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I finally managed to sleep through the night... Up at 6:30 to get ready for my evil Wednesday classes. Sheila and I decided over breakfast that we'd attempt to check out Musée de la Magie over in the Marais area after my class got out, but we had a feeling that we wouldn't be able to get in for any rate lower than the nine euro that was noted in the travel guide in my room. That was a bit much for a pair of students who aren't budding magicians... and for a couple sleight of hand magic shows... that's a bit much for anyone, really. Should that be the case, we'd go over to Musée Rodin instead. We knew that one would be free. I got going right on time today, and I made it to creepy Paris III about 15 minutes early. There were already a couple people in the classroom, so I went inside and relaxed for a bit before class started. We did a couple bizarre réchauffements... Professor Clavier had us sculpt n'importe quoi (whatever/doesn't matter what) out of air, then told us to act like our limbs were like streams of water coming out of fountains (meaning they had to ultimately flow down to the ground), then we had to float around "in the air..." most of the class looked more like they'd had a bit too much to drink, and I say that because I was definitely in that number... We broke into our little groups after that. We got a little addition to our group. Melissa is a hip-hop dancer, and is very outspoken, but she's really nice. Cécile had two large parts in each of the plays, so she gave her role of Masha in Trois Soeurs to Melissa. We did all of our work on Trois Soeurs today, but we didn't get all that far...
Ruxandra likes to work in tiny pieces at a time instead of running through a scene and breaking it down. All of us are in Trois Soeurs. By the time we all (meaning the entire class) had to get back together for some bigger things (more on that a little later)... we'd only made it through the first two "vignettes" of our assigned scenes. I was in the second one, playing Féraponte, the elderly male servant of the family. Ruxandra (and the rest of my group) liked the acting choices I made, which I was happy about, but what they really liked (and what I really didn't want to talk about) was the fact that they loved how well my accent worked with the character... evidently, one way to "play" age when you obviously can't cast someone that's, well, old, is to cast someone with a very different accent in the role. Someone kill me, please. Maud gave me a couple quick pronunciation notes, and we took a bathroom break. We'd had the entire space to ourselves since the rest of our class had left to find other free rooms, but when we returned, the rest of the class was in the room. Professor Clavier had another group show one of the scenes they were working on, and they were off book, so we all gave our little critiques. We had some time left in the class after that scene was done, so Professor Clavier wanted another group to go, but about half of the class has to leave early to go to another class that's at "normal" Paris III... and one of the members of our group that's in the first part of our scene was one of them. Ruxandra mentioned we could have demoed what we'd been working on, but we were missing one of our actors... unless she filled in the role... and Professor Clavier said she should, so that's what happened. Merde. Now I had to do my little bit in front of the whole class, and I'd only really run through it twice by this point... but I did it. Professor Clavier's first comment was that Ruxandra (as a director) made a really good choice by placing me in the role of Féraponte. He's a bit of an étranger (stranger/foreigner) in a way, so putting one in the role "est vachement joli." (is very [colloquial/dirty] lovely) He even said that my accent worked well with it.
Sheila and I met up for lunch at a Mexican place that's near creepy Paris III. It's at the intersection of Rue Paradis, Rue Jarry, and Rue de la Fidelité. I forget the actual name of it. All they serve are burritos, but they have meal plans that work quite well together. Since I can't eat the actual tortilla, I figured I'd cut it open and eat everything out of the inside of it. Sheila and I got the 6,90 meal, which came with Spanish rice (or birthday rice, as Sheila calls it), a potato side dish, and a drink. For that price, it was pretty good. I could have eaten my weight in that rice, let me tell you... We headed over to Le Marais and found Le Musée de la Magie, and lo and behold, there are no reduced rates regardless if you're a student, or between the ages of 18-25 (which a lot of museums have). It's nine euro for adults, seven euro between the ages of three and 12. We decided it wasn't worth it and went to Musée Rodin instead. This involved going on ligne 13 of the metro... which meant that Sheila and I have officially completed our mission of setting foot on every single line of the metro (we're not counting 3 bis and 7 bis, they're way too tiny)! We got in for free here. Just to be safe, we showed our Paris III/Paris VII ID cards since the displayed prices said that 18-25 year olds from the European Union got in for free, but those from outside of the E.U had to pay. Musée Rodin is absolutely gorgeous. We were lucky that it wasn't raining and the gardens were absolutely gorgeous...
