Random drawings!

There were a bunch of charcoal life-drawings on the ground by the Beaubourg. My friends decided to join in the crowd...

Flower world

MONET'S GARDEN: the flowers look like paint, the light is moist like paint, the colors are unexpected and beautiful

La Sorbonne

I found in a book a recommendation to visit the Observatory of the Sorbonne (the University). It's not well known, but for a few euros you can reserve a tour for a group of 5 max. A few friends and I decided to go. It is a very small tower, amateur astronomers go there and make glass lenses by hand. You make these lenses for telescopes by pushing a piece of glass back and forth over a rounded surface for about 12 hours. They are so exact (more exact than a machine because of the random movement) that if you place a concave one directly over a convex one, you risk them fusing together on a molecular level because of moisture on the surface. Here is a picture of the telescope and open dome and the moon...

School

Hello! These three days have been wild, studying. Yesterday I finally gave my 30 min. presentation on the U.S. intervention in Bosnia to "implement a peace" in 1995, so that's over! Later I will write about a visit to the Sorbonne Observatory that hardly anyone knows is there, so check back!

This is just how it is...

Libraries

Well--I've promised to write something every day--
Today: LIBRARIES (bibliothèques)

In the Beaubourg, in the Georges Pompidou center just next to the modern art museum, there is a voice that comes on the overhead, and tells you in French to keep an eye on your stuff. But the English translation the comes on next makes it sound like the library is hiring pickpockets. The voice says pleasantly and with certainty. "Pickpockets are operating in the library. Please be aware...(etc)"

I have been to the St. Geneviève also. This is a beautiful library where you have to request a book and the staff goes and gets it for you and you pick it up twenty minutes later...

The municipal libraries are very, very small, and can be found in the "mairie" of each arrondissement. You can check out books, but you're not guaranteed to find the one you want and may have to travel to another arrondissement....

hello!!

Hi everyone. I'm back to blog-land. Even though I am in the midst of some of the weirdest studying I've ever done. It's not the hardest persay. Well maybe. But only because in France the classes have 0-2 assignments during the semester and then suddenly exams and oral presentations arrive seemingly out of the blue. It catches you off guard if you've let your attention wander elsewhere during the semester (ahem).

But here's what I'm going to do: try to write something here every day, even if it's just a sentence. So it will be interesting for you to look at it when you visit!

In a nutshell, in the past couple months, I have traveled to England, been to some great places in Paris, developed a complex relationship with the city where I both love and hate being here, enjoyed spending more time with my friends here as I get to know them better, applied for a grant to do something deliciously dynamic this summer when I come home, and am now dreaming up ways to make my last month here wonderful and fulfilling.

Thank you for your comments on my blog posts. I have posted many pictures, but not all (yet). So check them out at the link at the lower right hand corner of the page.

All the best!