I have been busy so I will be breaking things up:
In exploring the area around Opera, a touristy area, I was able to discover many fascinating shops. To give some background, I have a bunch of traveler's checks. It is somewhat of a pain to use these, but it ended up being nice to have some since my debit card got frozen since I made a train reservation to Switzerland. Anyways, I went from one bank to another in order to find where I could exchange them. Eventually, somebody suggested that I go to the Opera train stop. Right as I emerged from the metro stop, I was greeted with the hustle and bustle of tourists clamoring over the beautiful Opera house building. I walked around and took a number of pictures. The currency exchanges in the area are blatantly in the business to rip off tourists as some places charged 10 percent plus a fee of 5 euros. After going to about 5 places, I found an exchange where the fee was only 2 percent. Since I went all the way out here, I decided to go walking around. I explored a number of children's shops. My wanderings let me to a passage with a number of cool shops. My favorite was an oriental antiquities shop. They had such an amazing collection: there were ivory, gold and wood sculptures in addition to a large collection of jewelry, tapestries, and oriental weapons! As I have concluded in the past, wandering away from the tourist traps has led to some of my best experiences here.
In walking through the Louvre slowly and enjoying a long dinner with my cousins, I saw again that I get more out of what I do by experiencing it slowly. So my aunt, uncle, and younger cousin, Meg, Harold, and Hannah, respectively visited Paris this weekend. First, we went to the Louvre. I was happy to see that my family members were happy with going through the Louvre slowly. I felt like I was able to appreciate the art more than when I went with other kids. Among other things, we discussed the progression of perspective as shown by portraits of the baby Jesus. The Louvre is just so amazing. Each section of the Louvre might as well be its own museum. We also slowly perused at paintings from smaller European countries. I enjoyed looking closely at the paintings and at least attempting to appreciate all of the work that went into each masterpiece. After that, we went out to dinner to a place that specialized in the cuisine from the Auvergne region. We enjoyed a long meal with an appetizer, main dish, dessert and some wine. I feel like I can enjoy a good bottle of wine with a meal now. It was nice to have a slow dinner for a change where we were able to talk. I hope to go on one or two more nice dinners like this where I get to try food from a new region. The only difficulty is that there is no way that I could read the menu: my aunt and uncle who have extensive experience in french cuisine still struggled to read the menu.
It is a bit harder to draw any conclusions about my travels today, but suffice it to say that it reinforces the point that I like to go through things slowly and I was pleased to see that some, but not many, of the students feel similarly. We started by going to some gardens. One particular person in our group planned the trip so we more or less went to see what she saw. It was hot and bright so I didn't particularly enjoy the gardens. It would have been nice to have a picnic though. Then we continued on to the Pantheon- a majestic building that contains the remains of some of Paris's "great men." Boasting large sculptures, frescos depicting hordes of people and ceilings that went hundreds of feet into the air, the inside of the pantheon was awe-inspiring. The lower level of the building contained a crypt that housed many of the influential thinkers of Paris. At this point, we split up and we each went around and looked at who we wanted to. I was able to read the French descriptions and although I was not able to understand everything, I was able to get the gist of the descriptions. Seeing these people makes me desire to know more French history and philosophy. Another notable point is that of the hundred or so people interred in the Pantheon, there are only two women. I also enjoyed reading about the history of building the Pantheon and how it had been used over the years.
My GRE preparation is going along smoothly and I am starting to notice that it is impacting my thinking in a positive way. I have been looking at a lot of vocabulary and I have a little notebook where I write all the words and definitions so that I can study them wherever I go. I feel that I am recognizing a lot of words in the practice materials that I am doing but I have trouble free-recalling the words that I am working with. The other major area of preparation is on the essay portion. I am working with a tutor and he has had a lot of helpful suggestions. It seems to me that if you write a straight-forward essay, then you get a 4. In order to make the essay better, you need to situate your argument in some context. For instance, I spoke about current problems necessitating generalists in the context of renaissance scientists. Further, by mixing in some impressive vocabulary, you can push your score to a 5 or 6. Really the idea is that you want to set yourself apart in some way with a flourish of your vocabulary and historical knowledge. I feel like it is a up to luck whether or not I can think of some historical or artistic example in order to situate my essay. Overall, I think all of this is a bit silly because I think straightforwardly, but I can see how these elements make an essay stronger. Additionally, I have to focus on writing strong introductory sentences and creating fluid transitions. I am pleased with how my preparation is going.
That's that for now. The weeks are pretty busy with work and I am having a lot of good experiences over the weekends. Next weekend I am going to Switzerland!
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