Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Really Great Risotto!

This morning, after yet another newspaper meeting, I had a flute lesson. On the way in, I saw an oulipien (OuLiPo member)! He walked into my flute teacher's building! How cool is it that an OuLiPo member lives there too? My flute lesson was great - I played Syrinx! I love that piece. After my flute lesson, I decided to eat lunch at this little Italian restaurant right by there since I had plenty of time before history. Plus, they serve risotto at that restaurant, and today's was artichokes and sun dried tomatoes! It was basically the best risotto I've ever had.

Other than that, today wasn't really very interesting. I didn't get higher than a 10/20 on my last history quiz, so it won't count. I doubt I got it on this one either since I was really lazy about reading that 40 page chapter yesterday. But maybe next week I'll do it. In that class, all I have grade-wise is two in class essays and he'll take the better of the two. That and if we get higher than a 10 on any of the quizzes. So, there's that, my short story for the Paris 8 literature class, the "short" ENS essay of 15-20 pages, and my expose, dissertation, and in-class assignment for philosophy. I still don't know what I'm going to have to do for my writing class that's graded, but hopefully I'll find out tomorrow. It's really weird to think that I can count all my graded assignments this semester on my hands. I don't even have to use my toes! The fact that the traditional French classes I'm taking here (the philosophy course and the ENS course) are entirely lecture-based with only the discussion section for the philosophy. By the end of this semester, I think I'll be able to appreciate the French methodology, but I think I'll be very happy to get back to Hopkins where my entire grade doesn't rest on one paper. Sure, sometimes I have tests that count for 40% of a grade for a math course, or a class where all my grade comes from four essays, but never just one grade for one assignment. The scary part is that, since I've never had any prior introduction to French courses, I don't know exactly how they grade or what I need to do to get a good grade. This must be why Hopkins makes our study abroad grades all pass/fail. It definitely makes sense for this type of program. For others where you take American style courses or even just courses in English, the covered grades might not be as necessary.

1 comment:

  1. I don't believe that the risotto was better than my lobster risotto!

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