First Post

So here I am -- Thousands of miles from my native land of Corydon, Indiana, plopped down in the land of baguettes, croissants, and ineffective deoderants. That's right you guessed it! I'm in Paris!

In case you are not up-to-date on my life (don't worry, I'm probably not up-to-date on your's either), I finished my 4 years at Case Western Reserve University in May, and I am now starting medical school in France. The reasons why I'm here are as follows:

1) Who wouldn't want to go to medical school in Paris?

2) Its free (I just heard you gasp from across the ocean)

3) It's one helluva 'aventure'.

So over the summer I got an apartment and got enrolled, got a visa and got psyched! (that's right, I just said I 'got psyched.' And I'm not ashamed). I live in the 17eme arrondisement, which for all you non-traveled folk means I'm in the northwest district of Paris. If you want to see my street, click here and then zoom in completely, and you can see a street view. Isn't Google amazing? I'm voting Google 2012, that's for sure.

So I got here début septembre, and so for the past few weeks I've been preparing for starting school (getting the apartment ready, getting the materials I need, etc). And so the Sunday night before my first day of class I get everything ready, just like when mom prepared my stuff for the first day of school, and I went to sleep 'rearing to go'. I woke up really early (6:00) went for a run, took a shower, ate breakfast and everything, and get to school at 7:55 for my class at 8:00. So I'm there with a bunch of other students, and I notice they are all in the hall. I wait, and I wait, and it turns out that all classes Monday were canceled, on a whim, 'juste comme ça'. ONLY in France would they cancel the first day of classes!

So let me explain a little bit about the school. Basically the way French medical school works is that the entire program takes 6 years to complete (as opposed to 8 in the united states), but as you may have guessed, there is no undergraduate! Therefore my 4 years that I have completed don't count for anything. This may sound like a major downer, but au contraire. Because you see, this first year of French medical school is the equivalent to an ENTIRE pre-medical curriculum in the U.S. Meaning they literally cram 2/3 years worth of material into one year. So fortunately, I've already seen most of the material, so I have a good chance of making it through the 'concours' which are the big, highly-competitive exams at the end of each semester. Therefore for me I just am having to translate stuff I've already seen, and refresh my memory of subjects that I may have had 4 years ago. The only thing that isn't that cool, is most the students are only 18 or 19. So at 23 years old, I'm the 'daron' (old man) of the group.

So on wednesday I finally had class! I went and it was unlike any class I've had before (biology). It is a normal, large amphitheater class, with about 100-150 students. What isn't normal however is that the class went nearly 3 hours non-stop (ouch), and that there were constant interruptions from the 'doublants'. The 'doublants' are the students that did not pass the 'concours' the first time around, so are taking the class again (there are about 10-15 of these trouble-makers in each class) This means that they do not want the first year students to understand (they take the competitive aspect of the matter to a whole new level). So what they do is the play constant jokes on the professors and students DURING the class!! For example, if a student comes in late they jeer and curse and yell "ASSSSSSSIS" which means "SIIIIIIIIIT DOWN" -- completely disrupting the class. If a professor says any word in the French language that ends in 'sus' or contains 'bite', all the doublants yell "SUUUUUCE (which [profanity alert] means 'suck' as in 'suck a penis'), or "BIIIIIIIIIIITE" (which means dick). This type of call-and-response system reminds me more of going to a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show than sitting in a Biology lecture. The professors occasionally snap back at the students, but for the most part they just accept it, and, sometimes, you can see them trying to hold back a grin.

So the material is difficult and the pace is fast, but I'm going to do my best. The professors are excellent and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's a relatively short semester, so it's more a sprint than a marathon. I'll keep you posted.

Neil