Thursday, February 18, 2010

French Philosophy

Okay, not really French. In my TD (French for discussion section) of philosophy at Sorbonne (well, not the "historic" center; it's this tiny little ugly building that's 40 minutes away from me), we talked about Aristotle. They call him Aristote - and he thinks that politics is a natural part of the humanity of man. And, he also thinks that a man who chooses to live away from society is not a man at all. The teacher (she might be a professor though she looked really young, though either way, she's called a "professeur") was very knowledgeable, the students seemed very engaged, and the class seems like it will be very interesting. But, the reason I think I'll like it is because it's a traditional French class - I'll get to learn philosophy the way French students have for the last thousand years!

Other than that, I really didn't do much today. I walked around for a long time, looking at old book stores around Notre-Dame, eating Berthillon ice cream (which is going to be closed from Sunday to March 10th!! What am I going to do?), and finding a stamp for 55 euros (CUPA needs it). But, it rained and I didn't have an umbrella, so I might have caught a cold.

Then, I taught English to Olivier, who had me explain words and expressions that he hadn't understood when he was reading Time Magazine. There are some colloquial expressions that he didn't understand, like "heaped on" or "patting down grandma" that I thought were really funny. Luckily, I was able to come up with ways to explain them, even though some of them were pretty random.

And, that's it for today. Tomorrow, I have my philosophy CM (French for lecture) at Sorbonne, then the whole rest of the day to enjoy myself. I think I have too much free time here - I should do something about that.

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