This is the two of us on the train. We had had two bottles of wine, and that combined with the motion of the train and the thrill of a new adventure made a perfect recipe for laughter. Here we're cracking up because I tried to tell him that I had a dangerous chin (do you see how pointy that thing is?) and I accidently said a semi-close word in French, which instead came out as, "Look out for my dangerous sheep!"

This is just one of the seven or fifteen gorgeous views we had from one of our hotel rooms. This particular view is in the mountaineous town of Jaen, where people have very-hard-to-understand accents and apparently no qualms about driving along curvy mountain roads at night. They go fast, man. And you can't see jack. Very frightening. Here is another amazing hotel view. Do you see how small the streets are in one of Spain's most charming cities, Arcos de la Frontera?

Here is the boy in the bathtub. If he ever checked my site, he would probably kill me for putting it up here, but lucky for me, that's not a problem. I just think this is the cutest picture ever.

This is probably one of four pictures ever taken of me that I actually like. Besides the fact that I'm very blue, and that my hair is doing that groovy styling thing hair does when you've been swimming in the ocean, I can see how happy I was sitting there, playing cards in that restaurant in Alicante, and that makes me like the pic.

Ronda was one of our favorite cities on the trip. This is a huge gorge, taken from the bridge going across it. Our hotel was just overlooking the gorge, which was pretty awesome. The Boy and I are standing on the other side of the gorge in this picture. We had some really funny German guy take it for us, because my family members keep saying they need a picture of the two of us. I wish this one wasn't so dark, because I otherwise really like it.

Maybe I should just give them this picture instead?

Honestly, though. Of all the pics, that last one's my fave.

The Boy makes fun of me for it. Which, of course, makes me cry more. Before meeting him, I recall at some point when I was 18, being asked in my Human Sexuality class, "When was the last time you cried?" It was some sort of test to prove how much less boys cry than girls do. Most girls where in the 1-2-weeks-ago zone. I was on the I-Don't-Remember side of the room with 6'3" basketball-playing Paul and two boys with combat boots.

Sometimes, The Boy says, "You'll cry over anything. There doesn't even have to be anything wrong, and you'll still cry over it." Now that's simply not true. Just because he can't understand what exactly the miniscule little thing is and why it's upsetting me so doesn't in any way negate its existence. And believe me, I cry over some really miniscule things these days. More like these last 1460 days, about how many days I've been popping that itty-bitty pill.

My friends complain of the same thing. Kdogg, my best friend and former roomate, and I were both non-criers. In two years of 24/7 friendship, I think we cried once in front of one another. And I don't really recall crying any time other than that during those years. Ever. Kdogg's started the pill herself, and she's found herself to be the sunny-with-a-constant-chance-of-showers type, just like me.

And, by the way, that time Kdogg and I cried? Yeah, it was because we had both thought one was mad at the other and had had a silent "tiff" for two days. Finally, after having enough, I came into her room, trying to be hissy but instead being a total wuss, and said, "I just want to know why you're so mad at me." The last three words came out choked with tears, and she responded with an equally tearful, "I thought you were mad at me!" Then we cried and said, "I can't believe that was what our first fight was about. We're so pathetic." We haven't had one since.

But I digress. And yet, that's another thing: I think this pill makes me a little more airheady than usual. I know, I know, pretty soon I'm going to start blaming it for a bad grade or unpaid bills, but seriously... I feel stupid a lot lately. It's not so much that I feel stupid, but I notice that my concentration levels aren't what they were when I was in high school and college. Which is really saying a lot, considering all those drugs I let interfere with what was otherwise a perfectly good system at the time.

I had a friend who told me once, "Yeah, the pill totally ruined my college years. I went through all of college thinking that I wasn't as smart as everyone, even though I had been at the top of my class in high school. I just chalked up the difference to having gotten accepted to a prestigious school; it made sense that everyone there would be smarter than me. But once I stopped taking the pill, I swear, it was like the clouds were lifted. Within a matter of days, I didn't feel stupid anymore."

So, sure, that may be taking it a bit far. And who knows, maybe I really am just easily distracted. And I suppose, by most standards, my six-hour Arabic marathons are proof to some people that I can actually concentrate. But I still feel like something has been lost. It's harder for me to reach 100% concentration than it used to be, and maybe I'm just looking for a way to explain that logically.

