The Bibliotheque

I have a paper to write in my 20th century lit class...due a week from Thursday. It needs to be about 5 pages long...written in French (which is hard enough). BUT I'm writing it on a book that I've never read. It's a very very hard read...even for the 3rd year French students in my class. So needless to say, I'm freaking out about it a little bit. So Lauren and I went to the university's library yesterday to look for books. We got there, and they had those little bar things that you have to walk through. Well we had NO idea how to get through it...so we watched a couple people and you obviously had to have a card to get the bars to unlock. We tried out student I.D. but that didn't work. So we went to the desk and asked for a card. After standing there for about 10 minutes, we got it worked out with the people that worked there to give us cards. We did the sign up and all that, but they wouldn't let us in. They said we had to come back the next morning and then we could get our cards and enter. I was mad and frustrated but whatever.

So this morning, Lauren and I got up early to go get our cards and check out some books. The lady gave us our new library cards and we went in. After we passed through the bars...we were lost. I had no idea where to go or how to look up books. So we each sat down at a computer on the first floor - but neither of us had any idea how to get on the computers. We sat there confused for about 5 minutes...turns out they were both broken. So we walked around the small first floor just checking out the books and trying to get a feel for the system they use. Then we walked upstairs to try to find a computer to look up books on. We found an open one on the second floor but couldn't figure out how to login. So we asked a girl next to us and she looked at my library card and said that we needed to enter the bar code on the back. She flipped over my card...no bar code. So back down stairs we went to ask what our bar code was. Why our cards were different from all the Frenchies' cards - I don't know. But the lady at the desk gave us both codes and we sat down at a computer again and logged in successfully. We started looking up the books we needed and found like two in the whole library that fit our book we are writing about. So we both get out a piece of paper to write down the numbers on the books to track them down...BUT there were no numbers. It did though, tell us how big the book was in centimeters. What the heck am I supposed to do with that?! We clicked every button on that stupid page and finally found a few numbers that might be helpful. We wrote them down and headed back up to the second floor. We looked around at the shelves...but couldn't find any numbers on those books like the ones we found online. So up to the third floor we go. BUT THERE IS NO THIRD FLOOR. First and second floor. That's it. No more books. How do you have an entire university and only have like a dozen shelves of books?!?! I swear there were probably just as many computers there as books. Therefore, I feel "library" isn't the correct name for the building. It should be called "computer lab" or something. I'm am astounded at this stupid system they have. It's the most difficult country I've ever been in. Confusing, not helpful, and so so frustrating. I have no idea how I'm going to write this paper.

I did find a couple books at a "library" across town...but you can't check books out which makes no sense. You can go there and look at them but that's it.

So basically it looks like I'm gonna have to pay a French student to write my paper for me. Haha, I'm just kidding. I would never do that. But as of now, with a little over a week left, and atleast 5 pages to write, about a book I know nothing about...it's looking like th only option.

P.S. JSTOR and other online scholarly journals are not helpful either. Ugh.

Frenchy Gyms

One of my friends bought a membership to the gym here at our school - no it's not free for students. So 5 of us went to the gym last Wednesday. I was really thinking about buying a membership, but I wanted to see what it was like first.

We stopped down Tuesday after class just so I could see what was in there. I wasn't impressed at all. There's one treadmill, 4 elypticals, 4 steppers, a few bikes, and a rower as far as cardio goes. Then there's a nice aerobics room, and downstairs is the weight room. The have free weights and benches and the other basics. It's pretty small. They have a guy there...Guillaume...who is supposed to be like a trainer I suppose? He was really very nice...but also very in your face. I know what I'm doing and I don't need some Frenchy who has no idea what fitness is to be chirping at me in French. If you can't tell, I'm a little annoyed with this whole gym thing :o)

So we went back on Wednesday because they have weekly classes and that night it was an abs/butt class. I was VERY excited. Well this time, there were actually people there working out. No Joke....the girls wear blouses. Like things I would wear to go out to the bar. And pants. No shorts. And they were SO unathletic!!! They were all dying in the class we had and I honestly barely broke a sweat. I'm not in shape at all either...I honestly haven't done anything since volleyball ended in November. I really don't think the teacher had any idea what he was doing either. I miss Diane's classes - where when you're done, you seriously can't walk. After my class with the Frenchy, I felt like I hadn't even started working out yet. It was very very frustrating.

On top of all that, I miss going to a gym and seeing guys. Like real guys. That can lift some actual weight - that I don't feel like I could beat up. And I miss seeings girls...that wear real work out clothes, and can hold their own in the weight room with the guys. I can't handle going there and seeing dudes in their cargo shorts or shorty short swim trunks to lift in. I just can't do it.

I guess I'll have to resort to running outside.

Ew.