Today marks the midway point of my grad program's Welcome Week! We've certainly hit the ground running. The program started off with a 2-day, 8-hour lecture (all in french) introducing us to legal theory in a french context, followed by the requisite campus tours, etc. The pièce de résistance so far has been a veritable blitzkrieg of a lecture on french civil procedure and the hierarchy of courts. When the professor asked at the end of the lecture if everyone had understood what had been said, I heard a few mumbled, sarcastic "non"s from some of the french grad students in the crowd, which made me feel a bit better about my own lack of comprehension.
Luckily, I don't need to know any of that! It's interesting, certainly, and a good opportunity to improve my "ear" for french, but I have no plans to practice domestic french law. I'm looking forward to starting my global governance classes, which won't begin until next week. In the meantime, it's been fun to meet the other students in the program. As a whole, everyone has been a lot friendlier than I anticipated based upon my undergrad experience. Many of the other students have been required by their undergrad programs to spend time abroad, so they remember what it is like to be the "weird foreign kid". I think I've also done a better job of not being so self-conscious. The other candidate here from my law school, Jon, has also been good about encouraging me to branch out and make friends.
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| An animated Jon telling our Columbia Law friends a story |
School is nice, but man, I miss laying around and doing nothing haha. Vacation can't last forever, though.
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| Photobombed by some friendly tourists from Perpignan at the Jardin de Tuileries |
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| Sweet espresso cup set I got en solde for 12 euro |
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| Each flower has a matching saucer :) |
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| Rose given to me by the owner of a nearby restaurant, placed in an empty wine bottle, of course. #trèsclasse |
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