Expose

Hello again!

I apologize for the lateness of my post, but I have been working on my first expose (to be presented tomorrow) and I never got around to the blog. As for the past week and a half, it has been pretty eventful. We started classes again last week, and I have spent the last week and a half gearing up for my presentation tomorrow and my fiche bibliographique (document explanation) for a week from tomorrow.

My expose is on a subject of my choosing that compares something in the United States and France, so I decided to go with Sports. As usual, I realized that I have too much to talk about and had to significantly limit the presentation from what I was initially planning. At first, I had planned a large numeric analysis of the stadium sizes, number of foreign players, average attendance for different sports...as you can imagine that was beginning to be a little overwhelming, not to mention I doubt the other members of my class would be too interested in a bunch of statistics. So, I decided to do something far simpler. It is now a comparison of the most popular sports in each country, and how the two are becoming much more similar (eg. Soccer is growing in the U.S. and Basketball in France). I have made less progress on my fiche and it is far less interesting so I won't bore you with the details.

As for my life outside of school, it has been relatively uneventful. We had soccer practice again last week after our break and people are starting to get pretty excited about the 'Crit ( 'Monarcrit' - the large competition of all the Sciences Po schools). In fact, a bunch of students from Sciences Po Paris invaded the IEP the other day dressed in odd outfits in yellow (their school color for the competition), interrupted some classes, and stirred up the rivalry with some of the students here. I had initially not been able to go because the sign-up happens in the fall and the waiting list was already quite long, but a friend could no longer go and offered me their spot. I am very excited now because it means that I will get to play in many competitive games and get to see what the French school spirit is like. As most of you probably know, I am just a teeny bit competitive when it comes to anything with a winner (and several things without one...), so I think they are in for a surprise when our schools name is on the line. It is a bit expensive (130 euros), but it is a three day trip (25,26,27) which includes the train to and from Paris, all of our food and activities, and some school gear. Normally I could not get to and from Paris for less than 100 euros so I figured it was worth the trip. Sadly, however, I will be missing the Prospect High School exchange by less than 1 day! I had spoken with Mr. Russell about trying to meet up with the class while they were there, but they leave on the 24th and that is the day of my fiche presentation.

I also finally got to play some piano in privacy this weekend. I found out where the practice rooms at Rennes 1 are and wandered over there to put some time in. The place is half an hour from where I live and they only have two practice rooms in total (for use with any instrument), one with an upright piano and one with an electronic piano. The room with the upright was taken, but I was not feeling too picky and was happy to play the electronic. I stayed in there for a few hours to get my fix and then was on my way. I found out the rooms can be reserved so I will likely be doing that for a couple of hours every Friday from now on.

I believe that is all that I have for this update, besides some of the usual complaints about the French system. For example, the birth certificate translation that I gave to school and I was told would be given to SMEBA, my insurer, did not get there so I received a letter asking for it from SMEBA. I am still receiving monthly bills from the housing office and the amount payable is going up, implying that the IEP has yet to pay it. We, of course, checked in with the housing office to correct this and they told us not to worry because our name is on a list saying we don't pay, which apparently has not stopped them from sending a bill. Most importantly, I still have yet to receive my stipend for the month of March and it is currently more than half way through the month. I've determined that the French do not quite understand the benefits of online banking, such as the fact that transactions can be immediately transferred from one place or updated to an online bank statement. While this is extremely frustrating (as currently have no money left in my French account), there is not much I can do about it but complain, which I suppose is why I have a blog :).

That is all for now, I will be updating you again soon with the results of expose (fingers crossed!) and the activities of the rest of my week. Hope all is well in the good old U.S. of A. and my regards to anyone with family/friends in Japan.

A bientot

Tom