Day 3: Orientation

Today was my first day really interacting with IES (the study abroad organization I am with). They were all very nice and made everyone feel very comfortable right away. I had to take the metro to get to the place where the orientation was happening, and I was pretty nervous about that because it was my first time taking the metro by myself and I knew it was going to be rush hour. It was very crowded by not at all bad, and I made it to the orientation with plenty of time to spare. Most of the students didn't know anyone else so it was easy to make friends because everyone was in the same boat. I met a few really nice people that I didn't know, and met up with a friend from Tulane. It feels nice to have friends in Paris that, even if I don't know them very well yet, I feel comfortable calling up and asking if they want to do something with me. Orientation was not terribly exciting, it was a lot of information about saftey, immigration, getting around Paris, and other practical aspects. Absolutly everything was done in French which for some reason I wasn't really expecting, so it was really my first full day interacting with people all day in French (since I didn't talk to anyone for an extended amount of time except for my host family yesterday). Thankfuly it wasn't too overwhelming and I understood everything, at this point it actually feels natural to be interacting in French. I was really plesently suprised that all the students were trying really hard to converse with eachother in french, which is good because it helped me get in the hang of just speaking french and not being embarrased if what I said wasn't perfect. It shocked me how many Tulane students are at IES, when we were eating lunch I was talking to some guys sitting next to me and they were from Tulane which was funny because I had never seen them before and apparently one of them lived in the same dorm as me last year only on the 3rd floor instead of the 4th. I did have one moment of extreem panic and homesickness when they did a lecture on safety. I am so used to Menlo Park being extreemly safe and I know how to be safe in New Orleans that it is really scary to think about being in a big city where I don't know all the risks. It definatly made me want to hop on a plane home that instant because I was sure that I would be mugged on the metro home that night, but I eventually calmed down and decided that they tell us this stuff not to frighten us, but to make us aware of our surrounings and aware of how to proactivly protect ourselves. Other than that everything went well, and I am excited for the rest of orientation which will hopefully be more interesting. This evening was an interesting one, the 11 year old son through a temper tandtrum at his mother because he didn't want to do his homework. It wasn't a bad temper tantrum, but he was definatly still in a bad mood at dinner, and when his father found out why things got really awkward. I guess his father considered it completely unacceptable that his son had thrown a tantrum when I was home to hear it, even though I said that I understand and that its no big deal. Anyways the son got punished, and I felt a little guilty because I knew the reson he was in so much trouble was because I was there to witness it. I still definatly have some jet lag to get rid of, I woke up at 5 am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so now I am completely exhausted. I can't quite bring myself to go to bed at 8:45 pm though so I think I will study some before I go to sleep, I have my language placement test for IES tomorrow morning and I definatly need to review le subjonctive!