La biodiversité, c’est bizarre!

I went to three more classes today.  My lecture class was in French and was utterly boring, although my professor seemed nice enough.  My Environmental Diplomacy class seems like it will be really interesting, even though it’s quite a bit of work.  My professor is a young guy who works for one of the heads of the environmental department of France, so he really knows what he’s talking about.  We’re going to be having different speakers come to speak to us each class on different issues regarding the environment and (surprise) diplomacy.  We have a good bit of reading to do, but overall, I’m excited for the class.

My evening class, called Politics of Biodiversity, kind of caught me off-guard.  I knew it was going to be interesting when my professor walked in 20 minutes late, his hair disheveled and his beat-up suitcase banging on the table as he rounded the corner to get to the front of the class.  He started rambling in French until he realized all of us were giving him a dumbfounded look; we were under the impression that the class was supposed to be conducted in English.  He apologized, and started introducing himself all over again, this time in the proper language.  He didn’t take any papers out of his briefcase, and asked us what we wanted to learn about.  We were all kind of quiet and didn’t know what to make of it.  He threw some ideas out there, we listened, and agreed what he said sounded good.  We’re going to be talking a bit about conservation science (hmm…?), why biodiversity has become such a hot topic, and wolves.  And bears.  Because wolves and bears are his specialty, and they are what France pays him to protect.  Right.  So after all of this happens, he asks us if he needed to grade us on anything.  At this point we all just kind of smiled and laughed; this course wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Talk about a shocker!  Almost everything represented the antithesis of what Sciences Po is all about: the rigid methodology, strict grading system, etc.  The only thing that even remotely resembled the typical Sciences Po class was the fact that we will still be doing exposés, although they will be in pairs, and they will be on topics of our choice.  Crazy.  I’m pretty excited for the class though; he’s really passionate about what he does, knows his stuff, and really wants to pique our interest on biodiversity and why it’s important.

Even though I get out of class at 9:15 on a Thursday, at least I will be loaded with information about wolves when I head to the bars.  I mean, what guy doesn’t like a good pick-up line about wolves?