Class is at 18 o'clock.

First week at CIDEF = complete. After the happy confirmation from Dr. Malicote that all my class credit hours come back (and don't get halved), I'm taking 18 hours. I fiddled with the idea of taking 21, which in America is a seriously over-loaded semester. Classes are a little different here-- on the one hand, at UNC-A, a 3 hour class really only meets 2 1/2 hours a week, 50 minutes x 3 days or 75 minutes x 2 days. Here, a 3 hour class is going to squeeze every last second out of your time-block, and they usually meet 1 hour x 1 day + 2 hours x 1 day, though I do have a class that meets 3 times a week for only an hour.

(there's a 18:00-19:00 class on Monday that doesn't show up here)

So even though for my 18 hours of class I'll be in class more, I won't have quite so much to do outside of class. None of my classes have final papers, mid-term papers, or any of the big projects I'm used to being assigned. Since CIDEF is more on an American system of scholarship than UCO, the full-fledged, normal French university, I'll still have homework and a few presentations, but it's definitely not going to be like at home, where I probably spend 2 hours each day or more on assignments. So, once I'm out of class for the day, I'm usually pretty free, and right now, it's really ennuyeux. I haven't quite fallen into a good routine, and I haven't received the Student ID card yet that will let me check books out of the library. Hence the temptation to take on another class.

Here's what I'm going to register for on Monday: a mandatory Language class (6), Grammar (3), Oral Expression (3), Phonetics (3), English-French translation (3). I think the last class is going to be my hardest. I met a girl who has been at CIDEF since October, and she told me that she's got a little job practicing English with two high school girls. That might not be a bad way to use some time and make a couple of euros. I think I'll look into the ads around school.

I went out last night with Liana, Amy, Gabi, and Nikki, and we had a really, really good time, even though our cheese party consisted of 3 stinky cheeses and 1/2 of a kind-of-tasty cheese. Oh well, we're learning. And we're all seriously hankering for nachos and queso dip.