The Wednesday Saga

Once upon a time, there were two little British Erasmus students studying at a French university, who wanted to take a second year literature module. Their quest to study this module was fraught with trials and tribulations, as they battled the evil French Administration to get to their first class. Let me tell you the tale...

PART 1

I had a somewhat...interesting morning last Wednesday. Having finally established that classes did indeed start last week (despite us having received no start date or information on how to sign up, even though it's completely different to last semester) and designed my timetable once more, I naively thought that maybe I had finally cracked the French administrative system. How wrong I was.

Ellie and I arrived at the designated room between just before 9:30am, when our class was meant to start. As there wasn't anyone waiting outside we went straight in and sat down, only to discover we had accidentally stumbled into the end of a sports science lecture! As we were already sat down we decided just to wait, and a couple of minutes later a few other latecomers seemed to make the same mistake. At this point the teacher stopped the lecture, and asked these students if they were from Europe...they said they weren't, and she then turned to all of us and explained in a fairly patronising way that this wasn't our class, that she would leave and another teacher would come in and take our lecture. Not sure that was entirely necessary, but there we go: sadly I'm fairly used to French teachers making fun of non-French students at the front of classes, so we just stayed where we were. But as time went on she showed no signs of slowing down: more students came in, and she 'jokingly' asked one of them if they were a teacher (the poor girl looked very confused and worried!)...at one point she just got up and left the room for a couple of minutes right in the middle of teaching which was odd. At almost 9:50 we finally decided to leave, and went quietly to the door...only to discover she had locked it! (unless someone else had come along in the last 25 minutes and locked it when there was a class inside, which seems unlikely!) So we then had to go back in sheepishly and out the other door. I feel like locking the door was a bit of an over reaction, and when we were walking away I looked behind me and saw her standing in the corridor watching us leave. Kind of weird, but she let us go so I guess it could have been worse!!

To try and figure out where we had gone wrong, we went to the big emplois du temps timetables in the main department building: neither the lecture nor any of the seminars for our module were there, even though they had been a mere 48 hours before. Panicking slightly that we were going to have to try and find 6 credits from somewhere else, we went to the department secretary, who was very friendly and checked it for us. She confirmed that the module wasn't there, and when I asked if it had been cancelled, she said yes. I was ready to leave and spend the day moaning about the complete disorganisation of French university, but luckily Ellie had the sense to double check whether the module was totally cancelled or not: at this the secretary assured us that no it wasn't completely cancelled, the class would be back on next week. Great.

So there we have it...a morning of sports science lectures, teachers locking us in lecture theatres, timetables changing within a couple of days with no warning, and answers completely changing based on whether a question has the word 'completely' in or not. Oh France....what are we going to do with you?!

At this point, I foolishly thought our troubles with this module were over. Oh how wrong I was...

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PART 2

So this morning, Ellie and I went back to Amphi B2 at 9:30 for take 2 of our battle with this module: I had already checked both the paper timetable (which hadn't been updated since last week) and the online timetable (which said the module was on as we expected, in this room and at this time) earlier in the week. When we arrived, we were thankfully not greeted by a room full of sports science students....in fact, there were only 6 people in there. Including us. This was obviously a problem, and even the other French students didn't know what was going on. Ellie checked the online timetable again, and the module wasn't on there...once again the timetable had changed in the last 48 hours. After waiting a few minutes, one group decided to go and ask secretary whilst I checked the paper timetable again. Although they had now updated the paper timetable to include this week's classes, our module was again nowhere to be seen. The department secretary had told Ellie that the teacher was absent again this week, and that next week's class was supposed to be happening but as he hadn't been here for 2 weeks she wasn't sure. We went back up to the boards to see if there were any other modules we could do, but there weren't any obvious ones on the 2nd year board, so we looked at the 1st year board...and saw a piece of paper under the 1st year timetable from the teacher of our module, telling us he wouldn't be taking his classes today. Apparently a note on the wrong board is sufficient if a class is cancelled for the second week in a row.

