Would you like to Study a little?
So, I've started talking with people about what's going to be happening next semester when I'm enrolled in the Catho, and well its a little worrying...Basically I'm completely positive that the French school system is insane. I started out by talking to Marrion and Sue, Marrion went to the Catho, but its been a couple years since she's been there, so I'm really hoping that maybe a couple of things have changed. One of the reasons that I started asking her about it, is beacuse I'm planning on taking a trip to Germany to see a friend the first weekend in March, so I asked Sue if it was going to be easier to miss school while I was at the Catho, and she was saying that it's basically going to be the same. And I was saying that I was just probably going to miss one Friday, and then she was like there aren't really classes on Friday, and I got really excited about that. Then she followed that up with, "that's usually because they have test's on Fridays". And according to Marrion there short tests are three hours long! That's not short! Oh and it gets even better, I was talking to a couple of French students because I was helping out in their class, and apparently all class are 3 hours, and you tend to go to them one after the other after the other until the end of the day. I guess I'm not really going to know until I'm completely enrolled but the thoughts are a little terrifying because well I come from Willamette, where I only take 12 hours a week. Even right now the schedule is very different then what I'm used to. For example, on Mondays I don't start until 1:30 and then I only have 2 hours of classes. But on Thursday I start at 8:30, have one hour of class, and then I have a five hour break, where I do nothing, because its not that beneficial to go home, and I tell myself that I'm going to do homework or something productive, but I tend not to. And then on Friday I have classes from 10:15 straight to 4:45. I know that I'm here to learn and all that fun stuff, but I'm also here to experience the culture and sometimes don't see how I'm doing that when I'm stuck in a classroom for 16 hours a week. I can see how it could be beneficial to French students, but at the same time I feel like if I was a student here that I would get burnt out so quickly having to be in the class that long. I guess I'll have to see how things play out next semester...At the very least it'll be interesting.