So I think I might be living in some parellel dimension. Certainly, this can't be France we're dealing with here.
School registration opened at 9.00 today. Because I was up late last night, "working" on my paper (I was more just thinking about it, really, but it still counts. I even brought my pages with me to the bathtub to correct them...), I slept way in, and ended up getting to registration around 11.00. This made me upset, as I was sure there would be desperate students, crowding around small spaces, clawing to hand in their forms and photos.
But no. Nobody was there, just a few people ready to welcome me and asking if I needed help. Help, did I hear? Are you offering me help? What a strange and novel concept. At a school? Huh.
So, I went in, sat down, answered some questions, shuffled along, paid, signed a paper, and was in. Bam, bam, bam. Registered in under 30 minutes.
Had in not been for all the beautiful woodwork and ornate molding, I would have thought I was in America, for Christ's sake. These people were organized, anxious to help, and even - dare I say it? - FRIENDLY.
That's it. I'm signed up and paid for school, with a grand total of 527 euros. That would be: one year's tuition, social security, and added medical "mutuelle" (which is what tipped me over the edge - school itself only cost 124 euros). Until next September.
Sometimes France is fucking unbelievable.
So I'm gonna learn some more Arabic, which is s-ah-weet. I choose classes in two weeks.
Afterwards, I went to a bad movie ("Broken Flowers" - what the HELL was up with that shit?) and then drank lots of wine with Kathypath at the cafe next door to the theater. We gabbed and acted like teenagers, and then I went to the grocery, made dinner, and am about to eat it. So, you know, not such a productive day, really.
But hey! I enrolled! It took me four full days of hell to get that accomplished at the Sorbonne, so maybe I'm just really three days ahead of schedule...
Aside: I've gotten back into Nina Simone. How had I let her slip away like that, all these years? Oh... so nice to get back into the habit of listening. Newest redisovered favorite: "Ne Me Quitte Pas"
I've been really surprised myself, as well. First, there was registration, for which I didn't have a necessary paper (because, uh, it wasn't on the list of papers I had to have) and I was told to go ahead and go to the office that would print me out one, and then "just come back, it's no big deal because there aren't that many people" rather than having to make a new appointment.
And then, this Monday was the registration for the "unit�s d'ouvertures" so I got up bright and early because the class I wanted only had twenty-five seats (for all students in all three years of all licenses!), and I figured I would need a good dose of luck to get in it. But I just waltzed into my dept. secretary, she typed away for a minute, and voila! The class was mine.
My experiences with school thus far have been nothing but positive. I haven't met a single bitchy person yet. Crazy, really.
my friends tried to get me to see broken flowers and i ever so politely declined. the trailer looked unbelievably horrible. they went and hated it as well.
hey there,
I have been reading your blog for a while, I discovered it through the assistantsinfrance.com website. I agree that dealing with the french bureaucracy has been a breeze so far this year. I am planning on returning to school in Rennes next fall and I sent off emails totally not expecting to get any kind of response from anything and boom! the next day I had an email (email!! from a french secr�tariat!) with all my info and they are sending me visa information too. You probably aren't interested in this story but damn it is like some parallel university, totally unlike my experiences in the past. I guess I am just happy others are having positive interactions with the french as well.
What is going on? That means there are at least THREE of us who have noticed big improvements. And seriously? An EMAIL? I've never heard of that happening, here.
Maybe things are genuinely changing. How unexpected!