But first things first: I really gotta stop this crying thing. Because seriously, when you find out you've gotten overcharged for cheese, you should be able to stand up for yourself and hold your own. Right? Demand some sort of explanation, yeah? But no. My constant urge to cry got in the way, and I had to flee before The Supermarket Lady caught me with tears streaming down my face. Our interaction went a little something like this:

Me (thinking to myself) : Wow, ten euros for parmesan cheese. Now that can't be right. Well, I'll just return it. ::: walks up to customer service counter:::
Me: Bonjour. I just happened to notice that I got charged ten euros for a very small block of parmesan cheese. I buy this cheese regularly, and it never costs ten euros.
The Supermarket Lady: We never take back perishable goods.
Me: I just bought it. Right there. Twenty seconds ago.
TSL: We never take back perishable goods.
Me: Are you kidding? Look at my receipt. I bought it thirty five seconds ago.
TSL: Ten euros isn't too expensive for parmesan.
Me: What?? It's not ten euros.
TSL: It's always somewhere between five and seven.
Me: I would never, ever buy five euro cheese... let alone ten euro cheese.
TSL: We can't do anything for you. That's a perishable good.
Me::::eyes smarting:::: But I just bought it!
TSL: It's a perishable good.
Me: :::throwing the cheese into my grocery sack and running out the door like a madwoman before my tears fall:::: Ok.

So all was going well until I hit that "It's somewhere between five and seven" comment that TSL said. Something about the tone. And the desperation of the situation. There were actually two women there - one was just looking on unapprovingly and silently while pulling childrens' t-shirts off plastic hangers - and I fully vibed all the negativity they were obviously aiming at me, grimly sitting behind the customer service desk in their aggressively yellow t-shirts. I couldn't help but cry.

What the fuck? Dude, seriously. This is just not cool. That is a perfect example of a situation which in no way required tears. Something must be done. So I'm wondering if I should stop, or change, or somehow modify my family-planning techniques. It's something I've been mulling over for, oh, a good two years now. Whatever I do, it obviously won't be drastic.

Here's my list of pros and cons for taking the pill. Feel free to make your own personal additions to the list:

Pros

- Um, no cramps. Could I repeat that, maybe? Yes... no cramps. One more time? No cramps.
- No babies. Could I repeat that, maybe? Yes... no babies. And, by extension, no need to think about other forms of birth control or issues of, um, timing.
- A two-day period. Right on time, everytime.
- Good skin. Or better skin than when I was 19, anyway, but maybe that's just age?

Cons

- Crying because I'm frustrated.
- Crying because I'm sad.
- Crying because I'm tired.
- Crying because some guy cut me off while walking down the sidewalk. There's a flow to these damn sidewalks, you know.
- Crying because someone didn't wash out his oatmeal pot. Again.
- Crying because someone couldn't understand why I didn't ask The Supermarket Lady to go down and get me a price check on the cheese instead of asking to return it. Which, admittedly, is the logical thing to do, but not what a tear-streaked hormonally imbalanced 24-year-old does.
- Lack of concentration?
- Regular visits to the lady doctor
- A few physical side effects that I don't need to detail here, but that I'm sure a lot of you women out there have experienced. These often require further visits to the Lady Doctor.
- Having to remember to take the damn thing
- Cost (although, really, it's not all that expensive here)
- Crying
- Rivers

Latin - split.
1624.
Strasbourg. Languages evolve.
1377 - VERY IMPORTANT DATE in the history of French language. ??

This is because our teacher was incapable of completing a thought. He would start with one topic, say, the regional accents of France, and suddenly we would be talking about Latin declinaisons. It was impossible to follow him and our notes displayed our desperate attempts to do so. In fact, I ended up buying a little History of the French Language Made Easy-type books and we combined notes, looked up dates/places using info from the book, and filled in the missing holes. That's how we studied for our final.

At some point during that semester, I had stumbled across a few used linguistics books in the local bookstore. I'm always up for grabbing deals like that, as most linguistics books are heavy fuckers and are thus in the 20-30 euro range.

