adventures

Posting photos is a total pain - don't expect too many too often. That being said, I know some of you - ahem, my family - will have a cow if I don't put any up at all, so... awesome.

First rehearsal at AmCath last night, and obviously it's the day my cold decides to shift into bronchitisness. Luckily, they were finishing up a Christmas recording for the first hour and a half, so I only had to sing - "sing" - for the last thirty minutes. I actually learned way, way more by watching the choir during the recording session that I would have by joining in. They really are pretty good; most of the problems I noticed were picky things, and they responded really well when Ned told them to change something. (Ned, by the way, reminds me so much of Mr. Neswick! They both yell at people in the exact same way, using the exact same tone, and use some of the same phrases. Plus, anyone who tries to get grown adults to do "my dog has fleas" to a psalm is okay is my book.) Of all the sections, however, the sopranos are the most worrisome. I don't know then really well, and I haven't had much of a chance to sing with them and find out how they work, but the balance of power - both vocal and otherwise - seems pretty off. The altos include a couple of countertenors (and Ryland Angel, who wasn't there. He kind of freaks me out; he did a guest solo thing at St. Michael's a couple Easters ago and has no register shifts. Weird.) and were fine, and the tenors and basses were really strong. Sunday we're doing a Sowerby piece - hooray for singing again!

Sorbonne classes start on Monday... eek! My mother gently reminded me that I haven't yet written on my Reid Hall classes, so here goes. Everybody has to take a grammar class; we spend two months reviewing advanced grammar and syntactical stuff, and then for the rest of the semester we meet with our profs once a week to go over our fac coursework. The classes are divided into levels three and four, with two sections in each level. I placed into the bottom of the fourth, and I'm mostly really happy with it. It's definitely where I'm supposed to be, and where most of my classmates should be, but there are a couple kids who must have tested beyond their abilities, because they just don't get some of the basics. That, or they just don't pay attention when we review things. Either way, it's frustrating. I have some friends in the class, though, and the professor is fantastic. His name is François Theuiller, and we're crazy about him. He is a very good teacher, very patient and creative, but also has a great sense of humor. We all pretty much want to be best friends with him. My Medieval Art and Architecture class hasn't really gotten off the ground yet, but the prof was the intstructor for my orientation group, so I know her a little. She's very into her subject, which is great, but seems kind of easy. I guess that's a good thing, considering all the coursework I'm going to have, but since I'm into her subject, too, I want to be challenged. The last Reid Hall class I'm signed up for is Paris Parcours. Professor Dequeker is a history professor, and I'm not sure what I expected from the course description (there are two parcours: one, mine, is the history option and the other is architecture and culture), but he's teaching it as a class on the history of Paris as told through its buildings and neighborhoods. It's really cool, actually; on the first day of class we read some of De Gaulle's memoires and talked about the Paris/France he saw, and discussed how he orchestrated his entrance into Paris after it was liberated. (Rather than meeting the head of the Resistance at the Hôtel de Ville, he went straight to his old office at the Ministry of War and sat down at his old desk, symbolically ignoring the Vichy government and indicating that he - and the Republic of France - were back. Sounds like an arrogant sob, but he definitely had style.) This class meets twice a week, once to hit the streets for three hours and once to discuss and have student presentations for an hour. I wasn't looking forward to this class at first, but now I totally am. The only downside is that since I've gotten really into the class, I'm totally become that girl who always raises her hand. Yikes.

On the books for this weekend: a date with a French boy (!), watching some 6 Nations rugby, and singing. Send me emails, guys! I want to know what you're doing, too.

(My address here is:

Betsy Remes
c/o Columbia University
Reid Hall
4 rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris FRANCE

hint, hint.)

P.S. If I make typos, please let me know. I'm a punctuation snob, but I don't really do spelling.