August 3-9, 2020. This week I started my intensive French classes at Alliance Française Paris. One of the reasons I came back to Paris two months ahead of the start of my LL.M. classes, aside from the primary reason being that I needed to re-enter France before my visa expired and apply for an extension from within continental France, was that I wanted to study French intensively get past my current level of proficiency. The intensive classes are held for four hours every day (except weekends) for two months. Hopefully, I will be able to advance in my proficiency. It would be a shame not to be able to speak, read and write French proficiently after more than a year living in Paris. It took me a while to get used to the first few sessions, it really was intensive, and the primary rule was that we couldn’t communicate in English–at all, so at first I was having a hard time communicating what I didn’t know how to express in French. It felt a lot like drowning, trying to grasp and express words I didn’t know in French like gasping for air. It quickly got better.
This week was also marked by the canicule or heat wave. Day time temperatures have been breaching past 35 degrees celcius daily since Tuesday. The evenings do not bring any relief either, aside from the fact that the sun sets way past 9 in the evening, the heat stays above 30, and worse–there is no wind whatsoever to stimulate the cooling effect of sweat. I often woke up in the middle of the night dripping in perspiration and end up having a bed sheet damp with sweat by morning.
I had been told to buy an electric fan, but the scrimping person that I am, I refused to spend on something that I would only be using for two weeks, maximum–because temperatures are seen to cool down towards the end of the month as autumn comes around the corner.
I met up with my Filipino friends this week. On Tuesday, I met up with Yael, the only other fraternity brother I have in France. We went at the 10e arrondissement at the Canal Saint-Martin area. The summer afternoon atmosphere was amazing, it was like everything was back to normal. People were out enjoying the nice warm weather, hanging out with friends along the canal, lying on the grass in the parks, dancing at the Place de la République, all having a good time like the pandemic was over. We then had dinner at Thai place.
The next day, I met up with my former housemate, Patricia, who along with her boyfriend, hosted dinner at their apartment. I would meet up with her again two days later when we met up with owner of the apartment we used to rent out in Montmartre. I needed to retrieve the rest of my luggage which I had left in the apartment at the beginning of the pandemic. We never got to meet her during our lease because she lived overseas.
On Saturday, I met up with my other set of former housemates and our friends, the ones I lived with in Suresnes when I first arrived in Paris last year. We came together to have a surprise party for Thomas who was celebrating his birthday. We had makeshift samgyupsal using a raclette table grill.
Tonight, I had dinner with my LLM classmates Keishi and Dmitry at Relais de l’Entrecôte near Montparnasse.