So my plan currently is to hope that the module is on next week, as there aren't many other classes I could replace it with, and I don't really want to have to catch up on 2 weeks of work on a different module! So fingers crossed our teacher turns up next week. Stay tuned for the next instalment of the Wednesday Saga, coming to you from an-initially-angry-but-now-fairly-resigned-to-it-all-Erasmus-student.

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PART 3

I thought I'd fill you all in on what happened this morning: firstly, I feel I should say that I had had a pretty rubbish day yesterday, just generally feeling really homesick and unwelcome at uni here, so I really needed today to be better. And thankfully, it was! Both classes were on as we expected, and the teacher was really lovely. Unlike some other teachers here, he was helpful and friendly, and actually acknowledged the struggles of being an Erasmus student and was supportive of that. He gave us an email address we could contact him on if we were panicking, and said we could write our essays in the same structure and style as we would in our own country, which is such a massive help! He was just really welcoming and clear in his explanations, which was exactly what I needed today. He also turned out to be British...his name is Steve, and there was something really comforting about hearing him say English titles every now and then in a very English accent!! So thank you Steve...you really made my day.

I'm back! (both in France and online)

With a new year inevitably comes my resolution to write more blog posts....I can't quite believe it only took 2 months for me to stop posting regularly on my blog, but there we go. In truth, there are a couple of reasons I didn't post last half term: one, I just got out of the habit and kept forgetting, and two, I had quite a few weeks when I felt really homesick, and although I said I wanted to be as honest as possible here I found it really hard to admit I was struggling when I was still actually in it, as opposed to in retrospect. To compensate though, here is a quick summary (with photos!) of a few of the fun things I did last half term:

went to Paris for a weekend to visit some fellow YAers, which happened to coincide with the November shootings...scary stuff. So the weekend was really one of two parts: the first day was full of exploring, catching up with the lovely Sarah who is doing her YA in Spain, and soaking up the beauty of Paris, whereas Day 2 was more about news reports, reassuring people back at home that I was OK, indoor picnics and then wandering round a very sombre yet determined Paris. It was a surreal thing to experience, being so close to something so huge that so many people were talking about around the world, but we didn't hear or see anything which was something of a miracle, and all got back safely, for which I am very grateful!!

The stunning Musée d'Orsay

Ah, belle Paris

Me and Sarah at the end of a wonderful day

These were all over the city the day after the attacks

Love beautiful Parisian streets like this one!

Christmas market shopping in Nantes. There was a lovely little Christmas market in Rennes throughout December, but Nantes definitely outdid us with all their markets! Dani, Ellie and I had a very festive day wandering around the various stalls, buying lots of Christmas presents, and then dinner at a really cute restaurant in the city.

The château nantaise

Dani and Ellie in the main Christmas market

There were so many, that this one was simply called 'the other market'

Tough decisions at the tea stand

Well earned rest at the end of a long day of...ahem...shopping

had my friend Ruth to stay, who is currently doing her YA in Metz in Eastern France. It was lovely to be able to show her round and do all the typical rennais things, such as eating crêpes (of course), going to the science museum in Les Champs Libres, looking round the Christmas market, visiting parc du Thabor (one of my favourite places in Rennes), and generally wandering around République and Sainte Anne so she could get a feel for the city.

Showing Ruth round and discovering a cool metalworks market

This bit of the park really reminds me of Narnia

Ruth enjoying exploring!

And then a few miscellaneous adventures:

Mum and Dad came to visit, so obviously another trip to the Christmas market was needed

My parents at the Christmas market

Mum and I enjoying some cheeky churros

shopping in Grand Quartier with Ellie, and getting very excited about Christmas due to these extravagantly festive furry friends

Are these really necessary...?

a thoroughly British Christmas with Dani and Ellie in our last week

Two very full and happy people 

Celebrating Christmas in style

I hope these photos make up for my complete lack of any updates recently, and give you a little taste of the highlights of my Frenchy life!!