First Day of School

Well, I got my first taste of what classes would be like today. Apart from waking up at 4 AM, which I'm hoping won't happen again, the morning routine went fairly well. We took the subway in two forcefully disjointed groups dictated by the closing doors of the subway trains. When these doors close, they close for good. There's no wrestling with them to get them open again. If you're stuck in the middle you have to make a decision, which usually leans towards the majority with which your body is residing. Once we got to the U of C Paris Center, it was clear that this was a very new part of Paris with modern looking buildings and fancy staircases that were too fragile to actually be used.

The facilities of the Paris Center very minimally mirror those of the actual campus. We have a library and computing room (mini reg and mini mac lab) along with several class rooms all built with very modern looking chalkboards and the chairs are actually comfortable enough to not get annoyed with but not so comfortable that you'd fall asleep in. Along with our introduction to the facilities, we were welcomed with a nice brunch and wine tasting. Although the brunch was very good, the wine tasting could have been better (people praised the white, but I didn't get any similar opinions on the red).

The first day of class was in itself very interesting. I feel like a lot of math classes would benefit from this sort of introduction into the subject that they're teaching because it got me into the mindset for the rest of the course. Today all we did was talk about the history of the evolution of mathematical thought over the centuries. Starting out from the early ages everything seemed to be very concrete and hands-on. Basically mathematicians only worried about things that were tangible in the real world... Afterwards people began using a more algorithmic approach to solving difficult problems involving methods of proving existence by the more classical notion of a proof. I.e. A leads to B and B leads to C so everything that applies to C must be true. Then somewhere around the mid 19th century, people realized that the best thing to do was to make everything abstract... i.e. prove things about classes of numbers and sets and other things. It was all really cool and we talked about the developments of non-euclidean geometry and basically all the things that can go wrong if you start thinking outside the box.

Apart from math class, however, French class was another fun experience. I really like my teacher, she's old but full of energy. I feel like she has a strong desire to make us speak good french and not to be able to just get by. The dynamic was significantly different from math since I was one of two guys in a room of 14 which was smaller than the room that housed our math class of 5 awkward math guys. Interestingly enough, we spent a large portion of the class asking each other the same question, to which there was a wide variety of answers. Come to think of it, there's a girl in the Astrophysics program majoring in political science... little weird, but hey, I don't judge.

After class today I went shopping and found a good amount of supplies for a relatively low price. I'll be using a large majority of it with the baguettes that I'll be purchasing in the next couple of days. Baguettes are cheap, delicious, and absolutely great for spreading anything on. Hence, most of the things I bought at the grocery store involved cheese, butter, and jam, which will ultimately be spread on the baguettes that I buy on my way home each day. I was never really a big cheese person before I came here, and honestly, I can see why. I've tried the Bries and the other random stinkies that we call cheese in America, and I'm not ashamed to say that this is one thing where France has us beat. Shocked and awed by not only the price but the quality of cheese here, I can see that it will be one of many things that will undoubtedly accompany many baguettes in the near future. There has not been a cheese yet that I did not like.

Making dinner today with one of my new friends (a cool guy named Sam), we met two lovely girls from Germany who were making some sort of beet & goat cheese appetizer looking thing. It wasn't much to be honest, but it looked like little cakes in the beginning, and since there was also eggplant in the mix (which I noticed right away). Anyway, it turns out that they're studying much more exciting things here than "Math." Some mix of civil planning based on the socio-cultural implications of the decisions in investing and whatnot in the community. It sounded really cool, but unfortunately their beets were done.

My camera ran out of juice this morning as I was leaving, so no pictures... I'm sorry. =(

A bientot.

-Pavel