I started class today. It was pretty much terrifying.

For those of you who don’t know a lot about the Dickinson in France program, here’s a two minute tutorial. It’s an immersion program, which means that students who are accepted get to come to France and live with honest-to-God French host families; we also get to go to school with real, honest-to-God French students at real French universities. There are a couple you can choose from depending on your major—this semester I’m at the Mirail, but next semester I’ll be at the Institute des Etudes Politiques.

I only have one class on Mondays, History of Art and Religion, but it starts at two and ends at six. Questionable decisions, I know. Anyway, I get to the classroom, and I swear to god the classroom is not a classroom; it’s not even in a building! Instead, its four decently sized storage units stacked on top of each other. A couple days earlier I had passed by them and thought, ‘oh, storage containers for construction material, cool.’ Nope, not construction, just my classroom. The Mirail is doing some renovation, which is, I assume, why they’re using the storage units, but honestly? It makes me miss Dickinson, even Bosler. But I figure out where the class is, get myself seated and then take some time to look at the professor.

It’s Santa. Santa is my professor. Tall white guy, got a bit of a belly, rosy cheeks, long white beard. He’s just… Santa. Except, instead of a red velvet coat, he’s dressed in all white. Even his shoes. He starts talking, reveals that he’s from Germany, and then asks if anyone else is not from France. I’m the only one who raises their hand, of course, but even though I feel super awkward, I tell him that I’m American. He tells me that nobody is perfect.

We move on, he continues talking, and I eventually realize that this is definitely an art history course, and not just a history course. He’s asking if we know how to do all this technical art history stuff, if we know such and such author, and I’m thinking, ‘how long until I can drop this class?’ When it gets worse.

We get to choose partners. Yay.

Of course, nobody wants to be with the American who nobody knows and doesn’t speak French. They all avoid eye contact until finally the professor takes pity on me and finds a partner for me. So embarrassing.

Keeping my fingers crossed that my next day of classes will be better! Wish me luck!