Pictures and a quick report

Quick report: I have my first exam tomorrow and I'm so nervous! I don't know what to expect, I hope it'll go well. The day after tomorrow I have 2 exams (because they aren't enough hard if you have only 1/day..)

I got really nice pictures for my friends S so I decided to share them :)

 My first weekend in Pairs! You can see the Eiffel-tower in the background.

From Disneyland! I got to pose with Tweedledum or Tweedledee from Alice in Wonderland.

Halloween

 Salut poussins!

It has been a while :P At the moment I should be reading to an exam but well.. I have to keep you posted!

So what has happened this week. My first laboratory courses started! They actually started last week but I forgot to mention it. It's really nice actually. With my partner K we are always messing things up and I'm causing accidents but it's OK. The professor knows that I'm an exchange students so I get a little bit of special attention. There are some totally new equipment for me so it's really hard for me to work with them (which is exactly why the prof has to look after me). The prof also told me that during the laboratory exam I have to ask for his help with the equipment so that I don't ruin my work.. At the moment we have laboratory of organic chemistry and quantum chemistry, then we'll have TP* of inorganic chemistry and molecular orbital theory.
* (the French abbreviation for Travaux Pratiques = practical work or studies)


I also had a talk with the head of the Licence 3 of chemistry and he told me that if I take 4 exams next week and I manage with my courses I'd get 22,5 credits (1credit = 1ECTS) from this semester. It's OK because I have to study 45 credits during my time here. At the same time I'm a bit disappointed because I would have loved to get 30 credits from this semester so that I didn't have to worry about my credits during the next one. BUT the professor also told me that we are going to have polymer chemistry next semester. I just love polymer chemistry! :)

This is a list of my courses at the moment:
[name of the course; ECTS]


Quantum chemistry 1: 5
Organic chemistry 1: 5
Inorganic chemistry 1: 5
Symmetry: 2
Molecule orbitals: 2
French: 2.5
German for beginners: 2.5


Hmm I don't really know how the professor got 22,5 from this but that's what he has written to my papers :D I wasn't taking the course of symmetry at first so I'm not sure if I can pass the exams next week. I doubt it.

And then changing the subject: Halloween! I really enjoyed Halloween his time! Normally in Finland it's no a big thing but in here it was. Many of my friends and me dressed up as zombies. I was the zombie version of  Minnie Mouse :P I just took the ears I bought from Disneyland Paris. What's the point of them if I don't use them every once and a while? I think we had really great time. I went to Paris into a party with all the others but I didn't stay there for long.

And then the story behind the first picture. The family whose children I take care of gave me truffles! Oh my they were SO good! I really like this family :) My mom is coming here with my aunt and cousin in 3 weeks and the family invited us to go to a dinner at their place.

But now I could read a bit of organic chemistry as a bedtime story! Enjoy the pictures of me with my friends :P

Hating, loving France

One wall of my room

Hello cupcakes!

I have been reading other exchange blogs and I think I should have a map here from where I am and so on. Also I would like to show pictures of the campus and my room. I should make a round soon with my camera :)

Well. I'm having problems with courses again. On Thursday in the lecture of inorganic chemistry the professor started writing gibberish on the blackboard. It turns out that there has been a course of symmetry that has ended already and the teachers are now using it as a base for the other courses. I talked with the professor of inorganic chemistry and she said that symmetry is a really important course and I should have taken it. WELL the exams are in one week and I should study this course of symmetry on top of all the other courses. And even if I study the symmetry stuff I'm not going to get credits for it because half of the exam has already been held.

I was really pissed about this because at least 3 people have seen my learning agreement and they didn't tell me that I should take the course of symmetry. I calculated the credits that I might be able to get and it seems like I'd be getting 15 credits instead of 32 that I was planning to have. I have to get 45 credits this year so I was really upset about this discovery. Next semester I should pass all my exams to get 30 credits if I get only 15 now - moreover what courses can I take in spring if I don't pass the courses now?

