Time for yet another update, methinks. So, what's happened since I moved in? Yesterday, we all woke up at the crack of dawn (well, close enough) to meet at the tram at 8:00 and we went to Universite Paul-Valery for the first time. The tram is pretty amazing, actually--very quiet, clean, and bright. Montpellier pretty much wins for public transportation. However, it gets low marks on college architecture. Yikes. I admit that I've been horribly spoiled by MHC (which is rated #3 most beautiful campus by Princeton Review (and #6 best classroom experience,#9 Lots of class/race interaction, #10 Gay community accepted, #13 Dorms like palaces and #12 Best college library... Okay, I'll shut up now)) Um. Right. So, then we took the placement test. It was actually not too bad. A few pages of grammar stuff, and then a lot of writing which wasn't too bad, but I didn't really read the directions so that didn't help much. We wrote a few paragraphs on some country that we had been to--I figured that they didn't know where I was from, so I'd talk about Vermont seeing as I can talk intelligently about it. Then I realized that I had to write about it for a page an a half, and compare it to my own country. That's when I realized my mistake... So, I just pretended I was from Georgia and hoped that none of them actually knew anything about either state. Then came the oral exam which was a bit nerve wracking. We waited around for a while, and finally went one by one into classrooms with different professors. It was actually totally painless--she asked me a few questions about my studies and what I liked to do, and even said that my accent was excellent which made me really happy. I thought she's be all confused about my accent seeing as I've had 5 teachers: one French, one Lebanese, one Quebecoise, and two Americans. But anyways, that was very good to hear. After, there was lunch and we headed back to town. After a quick Ikea trip (I have never been in a more overwhelming store) and grocery trip, a group of us went to the Dollhouse (aka Sara and Sealia's apartment which is up 4 flights of Crazy winding stairs) and had a dinner party. It all felt so grown up, and was really very nice except for when the fuse blew out and we spent 20 minutes thinking that we'd have uncooked lasagna for dinner. Mm-mm. But everything worked out. 'Twas fun.

As for today, it was our first day of the Prestage. We were placed into three groups for classes, but it's a little hard to tell what group is what. I'm in group 3 which might be the highest, or it could be the same level as group 2 because we have the same teachers and apparently they said the exact same things. Doesn't really matter, at any rate. Our first class was a bit overwhelming. It was all about conceptual grammar--not actually learning things by rote, but learning the rules so we can figure things out. I totally appreciate the idea, but I was rather lost. Also, I said one or two dumb things which was unfortunate. One thing that was interesting though was about what verbs are conjugated with etre--they're the action verbs that can only be done once, like born, die, pass, leave, exit etc. Pretty cool, actually. The second class was all about comprehension and was a lot of fun, just a lot of chatting. After the classes, we headed out, had lunch, and then a little later, Sara and I went to get our TaM passes (public transportation). Mine was a bit pricey, but it's unlimited access for the whole year, so it'll pay for itself in a few months. When we got back on the TaM we got to swipe them, and it beeped and was enormously satisfying. Oh! And I got my credit card, finally. *Giant sigh of relief* So, now I'm back at the apartment and will probably make dinner in about an hour, and then... do homework? You've got to be kidding me.