There is a series of books at the introductory level, each of which features the writer on the cover in front of a white background. Each book in the series features a different topic: pragmatics, syntax, semantics, whatever. I picked up the general book, entitled, creatively, Linguistique. I read a bit, but mainly set it to the side for later, aka this year.

So, this year, of course, I have officially started my linguistics classes. As an optional course, I took French linguistics, because I think it's interesting. The class is divided in two: one day of the week is dedicated to morphology and the other lecture day is dedicated to lexicology. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the lexicology lecture and there he was, six months after I last saw him: Mr. Droning Professor Man.

Actually, it's ok. I started laughing out loud because I couldn't believe my bad luck. But I was pleasantly surprised that not only did I manage to follow his hour-long lecture, but that I was actually interested in it.

I'm chalking up the difference in his lecture styles to - and I am not kidding about this - the fact that my class this year is from 11-12 whereas last year it was from 14-16. The French eat lunch from 12-14, and a lot of them tend to drink wine with their meal. On multiple occasions last year, I found myself wondering if the professor hadn't tipped back a few too many. After seeing the difference in his lecture style before the afternoon beverage and his lecture style after, I can say that one is remarkably more clear and coherent than the other.

So now that I am two weeks into my classes, I'm trying to fill in a few holes where I may see them. Hence why I went to look something up in my used book called Linguistique which I had bought last year.

Lo and behold, it was Mr. Droning Professor Man on the cover! Erm... well, sort of. Granted, he was younger (by about 20 years) and thinner (by about 40 lbs), but it was definetly him. He looked jovial and fun on the back cover. As if he was just a real jokster of a linguistics prof and he just happened to be throwing a frisbee in the backyard with the dog or something.

Trust me. He's nothing like that.

But still, I've had this book sitting in my house for at least the last six months. I've moved it around, taken it out, looked at it. It was on my dresser for awhile, and I eventually moved it to the pile near the stereo. When I bought the new bookshelf, its placement got careful consideration amongst other books on the new shelves.

Never, once, when I saw the picture, did I make the connection. It was only this year, a few days ago now, that I realized he wrote the book. And I only figured it out because I now know his name, and I saw the author's name on the binding. But yeah, it's him on the cover alright. Or a better, more fun-loving version of him, at any rate.

Odd. Truly.

Walking up to the school from its westside, I tried to remain calm. Sure, it might be in the nicest of neighborhoods. And sure, it may be somewhat notoriously 'rough.' But I can handle it. I can, I can.

The gates got to me a bit though. I stood outside the black bars helplessly, trying to figure out how to buzz someone so I could get out of the early morning cold. Standing there, looking at the high school kids standing in the courtyard below, I found myself wondering if I had made a horrible mistake.

I had been warned about where I was going to work. It's stuck right between two towns with a dangerous reputation. The school district is among France's poorest. People asked me if I was sure I would want to work out in such a rough high school. I was beginning to think I knew why.

But then finally, a tall, dark figure came towards me in an enormous puffy coat. Underneath it all, he couldn't have been over 17.

"Hi," I said. "Just wondering how I get in."
"That would be my job. Just a minute."

He unlocked the gate, told me how to get to the principal's office, and I walked into the building. Surprisingly clean, modern, and spacious, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the drab exterior had been misleading. Inside, the school was warm and almost cozy, actually. Large, open hallways connect various wings. Everything is surrounded by windows, and most facilities are clean, bright, and newish-feeling.

I told the secretary that I was there for a meeting with the principal. I was a bit early, but the principal came out to say hello anyway. She struck me immediately as someone who loves her job, works too hard, and asks for little in return. She welcomed me into her office, got to work right away, discussed with me some, smiled a lot, and began introducing me to people. I still wasn't sure whether or not I officially had the job, but she was certainly acting like I did, and I was starting to like her and her "team" more and more.

A secretary gave me a bunch of paperwork to fill out, and another one led me to the teachers' lounge. It felt funny and wrong to be there. Last time I was in a high school, that was a forbidden room, where teachers showed their real personalities and called one another by their first names.