In Finland the courses are independent so we can take the courses in any order AND if there is a course you should take before some other course it's written in the info of the course. Nice to know that this isn't the case here 2 month too late.. Also in Finland the lectures and practises aren't compulsory and we can sign in to any exam, so it's really easy to replace credits if you don't pass one course. Also in Finland we can try the exam 3 times for every course. In here this kind of a system is unknown. I think in spring there might be renewal exams here too but I'm not sure. I'd prefer passing the exams now.

It's irritating me so much that stuff in this country don't work! I'm still wating for my ImagineR.. We talked to one guy from the office with my friend and we should send the letter for getting the card again.  I just might go yealling to some other office. It's really irritating not to be able to go anywhere from here without paying.

Then to some happier stuff: they put on the heating in our building!! Oh the joy. I was sleeping with 3 blankets and sitting in my room with shoes and jackets and everything on so I'm really happy.

 



I'm also really happy to realize how my French skills are advancing! Now I have been studying verbes every evening. Nowadays I also read out loud all the sentences from books when I know the meaning. I have also noticed that now I can most likely reason the meaning of some word when I don't know the meaning. I also talked with my mom and we discussed the possibility of me moving to study here permanately. I don't know what I want to study and in France there are more options than in Finland. I have to see what happens.

But I'm off to reading to my exams. Like I told you, the partials are in one week :P

Bisous!

DisneyLand Paris + my b-day

The entrance

 Hello pumkins!

In my feverish fumbling I've come to you today to talk about DisneyLand Paris <3 We went there with my Erasmus friends on Sunday. There was a special offer for the inhabitants of region of Ile-De-France which said: "30 euros on working days or 40 euros on weekends/ one park". We decided to visit the park this semester and next semester we are going to visit Disney Studios.

I was so excited to go there! I've seen the commercial on the beginning of every Disney movie since I was a child. The glory was diminished a bit by the fact that my throat was hurting and I didn't have any voice in the morning but since I already paid for the tickets I decided to go with my friends.

Sleepin Beauty Castle

We took a train 08H30 from our place to go to Châletes Les Halle and took RER (logal train) A to direction Marne-La-Vallée. The jurney took 1H30 but it was totally worth it. DisneyLand is exactly there when you walk out of the RER station. We saw the entrance gates when we came out and went in. The lines for the tickets were really short and we got in almost immidiately.

In the beginning I was jumping up and down like a little child. To my fortune so where everybody else. The main street of DisneyLand is filled with stores and food places. From one of the stores I bought Minnie ears with one of my friend. I actually wore them the whole day (because I'm such an adult). There was a live band playing music from Disney movies in Town Square. With our group of 10 people we decided to take a group picture in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle so that we could divide into groups and do what we wanted.

We reached the Central Plaza and there was a show going on with the Disney caracters including for example Cruella DeVille, Red Queen, Maleficent and Jafar. We figured that it would be easier to take the picture later so we went for our first ride: Space Mountain: Mission 2 which is a roller coasted with a lot of spinning, turns, breaks and speed. This turned out to be the best ride! It's also the best roller-coaster I've ever been to! My friends visited it 3 times. Usually the wating times to best rides are 45-55min but because it was so early and everyone else were watching the performance we got in in 20 minutes.

To the best rides there was a fast ticket option. It means that you take a piece of paper near the ride and it tells you a time to be at the ride for cutting the line. I think this is a really good invention and it saves you a lot of queuing. I took this fast ticket only once but my friends were using it a lot.

After the first rides we went and took the group picture and then divided up to groups. I went to Fantasyland with an English and a Turkish girl. Fantasyland is the side of the park mostly for little kids but we wanted to see the Disney stuff instead of going to every ride like the others.

My Minnie ears

First we saw the Sleeping Beauty Castle. It was a really pretty place with nice pictures telling the story of the Sleeping Beauty.

