FDOC at UPV: the start of the "study" portion in study abroad

My first (planned) class at the Universite Paul Valery did not happen. I was told such a thing would happen in France, c'est la vie. Turns out the class I had showed up for was a TD (a sorta recitation) for the lecture class that I wanted to go to. We weren't particularly privy to this kind of information beforehand and only found out about our mistake after we went to the departmental office, it was a history class...I think. The lecture portion of that class meets during a time where i have one of my "UNC in France" classes so I scratched it off my list. Those two classes I take at a different place called Accent Francais and they count directly onto my gpa as if I were taking them at UNC. For the record they are FRE261 and FRE311. I take a third class at Accent Francais called French for business, and it's exactly what it sounds like.

At UPV I'm taking 2, maybe but probably not 3, classes. One is an economics class covering France and Europe and the other one is "Great Challenges: Communication, Transportation and Energy" From sitting in on the latter, this class seems super interesting as it covers how the world deals with these challenges and the infrastructure necessary to facilitate or ameliorate them. The down side is that it meets at 8:15 am for 2 hours plus a 1 hr recitation Wednesday at 10:15. I wouldn't mind the early start if I didn't have a 40 minute commute to class. The economics class has been, by far, my favorite class so far (I've been to each one once) although the 2.5 hr duration tests my attention span.

It hasn't been difficult at all to comprehend and follow along in these classes. I thought I'd have a lot of trouble in the classes at the university but so far I've been able to understand about 85-90% of the material and getting the gist of the rest.

My birthday was on Tuesday. Even though it was not the same as in the US in terms of celebrating with close friends and the fact that 20 means the same as 21 it was still a ton of fun and fun for those who joined me in celebrating it. Those in the UNC program who could make it as well as a couple of Swiss students would agree that it was great night.

This weekend I should be attending my first football (US read: soccer) match in Europe. It's a match between Montpellier (2nd place at the moment) and Lyon (one of the more powerful French teams over the last few years). Should be great.