited to go to the next week’s presentation as well. It’s amazing that I get to go to such neat presentations for free.

Amanda and I walked back to my house from the presentation. I was going to try to pick up some food from the Chinese takeout place, but when I called Karuna to see what she might want she told me they’d made dinner. Amanda and I went up so that she could get her bags. Karuna was in the kitchen cooking away. She had made beef patties, a mixture of pasta and Mediterranean vegetables, and rice. It was all very good.

We did not do much after dinner. We pretty much messed around online and went to bed.