Sitting in a corner of the salle de profs, an incredibly comfortable and neatly-designed little center, I began to work on the 20 different papers I had been given while the secretary went to fetch an English teacher with whom I was hoping to discuss a few things.

"Are you a new collegue?" a young, attractive teacher asked from in front of the coffee machine across the room .
"Um... yeah. I guess so. I'm the English assistant."
"Oh great!" he said. "Always nice to see new faces on the staff. Welcome aboard."
"Thanks," I said, and meant it.

The secretary came trotting back and said, "Actually, the English teacher is in the middle of a class, but he said you could come by if you like. Would you like to?"

This is the type of question that one can't really say no to. I was, after all, there to teach English. And I couldn't, exactly, say "Nah... I think I'll just fill out paperwork for the next hour." Knowing this, I had a moment of panic as I heard myself agreeing, realizing that in a matter of seconds, I would be up in front of a dozen or more teenagers. I found myself checking to see if my fly was zipped.

She led me through the nutty hallway system until I got to room 217. Mr. B had left the door open for me, and as we walked up, he stepped outside to say hello. Friendly, excited, and bit ruffled, he steered me into the classroom and asked me to introduce myself.

This all happened in a daze of course. My brain was a bit on overdrive. I had more or less gone into survival mode, just hoping not to trip or spit while standing in front of everyone for the first time.

Scanning the room, my eyes fell on faces of many colors. Most were sporting the typical fashions of the banlieue: athletic pants, baggy sweatshirts, pumas. They seemed surprisingly adult to me, for a group of high school students. I found out later that these kids were actually doing a post-graduate technical degree.

It's amazing how much seating arrangements can give things away. First, it was obvious to me that this was not a setup designed by the teacher, that he let everyone choose their own seat. Hence why the two of the three girls who listened intently were in the front row, in the center. The other one was on the far left of the room, near the windows. She kept straining to hear me. In the back was a group of four boys, obviously the troublemakers, obviously the "cool" guys. Amongst them were two kids who, although they weren't taking anything very seriously, were actually spitting out the most coherent sentences in English amongst everyone there. I took to them immediately. They're funny and should be allowed to goof around if it means they'll speak a lot. And really, had they not been there, the whole experience could have been terribly awkward... they were the ones who initiated the conversation and kept it afloat.

I mumbled a few things about who I am, where I'm from. I tell everyone I'm from Detroit because it's far easier than saying anything else, and they really don't know any different. The four kids in the back said, "Oh, yeah... Detroit." and then viciously started searching for the city on the map of the US in the front of their textbook.

Why are you in France? How old are you? How are you? When will you go back to the US? Why do Americans hate the French? Are you paid for this? What's your religion? What do you like better in France than in the US? Do you speak French? What kind of music do you like? Will you come to our party?

They were both nervous and excited to speak to me, and I found those that made the effort so incredibly endearing that I thought I was going to hug them. Mainly, we just chatted and got the ball rolling, and then the bell rang.

The bell. I had just forgotten, simply forgotten, about bells. When it rang, with the same loud, unpleasant ring as at my own high school, my entire life came into perspective for a brief moment: what the hell am I doing? Why am I holding the chalk? It was as if all those years I've spent since high school - that's six years now! - collapsed into a millisecond, and now here I was, back in the system but suddenly on the other side. I felt like an imposter, yet everyone was smiling and egging me on, so I just went along with it all nonetheless.

With the ringing, I felt myself relax a bit. I sat back in my chair. Mr B came over to explain a few things to me, saying that there is obviously a difference in level and that hopefully I'll be able to really help the kids that care by taking them out of the class a few days every month so they can get in some conversation practice. He pointed out the strong students to me as they were leaving, who were pretty much the same students I had spotted during the class hour. Not surprisingly, two of the students he mentioned sauntered over to us and asked me if we could work it out so that they could work with me privately or in a small group.

I was touched. I guess I had been prepared to walk into my mental image of a notoriously bad school, with some notoriously bad students. But, I had had the good fortune of stumbling into a classroom where, sure, there were lots of kids who didn't give two shits, but there were a couple who were just trying to make the most of their education. I really hope I can help them, because I have to admire their motivation and determination that somehow has managed to survive through all the chaos. It's inspirational.