In Fantasyland we saw Snow White, Rapunzel, The Mad Hatter and the twins from Alice in Wonderland (whose names I don't remember). We also saw Alice's Curious Labyrinth and Mad Hatter's Tea Cups. Alice's Curious Labyrinth stood by its name by being really weird maze. We actually did get lost with my friends and when it was time to get out it took quite some time to find out way out. There was no line for the labyrinth when we got there so we just walked in. Mad Hatter's Tea Cups was an ok ride - normal tea cups with his name on it. The cups we were sitting in were cute though. The wating time for Tea Cups was aroung 15min.

The Parade

 After we had seen the Fantasyland we saw our friends for eating.The food was really expensive and I've had better, but it's not possible to survive from the day without eating. A couple of my friend were wise and took food with them to the park, which I highly recommend. I also had a little snack with me so that I didn't have to spend a fortune for food in the park.

After eating with my two friends we headed towards Discoveryland. Here we visited Star Tours which I likes really much since I like Star Wars. It was a room with a big screen and the room moved accordingly to what happened in the screen and it made you feel like you were in a spaceship. We wated for 15min to get into this one. We then visited Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland. It was a boat trip indoors that was really well made. It was the best pirate ride I've ever been to! When you went indoors it was so well made that I forgot that I was indoors. We queued maybe for 20 min to get to the boat trip. And what's best when we came out from the ride we saw Jack Sparrow! Aftere we purchased fastpass tickets to Buzz Lightyear Blast and went to other end of the park called Frontierland.

In Frontierland we visited Phantom Manor. The beginning was really interesting when they put us into a room that expanded. After that it was just a normal ride in a wagon. It was really nice though. After this it was just running around the park and seeing all the rest of the rides. We visited Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril which was a really nice ride. And we only had to queue for 5min! We practically just walked in there. The second last ride was Peter Pan's Flight which I enjoyed almost the most. It was really unique and well done: in the ride you were in a boat flying over London during night. All the stars and miniatures were really well made. The wating time for this one was 30min but we got in in 20minutes. It would have also been a good ending, but we went to use our fastpass tickets and hit the last ride: Buzz Lightyear Blast. The story behind this ride was of course Toy Story. We had nice weapons and the aim was to get as many points as we can by shooting targets while the wagon was moving. I think that this was a good last ride and left me with a good feeling to go home with.

In all this ride hopping and tunning we managed to see the Disney Parade (most of the pictures are from there). It takes place every day at 5pm. We saw all the caracters and the parade was really enjoyable. I think all the people were acting their caracters really well. Especially Jack Sparrow was so good! And also the Mad Hatter, he was so funny.

When we left the park around 8H30 I had a fever and when we got home around 10H30 I was really dead. On monday morning I was really sick too, I was totally in my own universe in the morning.. But I wouldn't have missed DisneyLand for anything!!

And then to other things: today was my birthday. I'm still a bit sick, but today I went to my lessons unlike on monday and tuesday. The highlight of today was when four of my friends came to my door singing "joyeux anniversaire" with a cake! It was such a surprise, I was in my pyjamas and all :) They really made this day feel like my birthday.

We are having partial exams in 2 weeks and I'm starting to be really stressed about them.. I really feel like my French is not strong enough to do them. But I'll try my best and I'll study so hard!!

By the way people are telling me every day that they can hear how my French is getting better :) yesterday I went to a pharmacy with a German girl and when I talked with the pharmacist she said "Wow! Impressive!". She has heard my weak attemps of talking French at first so I really liked it. Also today I practised with my tenses for telling the future and the past and instantly one of my French friends told me that she can hear the difference. It's really couraging to hear people tell you that you are improving. So all you people there studying some language, go and talk with a native speaker! :P

I think this was most of the stuff I wanted to say :) take care and kisses! Enjoy the pictures I took for you.

The Mad Hatter

On top of the Minnie ears I bought lollipops :) I'm a sugar tooth..