FIELD NOTE 6.7 - Outsider.

I guess some time between Saturday and today a mega-clique formed in my queer theory class and I seemed to have missed it. I've spent these past 2 days sitting in my seat surrounded by the other students and feeling most definitely on the outside.
I am not alone in this. My roommates seem to have also been caught up in this marginalization process and we just sit in silence as talk goes on around us of the previous night's party and tonight's plans for more.
The strangest thing is that I'm curiously ambivalent about all of this and don't care a lick that I have been cut off from everyone else. I tell myself that the program is only a month and that little can develop in that time when in fact the truth is that I would have probably cut myself off from the rest of them anyway.
We seem so different, I and them, and these differences are magnified again and again by our differences in ages and experiences. They scream about the French, they scream about their drinking, they scream their English in the streets - it seems so immature, like something I would never even do in a previous life. Did I skip this step?
And so I sit in my seat and listen, feeling for all the world like an outsider in this room full of Americans.

FIELD NOTE 6.6 - Progress.

I think I am finally breaking through here. This morning I was spoken to in French by 3 people: 2 in the métro and 1 in the park. It feels like a small victory each time it happens, like my Americanisms are all starting to fall away and like I'm finally beginning to be accepted here. It's a heady feeling.

FIELD NOTE 6.5 - "Mon beau cheri."

Every morning will entail a walk through Parc Montsouris to get to the RER station that will take me to the Sorbonne.
Today as I was walking through the entrance to the park I found it filled with runners and other people traveling to the metro stop. I noticed one man in particular dressed in spandex and stretching beside a park bench.
A few minutes later he was jogging beside me and singing in what can only be called off-the-charts-off-key before stopping suddenly and saying, "Bonjour, mon beau cheri." Then he was running again and back to his off-key squealing. And I couldn't help but laugh.

FIELD NOTE 6.4 - An American course.

I'll admit that my American-based queer theory course on Paris frightens me. After having studied within the French system for a semester and having grown accustomed to it, the idea of throwing myself back into the American system is a bit scary.
So today in class I was silent, listening and absorbing. I'm not sure what to think of this since silence has been my tendency in both systems for a while now. But the material is interesting and has the potential to help me figure out where I want to take my life. Only now there is this fear that I've bitten off a little too much than I can chew with 2 courses here.
Oh well, a month of too little sleep isn't that bad. I can always catch up afterward!

FIELD NOTE 6.3 - Discount, please.

Our prof demanded that we purchase a supplementary text for the grammar portion of our course and so after class I found myself walking to the nearest librarie that I was familiar with in the company of 3 girls from class from Italy, China, and Belize. It was amazing how easily conversation flowed between us and even more amazing was the realization that I've truly come to love being able to speak across cultures by using a language not my own with people who face the same difficulties as me. We are all foreign here.
At the bookstore when we had our books, I decided to brave the potential wrath of the woman at the checkout and asked if there was a discount for students. She seemed surprised that I would ask but told me if I had a student ID card then she would give me one and I produced my Sorbonne ID. So my 8,60 euro textbook ended up being 8,17 euro and I left the store feeling like quite the bargain shopper.

FIELD NOTE 6.2 - Avancé.

Today at 8h30 we were to receive the results of our Sorbonne language placement test. We ended up all being herded into a class where they unceremoniously read names out and then asked those people to leave to collect their books and follow their prof to their appointed classroom.
My name was in the 3rd group called, niveau avancé. I dutifully followed the mass of students leaving, collected my textbook, and walked behind the prof to 6 rue du Fourarre. When the class actually started I was surprised to find myself knowing more than I thought I did and speaking more easily than I remember doing in Nantes.
At the end of the course I noticed a little pamphlet for enrolling for a semester with the Sorbonne. I grabbed it, telling myself I can never be too sure what the future holds.

FIELD NOTE 6.1 - June.

It's June and I've had to write that 2 times today. Strange to think that it's my last month in France - stranger still to think that these past 5 months have already gone by. I would ask where the time went, but I am making a steadfast effort not to fall prey to the clichés. It's the clichés that cause the problems.