I stuck around for another hour or two and met a few other English teachers. They were all helpful and friendly, and I'm hoping to get to know them all better. Mainly, I'm excited to lead some classes and get in front of the students again. They were warm, outgoing, and encouraging. I couldn't be happier with my new job. Now I've got two weeks of vacation before school picks up again, and hopefully I'll have the time to do some planning and prepping beforehand. Mainly, I'm just ready to dive in.

Inside me,
there's a thin woman
crying to get out...
But I can usually shut the
bitch up with cookies.

I don't know if he heard the message or not, but he had made a little confused face when she said "Happy Birthday" on the machine. Maybe he just thought he was dreaming that. He really had no clue that it was my birthday yesterday. Still hasn't realized it today. I'm giving him until tomorrow to remember.

Even more amusing is that yesterday we had a big chat about the date. He had mistakenly thought he had a job interview on the 9th. "No, no, it's the 8th today... no worries, your interview isn't until the 16th." "Oh, phew, yeah." "No, you're right. I don't know why I thought it was the 9th."

Still. Went right over his head.

I always tell people my birthday is easy to remember: October 8. Like an octagon. Or an octapus. Very simple. Most people then say to themselves: "Oh, yeah, very easy. 10/10. October 10th." How they seem to make this logic jump, I'm not sure, but it still happens. So maybe he'll wake up tomorrow, give me a big hug, and say, "Happy birthday baby!" If I'm really lucky, maybe I'll get another duck paperweight . Or something equally as meaningful and symbolic of our four years together.

Yesterday my dad called me while I was on the bus. He left a frightful message about my mom being in the hospital. Something about her foot. I stressed out a bit, and then he called me three hours later at home to give me the details. We chatted for a bit (she's ok, although in a lot of pain...poor thing!), and not once did he mention the big 2-4. Then he passed the phone to my mom. She was fresh outta surgery, all doped up on morphine and exhausted from a night spent in the emergency room, but the first thing she croaked out through the fog was a half-excited, "Happy Birthday!!"

"Thanks, Mom," I said. "So far, you're one of two people who have remembered."
"Oh," she said, "Dad being the other one?"
"No, no." I said. "Kathy being the other." (Dear friend Kathy!)

Needless to say, when she gave the phone back to Dad, he said, "Oh, and yes, happy birthday."

I told my mom last week that birthdays have really lost their charm ever since I turned 16. That was the last exciting and important one. (I spent 21 in Europe, so it made no difference over here...).

My sister called this morning around 7.45 after being unable to get in touch with my parents. Dad had left a frightening message on her machine as well, and she was worried. After discussing the details of Mom's accident, she felt better. And then she said, "Dude! It's you're birthday tomorrow."

"No, no," I said, "It was yesterday."

Although technically, she was still on time because with the time difference, it was still October 8th in her neck of the woods. At this point, I'll take anything I can get. It counts, dude. It so counts. Three people remembered.

But the way I figure it, I'm probably going to be wanting to forget my own birthday pretty soon anyhow. So, the less I remind people now, the more practiced they will be at forgetting it once I turn 30. So really, I'm just doing some really effective pre-planning. Six years in advance. Alright! Way to think ahead, right?

Classes didn't start this week! Can you fucking believe that?

Of course, it's ONLY the classes in the linguistics department that have been delayed. And the notice that the start date had changed was ONLY marked on one small, teeny, itty bitty piece of paper where they had scratched out the 6 in "Classes begin Monday, October 6" with a pathetic little pen and instead written in a 13. We're talking 10pt font here folks. Scratched out and written over with a pen.

But even worse, they couldn't have put this pathetic attempt at notification in a place where linguistics students might find it. No... they had to put it on the board that no linguistics student checks because it's NOT THE LINGUISTICS BOARD.

So yes, all of us students went to our French linguistics class this morning (which has students from other departments who had apparently been notified), and we wondered why there were so few of us for such a huge-ass lecture hall. Finally, we gave up and decided to come back to class tomorrow.

Then I went to Arabic (not a linguistics class), which was a nightmare! The professor is scary and mean in the way only elderly French women can be. Her mouth is in a permanent frown and when she laughs it looks more like she has just eaten a lemon than that she has actually found something funny. She also has those old lady things hanging off her glasses, in case she wants to take them off and hang them around her neck. Scary bunny, for sure, that old hag.

