Fabulous People

Jim is amazing and I think that one of his chief assets is his ability to network. He has brought in several new and wonderful people to our class . . .
The first was Ruel Tyson, a Religious Studies Professor from Chapel Hill. I was a little afraid of him in class because he was talking on a completely different level than I am able to think and I felt several steps behind. Our readings from last week were selected by him and all concerned judgment. I am not a philosophy person and I did not really enjoy the readings so I wrote about the reasons why I judged this material unappetizing, mostly because I had no great insight to share. So the whole class I was a little afraid that he would call me out as the idiot in the class who was unable to grasp the material or as the person who had insulted him by not liking his readings (it is almost always easier to be brave from a distance). However, at dinner, as always, such barriers are broken. It was grand fun to listen to him talk about all sorts of things: books, Yale Divinity School, Soren Kierkegaard, etc. And when I went to thank him for coming all the way to France at the end, he said "You're Taylor, eh? The major?" and that I brought up some interesting points and that he wanted to talk with me about the paper when we return to UNC next year. He pointed out something about myself that is pretty basic and probably obvious to everyone but me: I'm a one-on-one person. I guess that I'm kind of selfish in that I don't particularly like to share people or compete for attention. And I think that the best/deepest interactions/conversations happen when one isn't distracted. Not to say that I don't like groups of people often, but I also like that one-on-one time a lot. Maybe I'm just like everyone else in that. I just thought that it was an interesting observation, especially since he'd met me hours before. He also told me that I had a cameo face. I guess that means I should wear lots of turtlenecks? For dinner that night we had salad, coq au vin, cheeses, and a chocolate tart. My Aunt Elizabeth asked me about cheeses, so here goes: they taste real here. Kind of like the first time I tasted natural peanut butter (just peanuts) rather than normal peanut butter. Some are creamy, some are hard, some are sweet, some are "stinky" (but delicious). We had one covered in truffle and one covered in raisins. All have been wonderful; normally consumed with bread (except for the hardest ones). I just like cheese in general (especially as a semi-vegetarian) so I'm not as discriminating as I probably should be. Just know that French cheese is delicious.
Tuesday we had two new teachers: Maggie Chevallier for Europe and Economics and Veronique Assadas for Film History. Both are going to be fabulous. With Maggie's class, I am dragging up my memories of comparative government in high school and the origins of the EU. It should be a highly discussion based class and very practical - we might all go to Strasbourg together to visit the government of EU! Vero's class is going to be fabulous - I think that I just love arts appreciation classes in general. Plus, we get to watch Chocolat in that class! I am so excited! Definitely one of my favorite movies and one of hers as well, so I have a feeling that I'll like the plupart of films that she shows.
This morning we had our French placement test, which coincidentally was the same day as the first strike that I've experienced in France. I was lucky because I was alerted of the strike 45 minutes ahead of time and lucky because my host mother's boyfriend was able to drive me to the school (about an hour's walk). All of the other students in the program went to lunch together; I had fish with curry sauce, which was really delicious. Then some of us went to see "Bobby", which I really liked. I was distracted the first half by trying to locate a plot, but if one understands that it is trying to provide a snapshot of a time rather than one single plotline, it is fabulous. I highly recommend it. Then I did something terrible: I went food shopping at the local organic store. We are technically supposed to provide all lunches and 3 dinners per week for ourselves, so I bought some provisions: noisettes, chocolat, haricots, riz, et couscous. I know that I am supposed to immerse myself in the community and eat everything they eat, but I think that I am allowed to cook and eat Rachel-food when it is just me.
Love to all,
Rachel