Classes continued:

Morning came too early once again on Thursday. I had another 8 AMer. “Grande Nation: Modern and Contemporary French Foreign Policy.” Fortunately it’s my one English class. Also fortunately, Cassie is also taking it, so I have an American buddy. It’s great because it’s the one class where I feel like I have the upper hand. That may not necessarily be the case, but at least English is my native language which it is not for many of the students in there. This is going to sound mean, but it’s nice to hear the French and other foreign students having to struggle a bit, makes me feel like the playing field is leveled a bit. The teacher was speaking with what sounded like an American accent at first, but then he said a few words kind of weird so it sounded like he had a slight brogue. I guessed Irish. I was wrong. He is French, but born in America and educated in England and at Sciences Po. So he speaks English with a mostly American accent tinged with British and French. It’s interesting. I thought paying attention in English would be easier than in French...but I was wrong about that too. I think I am just not trained to focus for more than 50 mins at a time. It’s the US public school system’s fault. Or at least UF’s.

As soon as class ended I bolted from the room to get to my next class because there are only 15 mins between classes and I had no idea where I was going. I had the address of the building and I found it and walked in to the courtyard and there was a big glass entrance into a deep mahogany interior with an elegant staircase. I read the sign on the window and it said something about Sciences Po but it didn’t list room numbers. I walked into the foyer and was hesitating about what to do next when another girl, who was evidently doing the same thing, asked me if I was looking for a Sciences Po class. I said yes and she asked which room. She was looking for the same class and we decided it might be on the fifth floor since the room number was listed as 510. We climbed all the way up to the fifth floor and there was the Sciences Po masters program office and a lady who told us we were not in the right building. Evidently there are two entrances at the same address and they are “technically” in the same building but the two portions of the building are not connected. So said go back down and out and look for a glass door, she told us. We sighed and climbed back down the 5 flights of stairs and when we got to the bottom we walked towards the courtyard and another glass entrance but before we got there a woman taking a cigarette break asked if she could help us. I was glad the other girl with me was a French student because she did all the talking and kept me from having to think on my feet too much. We said we were looking for a class room and she said, “But noo, you have to go back out onto the street and turn left and walk down to a glass door and then you will find the classrooms. We were both feeling a little frustrated and dumb I think, but at least we weren’t alone. So we finally find the classroom and we were almost late. We sat there for about 5 minutes and then the guy who works the welcome desk in that building came in and said that he thought our class had been canceled. If so it wasn’t something they had bothered to tell the students. All of us were present for the discussion section of my Mid-East class. No one really knew what to do, so we decided we would give the professor a few minutes to show up and then leave. We waited until 15 past time for class to start and then came to the consensus that we were not in fact having class. I was annoyed, but it wasn’t a big deal since I was already up for a class before. Although some of the other students who had it as their first class of the day were understandably less than thrilled with waking up for no reason. At least it gave me the rest of the day to run errands and get stuff ready for me to leave for the weekend the next day.
-Lyndsey