GMOs, Music, & La Sorbonne

ORGANISME GENETIQUEMENT MODIFIE: Here's a cute logo (J'en veux pas=I don't want them). Did you know that France now grows no genetically modified food? I find this a good idea for many reasons.

THINKING, PARKS, AND MARKETS:

The parks in Paris are my favorite places. I realized you can go in a park and just think and do whatever you want, and it's up to you. You can look at map discreetly when lost, eat a sandwich when hungry, look at birds and plants and other wildlife when missing the country.

Markets are also magical and unreal, but real. It's like a farmer's market, but less novel to the people participating. Rather this is part of normal life...


MUSIC:

One of the greatest cultural points of contact with the U.S. here is music. Practically every store, restaurant in Paris that I walk into is playing music with English words. I heard a remake of "If I had a Hammer" with a French accent and rock music in the grocery store. This is one domain of American culture that has a lot of influence.

My music school in France is really nice. I am taking solfège and piano. It is my favorite class of the week. But try converting ABCDEFG into Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti ("see")-do and you will see it is a little unnerving at first. I play the piano in my host parent's house downstairs. Sometimes when I am walking to my room, I hear another piano in the apartment building. I think there is a professional pianist living here...

LA SORBONNE:
And...Took my first classes at the Sorbonne today. I successfully entered on the second week of classes (this was not my fault), found a seat in the giant lecture hall, later for my discussion section ran all around the building trying to find "E" when everything seemed to jump from F to G, consulted the man behind the desk in the Philosophy department who was a little like one of those fantastic characters from magic bookshops with white scraggly hair and glasses (he made several telephone calls and then handed me a map with clear directions), after which I found the place but took a while to realize that the room "S" was actually an "F", entered the room fifteen minutes late with appropriate bashfulness, listened to an interesting two hour lecture all about Navajo culture from a French woman who is an expert on the subject and is part Navajo, only to find out after class that though the same teacher from the lecture that morning was there, I had just participated in a lecture for a master class. All said and done, I finally left with the right documents for the class I am taking, and with plans to take the discussion section on a different day so I won't have missed two. Whew!

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