Exam results and yet more administration

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I last wrote. Not much has happened – although I am pleased to say that I got my exam results and thankfully have managed to pass them all! The long days in the library before Christmas must have paid off!

Apart from that, I went skiing for the afternoon last week and literally went up and down the green slopes all afternoon – I had a great afternoon though, getting my confidence up! Maybe next time I will be adventurous and get onto a blue! I would rather build up this way and find a good level for me so that I can ski without the fear of losing control, falling and hurting myself. I know this could happen on any slope, but I feel the more control I have, the more likely I am to stay on my feet!

We now think that we have taken a subject too many this semester and so are in the process of trying to find out if it is necessary to study this course just to get the one extra credit that we need or not – it would be nice if someone here just gave the same definitive answers to everyone instead of literally giving us all completely different and conflicting information.

Today my parents are on the way out to visit me! I can’t wait to see them and to have them visiting for the weekend!

Starting classes and administration problems

I don’t have much to report from this week – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing! I started my classes this week but only had four. They all seemed to go ok. It is better to be starting them with some idea of what it is going to be like than starting them last semester with nothing!

Apart from that, I have spent the week attempting to sort out administration…again! As a result of only getting 29 credits last semester instead of 30 due to an administration error, I have to get 31 credits this semester. As all of the classes that I am doing are 6 credits each, it means me doing 5 credits more than I actually have to! But I didn’t fancy doing 5 law courses, I thought 4 would be enough so I turned to my coordinator to find out what my other choices are! After not getting very far there, I went across to the language centre and found that I could either study Chinese or Portuguese from beginner’s level. So I have come to France, to study French law and improve my French language and am studying Portuguese……find the logic in that?!

This week I have 20 hours of class to get through – not something I’m looking forward to! After next week, things seem to quieten down a little bit again which I am looking forward to!

New Year, new adventures

I am back in Grenoble now for my second semester of law after an amazing 2 and a half weeks at home for Christmas and New Year. Thank you to everyone who helped make it so great!

This first week back has been full of studying, exams and thankfully some days off towards the end! I had three exams in under 24 hours, and whilst they were all spoken exams and only lasted 15 minutes each – they were amongst some of the hardest exams that I have ever sat! Imagine going into a room to prepare for the ‘big question’ whilst another student is sitting actually doing their exam – off-putting for both you and the other student! When that other student was finished, it was time to answer the question that you had been given 10 minutes to prepare for and then also many other questions that you do not know in advance before having to answer them. Basically, the lecturer could ask anything on the course and expect an immediate answer! A big advantage of a written exam is that you actually have time to think about the answer before committing yourself to anything, and you can always go back to change it! Some lecturers were nicer than others in their questions and some were more comforting than others!

One thing that struck me about the French exams is that the lecturer may turn up late – be it 10 minutes or, in the case of an exam that I wasn’t sitting, an hour late! I can’t help thinking that if this happened in Britain there would be uproar!

Anyway, my exams finished on Wednesday and I was lucky that the sun was shining and we were able to go into town to celebrate finishing with a glass of wine whilst sitting outside, enjoying the sun!

Classes for the new semester start on Monday and it is of no use at all that we have not been given much information about these classes! Hopefully it will all be sorted out soon and the relevant paperwork can be completed before settling down into the new semester.