May 20th Tuesday

I got up right before my alarm at 8:54am. I got a text from Karuna asking which class was first. We’d had some schedule changes and we had two classes that day. I debated responding and eventually told her we had Howorth first. I got up and had bread with butter, orange jam and apricot jam. I got ready and packed up all my things for class. We headed toward the class building and had class with Howorth. Karuna didn’t show up. We were discussing the transatlantic relations of the ESDP.

After class we had a lunch break. I had a quiche Lorraine with a vanilla yogurt and bottle of water. The quiche was another delicious warm option. I had lunch with Amanda. After, I was in the péniche and ran into Milva. I sat down with her and we talked for a while. Eventually, we got up to go to Astrid’s office. We’d received an email saying that our grades were ready to pick up. I was nervous and excited to see the grades since we still didn’t know how the previous semester had gone. Milva and I walked over together. On the way, we passed David and John who had just come from Astrid’s with their grades. They’d both done amazingly well. They’d gotten 16s and 18s. I was hopeful I’d have similar grades but not really expecting them.

We arrived at Astrid’s and picked up our papers. I’d gotten much lower grades than David and John so I was a little sad. I had to tell myself later that my grades weren’t terrible. They just weren’t as amazing as the others’. The grades in France are out of 20. A 10 is the lowest passing grade. It’s impossible to get a 20 and very very hard to get a 19. 16 to 18 are very good grades. The papers showed us what our grade was and what the highest and lowest grades of the class were. My lowest grade was a 12 which is a low grade but not terrible. That was in Irondelle’s class (highest 18 and lowest 11). I wasn’t very surprised actually. My essay wasn’t that great for his class. I’d written it very quickly. He also said that my class participation was weak. That was definitely true since I never opened my mouth once in his class. I could never understand the question he was asking because he spoke so fast. His comment said “the essay is satisfactory but the participation is insufficient despite perfect attendance.” I had been hoping that the perfect attendance would have carried me more.

My next highest grade was in Grossman’s class. I got a 13. The highest grade was a 16 and the lowest was a 12. When I looked at the breakdown of the grades, I got a 14 on my paper and a 12 on my participation. So I’d actually gotten a 14 on my paper! That was a good grade and highly unexpected after the chaos I wrote it in. I couldn’t read his comment because his handwriting is hard to decipher.

My highest grade was a 14 in Padis’ class. His highest grade was 18 and the lowest was 11. I’d written my 9,000 word paper for Padis while I’d only written 3,000 word papers for Grossman and Irondelle. He had more comments on my paper than the other professors had. His overall comment was “bonne participation et un travail méritoire sur la langue.” (good participation and a commendable work on the language.) The comment helped lift my down spirits. I’d submitted a 9,000 word paper (27 pages) to a French editor of a French magazine and he said that I had done well in French. Even though the grade wasn’t that much higher than the others, I felt like it was worth a lot more. I was so happy to read that small sentence.

After getting the grades, we went to our first class with Vivien Schmidt. She is an American who has lived in Europe for parts of her life and now teaches in Boston. She is also married to Jolyon Howorth, our other professor. She has curly gray hair and seems very much like an American professor with a European flair to me. Her class was called L’européanisation des politiques publiques: ‘polity’ et policy’ dans les Etats-membres (The Europeanization of public policies: polity and policy in the member states.) We’d had to choose which class reading we wanted to present. Today, Matteo and Julia were presenting. Of course, Matteo presented another huge and complicated table to describe the readings.

After class, I went with Irene and Christine to Starbucks. We needed to work on our project for Howorth’s class. We were going to present on civil crisis management. I got a chocolat viennois signature to drink. I got a large one and it was delicious. The hot chocolate is better in the Starbucks in Europe. We found some soft chairs in the upper level and sat to discuss the readings. We decided we’d split the readings up and each of us would read and then summarize the readings for the others. We also discussed the structure of the presentation.

Once we’d finished, I walked home. When I got home, Adrienne told me she’d had an unexpected visitor. Apparently Karuna had just dropped by unannounced to say hi to Adrienne. Adrienne told her that she was actually heading to the store so she couldn’t talk long. It was strange that Karuna had not gotten the hint that we resented her taking advantage of us and didn’t want to see her. It was bothersome that she knew the code and could buzz us at any time.

I was feeling really tired. I ended up just having a snack. I had some couscous and some yogurt with apricot jam. After my snack I worked on my class readings and talked to my dad on the phone. I also chatted with Christine online about the project. We worked on it a bit. I even got to chat with Megan for a little while.
Bedtime finally came around 1:40am.