classes ending and trip to paris!

Last week, I had my last classes ever at the engineering school. It was quite sad. It hasn't hit me yet as I still have work to do (including oral exams), so I'm out at the uni seeing my colleagues and students. One of the 1st years came up to me and said "Thank you for such a great year!". It meant a lot of me as it seemed like this year's 1st year students were rather unresponsive. And then, with one group of 1st years, we just laughed and laughed the entire class time. I even had to kick them out at the end! Class was far past over, and they just did not want to leave. Seeing as they and myself had other classes, they had to get out of there.

I'm sitting/suffering through lots and lots of oral exams with my 2nd years. Some have been quite pleasant, others have been downright painful. Only a little over 30 left to go! Luckily, Jane is taking about half of them. I was sort of touched by the general feelings of the 2nd year students. I overheard them talking about classes on the tram. The conversation eventually came around to English, and they were talking about how they wished they had been in my class! One said that he was in my class, but since he didn't pass the TOEIC in time, he had to change and has been kicking himself for it. Again, they seemed pretty indifferent to me during class, so it's nice to know that my class seems to be the most appealing. The German guys kept coming to me asking if they could take my exam instead. I was so close to letting them (they are the nicest guys ever!), but my colleague nipped it in the butt.

This past weekend, J. and I headed to Paris for the Tim Burton exhibition. It was sooooooooo crowded, but it was sooooooooooo good! To give you an idea, we spent two hours there whereas we spent only 30 minutes at the LAM (Museum of Modern Art in Lille) a few weeks ago, and it was like 5 times bigger than the Burton thing. It was really interesting. There were things from his films as well as personal notes, drawings, and things from his childhood/adolescence. I definitely recommend it to any Burton fan.

Other than that, we just sort of chilled around Paris. We went for tea and sweets at the Mosque, were geeks at the Apple Store, ate Chipotle, had rhum rhums, ate falafel, etc. We walked A LOT. And we met up with some of my friends who live in Paris or happened to be in Paris for the weekend. I hadn't seen them in a long while (like a year!), so that was really nice. Poor J. had to keep up with chatty (and after awhile tipsy) girls and an Indian guy while we rambled on quickly in various accents.


All and all, a good weekend.


Also, Brazilian and I should be signing a lease on Wednesday. I'll keep you posted on all that!