Le Penseur... but you all know him as The Thinker!
Gorgeous scenery... it looked even better with color selection!
I even got in some Statue Douchebaggery!
View of part of the Musée from the Jardin...
We went in what looked to be the temporary exposition after that. It looked like you could take pictures inside, but I only snapped one...
There were a ton of students in this building sitting in all sorts of random places with sketchbooks and other sketching materials. I think they were here for a class... A lot of them definitely knew what they were doing. That's a talent I will never possess. I'll stick to tracing my fashion forms and attempting to add folds and wrinkles to hipster sweaters on top of them... that reminds me, I really need to get on that project... Sheila and I went into the permanent exposition after that. Everything inside it was marble... that's a bit of a white lie. Rodin made maquettes (models) before he made a lot of his works, and those weren't made of marble. That just goes to show you, even visionaries had plans. I have some serious respect for Rodin, and for marble. I loved every single piece in the exposition. I definitely took a lot longer to walk through it than Sheila did. Note to whomever is stupid enough to marry me someday: If you really want to blow me out of the water with an awesome wedding present, buy me a marble sculpture. I probably won't care what it's of, or how big it is, I'll just be really excited that it's marble and love it just for that... and because you got it for me, and I should already love you... that's how that works, right...?
Sheila headed off to her class, and I went home to pack for my trip to Toulouse tomorrow. I got a chance to Skype my boyfriend for a little while as I was packing... and Sheila sent me a few messages on Facebook while she was at Paris VII... her classroom had been moved to the normal building as of Monday, but none of her classmates were there, nor was her professor, and there was another class going on in the room that she was told to report to online... so she was giving up and coming home... Bizarre (as our host mother would say). Thankfully, her professor replies to emails, so she'll get this sorted out. We had tomato and mozzarella salad, steak haché, and potatoes for dinner, but Madame didn't have any potatoes. She's put herself on a diet to lose some kilos and had sautéed leeks instead. The woman does NOT need to lose any weight. She also doesn't need to do it this way... if she's going to eat healthier, the first thing she needs to do is stop putting salt everywhere at the table. She doesn't put salt in anything while she cooks (we'd know), but she has it on the table, and tells us to put it on our meat, because she does, but it really doesn't need it. She's also the first French person I've known that has ever used the word regime for real. We got into a discussion about health and medicine again. She was taking antibiotics, and asked if we'd ever been on them. I laughed and replied "this is not a question for me." Sheila answered, and Madame directed it to me. "If I were to recount my entire medical history, which you already know about half of, we'd be here for a month." "Oh that's right. I forgot you were the really sick one..." I also found out that save for wisdom teeth removal, Sheila and Madame have never had cavities or braces. I'm not so lucky. I did manage to make a really good joke, though... "Every time I go to the dentist, I walk through the door, he sees me, laughs, and says, 'Ah, there's my new boat.'" "New boat?" "Or car, whatever he wants."
I realized today that in exactly one month, I will be on a plane back to America... if immigration can find me Tomorrow, I'm off to Toulouse until Saturday afternoon. I'll be with Rouge, and we're visiting Nico. We're staying with him and his roommates. That's going to be quite the adventure... Why do I feel like I'm going to have to pull a Marauder's Map all weekend... if you didn't get that I'm saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" all weekend, we're not friends anymore.
Qui se vainc une fois peut se vaincre toujours. -Corneille: Tite et Bérénice
