La Rentree

Monday was a big day in France. “La Rentrée”, the French equivalent of “Back-to-school”. It’s a big deal around here, even if you don’t have school aged children. The French education system is national, not like the state based education system in the U.S., so everyone from l’école maternelle (preschool) up to lycée (high school) goes back to school on the same day. Only college students, comme moi, wait until October to begin class. August is the month most of the French go on vacation and they all leave Paris, so for the last week or so everyone has been coming back in preparation for the first day of school. The stores are stocked up on school supplies and have sales on clothes and backpacks and the media is saturated with stories about education and the changes this year, etc. Education is serious business in France, but more on that later.

So aside from Monday being la rentrée for all the kids in France, it was also in a sense la rentrée for me as well because it was our first day of “orientation”. I was a little nervous, but mostly just excited to be around other students and hopefully make some friends. I’m pretty independent so I don’t mind being on my own. But after 5 days in the city with no one to hang out with and little personal contact, I was starting to crave some social interaction. There was a breakfast for all the international students at 8:30 and that is when I was under the impression the “orientation” program began. So I get to the main building of the school and the common areas are just jam packed with international students, and no one really knows what’s going on or what we’re supposed to do. So I start a conversation with an American girl next to me so that I have someone to hang out with. Her name was Julie from Boston i think, and it was really nice to have another American who also had no clue what was going on to talk with. We all thought that there was going to be some sort of official welcome and speech and directions of some sort, but that was not the case. Everyone just stood around drinking coffee and being confused until it was time for the first rotation of french classes to start. Everyone is divided into classes based on French proficiency on a written test we had to mail in and half of the classes meet in the morning and half meet in the afternoons. My class is from 9:30-12:30 Monday through Friday. I was really surprised by the number of students who are here and speak little or no French. Of course, Sciences-Po recently started offering classes in English so technically you only have to prove proficiency in whichever language you want to take your classes in.

All the french class groups are named after Metro stops. Mine is Republique. Anyway so we get to class and are all sitting down and the teacher is starting her introduction when...my cell phone starts ringing because I hadn’t figured how to put it on silent yet and I didn’t think I needed to because who is going to call me on it?! So I got a stern “pas de portables s’il vous plait” but the teacher didn’t make a big deal since we had just sat down and it was the first day. So I was surprised but the french teacher seemed really nice. She did explain though that this class is not a model for what our french classes will be like during the semester. This one is much more informal and based on speaking, where usually it is mostly grammar and writing. I don’t know if I just stink at written french or what, because obviously they placed me in this level, but it isn’t as much of a challenge to me as it seems to be for most of the others in the class, but it is still a good review and I like all the students. We started off with the typical introductions so everyone could build up their courage speaking. My particular class is comprised of 5 Americans, 2 Germans, 1 Turk, 1 New Zealander, 1 Dutch, 1 Danish, 1 Czech, 1 Japanese, and 1 Taiwanese.

It has been really easy to make friends because everyone is in the same situation, thrown into a foreign country with no, or only a few, people that they know, so everyone is pretty accepting and open. Of course people tend to lean towards people who share the same cultural or lingual background. The two default languages are french and english, but not everyone speaks both, and not everyone speaks them at the same level, so when you meet someone you often have to ask what language they’d rather speak. For the most part it is english, but there are some who are more comfortable in french. Conversations can get crazy when you have a mixed group because they often cover about 4 or 5 languages. You’ll be speaking english half the time and then people will randomly switch into french, and then if there are more than one person from the same country they’ll start talking to each other in their native language. It’s really awesome, but sometimes it gets confusing because I forget which language I am supposed to be speaking. I’ll forget and start speaking french to an American and they look at me weird until I realize it. But there are seriously people from all over the world, and it is really cool to meet them and get to learn about their cultures and such. It’s also nice to have other Americans to hang out with, although for some reason almost everyone that I’ve met is from the northeast or midwest, practically no one from the south.

Anyway, three hours of french class passed fairly quickly. The Welcome Program has all these social activities planned, but you are supposed to sign up for most of them because there are limits on how many can they can accommodate and some of them cost extra, but to sign up you had to stand in three different lines depending on the kind of activity and there were hundreds of students trying to do this all at once. Anyway it was a really bad system but we had to do it. However the lines didn’t reopen til the afternoon so some of the other students from class decided to go grab lunch in the meantime. We got sandwiches from a little bakery and then we needed a place to eat. Erin, the girl from New Zealand, lives around the corner from the school so she suggested we go eat in her courtyard. We had just sat down, about five of us, when her concierge appears. (Most apartment buildings have a concierge who is like the superintendent/ caretaker person who takes out the trash, signs for deliveries, etc. ) Anyway, he concierge appears and doesn’t look happy. Erin goes over to introduce herself because the concierge had refused to answer the door when she and her landlady went to make the introductions. But the concierge is angry and I can hear her indignantly demanding what we are doing there. Erin tried to explain that she lived there and we were just around the corner from school. “Well, if you want to eat with your friends you can take them to your apartment! One eats in a restaurant, not a courtyard!” We sheepishly left and went back to school.

There we proceeded to wait in line for a long time to sign up for activities. It wasn’t too boring because it gave us time to get to know each other and to discuss the complications of too many kinds of english.

Erin: and do you know what “lollies” is?
Me: do i know what what is?
Erin: Lollies. Like fizzies.
Brian: fuzzy? You mean fleece?
Erin: What?
Brian: We call them sweatshirts.
Erin: Huh?
Brian: You know, those things (points to kid in sweatshirt)
Erin: What are you talking about?
Brian: What are you talking about?
Erin: Lollies, sweeties
Brian: You call sweatshirts lollies?
Erin: Nooo, lollies! You know, that little kids eat!

During this conversation I was laughing hysterically because they were speaking the same language and had no idea what they were talking about. Erin was trying to explain that in New Zealand they use the term lollies to refer to any kind of candy, but the combination of different word usage and her accent (which is awesome, but should not be confused with an Australian accent because as I’ve been told numerous times “THEY’RE NOT THE SAME THING!”), anyway Brian who is from Seattle was having a hard time understanding. This scene repeats itself at least once a day with someone from another country because sometimes language causes more problems than it solves, but it is always entertaining.

The activity that evening was a picnic on the Seine. I was on my way out of the school and walking through the entryway when I hear someone say my name I think. But then I’m like, I only know about 10 people so who can it be. But there is a guy sitting on the bench and when I look his way he waves. I smile and say hey, but I have no idea who he is or why he knows who I am. He starts to have a conversation with me and so I just go ahead and ask him how I know him. He smiles and then does the Gator chomp. It was Ryan, the one other UF student at Sciences-Po this semester, who I’d never actually met before. We had messaged on facebook a bit months ago when we were both trying to figure out the paperwork, but just based on that I never would have been able to pick him out of a crowd. But it was nice to finally meet my fellow Gator at Sciences-Po. So at least I’ll have one other person to share my love of Orange and Blue.

So I ran home to ditch my heavy laptop bag and change into a warmer sweater for the evening and then met back at the school. A lot of students came and we all walked to the Seine and then sat down and ate on a bridge. I should mention that all the welcome activities are led my welcome programme leaders who are Science-Po students. I feel like I am back in high school with Link Crew leaders. They wear matching bright T-shirts so you can find them and try to be energetic and make sure we don’t get lost. I never would have imagined a french university would do it the same way. The picnic was nice, evening falling on the Seine and meeting more new people. We stayed until it got dark and we all got cold and then I headed home to collapse into bed. It was a long day, but lots of fun to be around other international students.