be true to your school.

So what is le Cours Florent? Well, it's a school for the "dramatic arts" created by Francois Florent in 1965. But not just any school. At its best it has rivaled the National Conservatory and produced some of France's most renowned and respected actors. While it's recently been criticized for increasing class sizes along with tuition, it's still considered to be the best private conservatory in France. I have yet to meet a Parisian that doesn't know what the Cours Florent is. In the spring they hold auditions for "la classe libre". Over a thousand compete, through a three-round audition process, for twenty spots--a few of which are reserved for international students whose maternal language is not French. Those who get in are put through a rigorous training program with twice as many class hours, the best professors, and twice the workload. And tuition is waived. Yes, come March, I will be auditioning.

In the mean time, I have class Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Plus outside rehearsals that are becoming more and more frequent. Our last assignment was the series of monologues I mentioned earlier (the tout seul). Now we are working on the parcours d'un role--basically a ten minute breakdown of a play focusing on the development of one of its characters. I am doing Octave from Les Caprices de Marianne, by Musset, for mine, and participating in Le Diable et le Bon Dieu by Sartre, The Seagull by Chekhov, and The Taming of the Shrew, amongst others, for some of my classmates' projects. We have also been assigned three other scenes from differing plays that we are supposed to be working on.

I've been wanting to get pictures to share, but pulling out a camera seemed to be too American or touristy or something. And I found out that we aren't allowed to take pictures in class. I finally snuck a couple the other day, but because I couldn't use my flash, this is the only one that really turned out:
All the classrooms are similar. Lights on the 'stage' part, dark in the seats.

My professor is Valerie Negre. And she is amazing. And really blunt. And never has a play (written before 1995) been mentioned in class that she doesn't know about. Never.

It gets better. My classmates are awesome. They are passionate, intelligent, incredibly talented, and cool. I know that down the road I am going to be saying, "I went to school with that guy" all over the place.

For example:
That's Marius. Stud. One of the coolest people I've every met, and not just because he's originally from Romania.

And this is Hannah:
She does awesome work and has consented to play opposite me for my parcours. Her and Lisa, whom I don't have a picture of, love to make fun of my American accent. Merci, les filles.

And I could go on, but I don't have anymore pictures. Except for this one of a few of us at a Vietnamese Restaurant after class:The girl closest to the camera is Katya. She's originally from Bulgaria and her father runs an acting school in L.A. She just applied for a green card and her English is great. Almost as good as her acting.

I don't know what else to say about school. I love it. Any questions? Did I mention that I love it?

deux pieds pour marcher.

This photo series was taken while on a day trip to Deauville with the wonderful Paulet Family. More photos and more information to come.

bonne semaine.

Things have been great.

So after institute last Thursday, I was invited to go on a last minute temple trip to Frankfurt. I guess someone had bailed out leaving an empty seat in one of the cars. The deciding conversation could best be translated as follows:
"Hey, what was your name again?"
"Jeff. And you are...?"
"Cecile. We're planning a temple trip and there's an extra spot in one of the cars--want to come?"
"When?"
"Tomorrow night."
"When are we coming back?"
"The next day."
"TOTALLY."
And so the next evening I found myself road-tripping to a temple in Germany with these wonderful people:

We got there around 3am, slept in the car for a few hours then went to the distribution center, and made it to the temple for the 8am session. Which was auf Deutsch. Which was awesome because I was always kind of jealous of the people that got to where those remote headsets. It was great. Then I sort of kind of fell asleep in the Celestial room but woke up in time for the next session. Which was in English. And was also great.
Afterwards we had to head back pretty quickly, so what I did see of Germany was basically the passing countryside. Which was beautiful. It was fun however to be with the German temple workers. I was reminded how incredible different they really are from the French. It's amazing to me that these people have lived next to each other for centuries without either 1. completely annihilating each other or 2. gelatinizing into one. They hold fiercely to their vastly differing cultures and identities, along with the rest of Europe, which produces an incredible diversity that is furthered by the massive influx of immigrants from all over the globe. And all of them are crammed into a couple peninsulas that hang off of Asia. Fascinating. And man, do they know their chocolate. From Scandinavia to Sardinia, these Europeans work magic with the cacao bean.

We got back to Paris around 10pm and I drove the last leg. Which was fun. It's always good to remind myself that Paris does not equate France.
This week has really been great. So many good times, but I will skip to the big events.

Wednesday night I hung out with these guys:
here:

(neither of those photos are mine, obviously--I left my camera at home...)

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I went to my first big football game. It was awesome. I knew it would be cool to be there in that huge stadium, but I had no idea how into it I was going to be. I loved it. And while we beat Austria 3-1, it doesn't really matter because Serbia already has the direct ticket to the World Cup. But come November, France will have a second chance at getting in. And there will be blood. And while I might not be a die hard, I am now a fan and I will be watching.

I am also a fan of classical opera being accompanied by marimbas and African drums, underscored by genuine African choral harmonies. Yeah, you heard me. The day after going to the match, I went to see this:

Mozart's Magic Flute performed by the South African Opera Company in English and Xosa. It was incredible. Not only could they sing traditional opera with the best of them, the entire company also took turns filling in on the instruments and dancing. In a deeply African vein, it was a communal effort. And when I say underscored by African choral harmonies--well, if I was a musician I could explain it better, but it was haunting. And beautiful. And moving. I loved it.
Man, I gotta get back to Africa.

Amidst all of this, I promise I have been going to school. And it has actually been really busy. I had to break down a play into ten minutes and find people to play the other characters for my next project. And also start learning parts for the projects of other students. But the more we get into it, the more I enjoy it. I promise I will give more information about class and living conditions and the like, but this post is long enough. And I have some camembert in the fridge calling my name...à la prochaine.

a bientot.

It's been a week since I came back and I am still loving it. Much has happened and there's much more to come. I didn't crash and burn during my monologue proficiency Friday morning despite not having spoken French for the entire week. Tuesday morning our work load was doubled at Florent as we prepare for the next assignment which requires working as partners and small groups--which is great. I continue to be impressed and intrigued by the awesome people in my class. Wednesday, after class, I went to two plays with some of them, one of which was starring one of our classmates and the other was directed by our professor.

I am also having an awesome time with the young adults--FHE at Edouard's, institute class in downtown Paris, parties at Miro's, and watching General Conference at the chapel in Nogent--some were rebroadcast due to the time difference (which made for four sessions on Sunday, but it was just what I needed). And tomorrow, after class, and after checking out a possible room to rent, I am going on a road trip here: