Today begins my final week in France. Well actually, it’s really only six days including today. The next time I leave the country, it will be for good. On another note, I actually have to study today. We will get to that later.
I slept in today to around 10:30. On days like this, it can be advantageous to sleep in since I don’t have much to occupy my time with. When I went downstairs to eat breakfast, I made the realization that I was home alone. Obviously Jessica had returned to the US, but it seemed as if Anne Marie and Andre had gone out somewhere too.
While eating breakfast, I realized that I need to buy food for lunch and dinner. This was slightly complicated by the fact that nothing is open today since it is a holiday. AM told me once that some store are open until noon on holidays. Hoping my usual supermarket would be open, I knew I had to head out soon if I wanted lunch and dinner.
After quickly throwing on clothes, I headed out with my reusable shopping bag in hand. The convenience store down the street was closed, which was not a promising sign. To my luck, I saw a lady carrying groceries a block away from me. This was also a block towards Spar Supermarche, my usual spot. To my luck, the store was open.
Since it’s a holiday, the BU office was closed today and I couldn’t pick up my food stipend. With this in mind, I was trying to spend the least as possible on food today. Additionally, I want to use some of my BU stipend to pick up some gifts for my family before I leave.
For lunch I picked up some Ramen noodles and I got a premade salad for dinner. I headed back home and the house was still deserted. I took advantage of this to take a super long shower. Sometimes you need to treat yourself.
After my shower, it was time to buckle down and do some studying. My circuits exam is tomorrow and my nuclear physics exam is Thursday. Today I would be focusing on studying my old labs since circuits was a lab exam. Fortunately, my professor had dropped a lot of hints on which lab would be the one for the final.
There were five in total. The first was a just learning how to use the oscilloscope, so it wouldn’t be that one. The professor got frustrated on how long Vesko and I were taking to do the second lab and told us it wouldn’t be the final. For the the third lab, this is the only one that he stayed with us as long as we needed (which was six hours in this case). My friends from physics told me that the fourth lab was the one for the final last year, so I don’t think he would reuse it. Lastly, the fifth lab was the only one where he let us leave early and finish it at home. Clearly it couldn’t have been that important.
By deductive reasoning, I strongly think it will be the third lab with a slim chance of it being the fourth. I am taking a gamble and am going to primarily focus my studying on those two labs. Let’s hope I am right about this.
I spent about an hour studying lab number three. Our professor never gave us back the graded copy, but luckily I had taken pictures of my report since I had a suspicion it would be the final. I used this and the lab instructions to redo all the calculations and theoretical parts. I am confident in my oscilloscope and circuit building skills, it is just the theoretical questions that worry me.
After studying for a while, I took a break to eat lunch and watch two episodes of the show Silicon Valley on HBO. I was feeling productive, but not productive enough to start studying again. Instead, I opted to write my blog post for my day yesterday.
Once finished with, I rewarded myself with some more Netflix. After an episode, I sat down to study some more. I was looking at lab #4. Unfortunately I never got the graded copy back and didn’t take pictures of my report. I was able to get pictures of my friend Nick’s lab report, which was very helpful. I used that to study from for about an hour.
My motivation to study was getting really low, so I decided to retire for the night. I definitely didn’t get enough studying in, but my exam isn’t until 1:00 PM tomorrow. I will study more on both labs and a little bit of the fifth lab in the morning.
I ate dinner once I finished studying. These premade salads have really been my best friends this semester. I definitely want to make a lot of my own salads this summer. After dinner, I sat down to type up my blog for today. I don’t have many of these left, so I trying my best to make the words count.
Sometimes I get torn because I know I should cherish my last couple days here, but I wish I could fast forward to Saturday when I will be heading home. After my last exam, I think I will try to do all my favorite Grenoble things one last time. That will make time go by quicker and help give Grenoble one last tour
After my blog, I watched some Netflix and went to bed.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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