[My alarm clock is slowing down. It’s plugged into a transformer and I set it 10 minutes ahead of local time but each time I look at it, it’s closer to the current minute. I'll have to make better observations so that I can calculate the approximate rate at which it is slowing. I think perhaps it loses 1min/5-7min.]

Today was nice. There is a great park down the street from MPF (Maison des Provences de France—my dorm) that is absolutely beautiful! I walked through it today with some new friends from my program. We also went to dinner this evening. We had our first conversation together as well. Conversation is just a meeting we have with a native speaker (the assistant), during which we speak only French to him. (Sometimes we speak English amongst ourselves for clarity sake.) Our assistant is Mathieu. He took me to buy my first Carte d'Orange (a monthly train ticket). He's a nice guy and I think he's funny too but I can't always understand what he's saying so I don't always get the jokes.

All of us (my conversation group of 3 other students) are pretty good at faking it when we don't understand Mathieu but don't have the heart to ask him to repeat for the 7th time or are too exhausted to ask “Quoi?” (What?) for the 10th time. Its bad when a person starts a story and you get so lost as soon as it starts that 2 minutes in, all you can do is nod and react according to their expressions because understanding would require probably about 7 minutes of arduous recap. Conversation group 2 has definitely mastered the art of smiling and nodding.