After Arabic, I literally had to run to my Linguistics class - down three flights, over two hallways, and up three more flights. Worried I had the wrong room, I stopped the young man on his way in and whispered, "Sorry, what class are you going to?" and he answered "Semantics" and I said, "Oh, great, just wanted to be sure."

He tiptoed into the room (we were late... or at least late by my standards, which meant that we were only ten minutes early) and he said, "Oh, huh. Apparently we're the only ones here." We sat down and started chatting a bit (he's a nice guy and despite the fact that my day sucked donkey balls, I can console myself with the fact that I made at least one friend today). Gradually, more students arrived, but after twenty minutes there were still only seven of us and no professor. It was then that one of the girls said, "Well... I thought I saw a note about linguistics classes starting late. Maybe they really do start late."

And sure, the note she had seen wasn't even for the Sorbonne (two universities are housed in the same building), but at least it convinced us to go looking back at the boards outside our department. But after scanning all 423 papers posted, we still couldn't find any sort of notice and we so we instead stood around in the hallway awkwardly saying, "So, wait... what should we do?" and "Do you think we'll have class tomorrow?"

While everyone else was discussing other possibilities - should we go back up and double check? Should we ask at the office (it was closed)? - I climbed up the stairs that lead to the French department's doors and checked the postings there. For some reason, that's where the note to linguistics students was posted. In ten point font. And then the number 6 was replaced with a 13. On the FRENCH board.

The funny thing was that I had looked at that same sheet last week and it wasn't scratched out. And even last week, I had wondered why the hell that paper had been on the French board instead of the linguistics board. But still, the changed date on the paper means that sometime between last Thursday and today, they decided to push back the starting date of our classes. Which would be fine with me, if they would have made SOME attempt at letting us know that. Maybe posting a note on a board we would actually check. Maybe posting a note in big, highlighted letters on the department door. Maybe even going so far as to (gasp!) tell us when we came in to ask questions about classes last Friday or this morning.

So anyway, I'm a little bitter. Oh, and I lost my student ID card. I had it one minute, and then I looked for it ten minutes later and it wasn't there. I think it fell out of my pocket in the bathroom. That's the only place I could have lost it. I went back to the bathroom but of course someone had picked it up. Sigh.

But, on the upside, in the end I have yet another week of vacation on my hands. This means I can concentrate a bit more on a new project that is starting up, and maybe I can get all my classes figured out.

The good news is that the little episode today gave me the occasion to meet several people I'll be taking classes with, and we all had a good laugh together when we realized how absolutely absurd the situation was/is. Afterwards we went out for coffee, and at least now I feel like I'll have a few people to say hello to in the hallway. Oh, and I feel a lot better about the fact that my enrollment is all ass-backwards because two of the people I met today haven't even gotten their student ID card. And sure, I had one and lost it, but at least I had one. At some point. That must count for something, no?

At any rate, I had originally set up a course schedule that, upon reflection, was really stupid. I've now worked out a better deal, or so I hope. I have to go to the various offices concerned with my switch tomorrow morning, followed by an entire afternoon of classes (13.00-19.30, baby!) and I think by the time I leave the Sorbonne tomorrow evening, I will have spent ten consecutive hours in the building. Cool!

Honestly, I feel a bit silly for having the jitters. When I was a kid and I went from a small, private middle school to the bigger, scarier public high school in ninth grade, all I remember thinking was, "Well, let's see how this goes." I wasn't really nervous at all. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I was so cool with my painted converse and new button-fly jeans that I more or less considered myself invincible.

Going to college was rather easy as well. Everyone was doing their best to make the transition to college life easier, and they were successful. The school had set up numerous orientation gigs, potlucks, counseling sessions, parties, tours, you name it. Plus, the professors at UCSC are so friggin' nice that their scariness factor was practically reduced to nil. I felt like I could invite any member of the UCSC staff to my apartment for dinner, and we'd all have a dandy time discussing tevas and buddhism and patchouli.

But those Sorbonne people? Very scary. Very bitchy. Very not wanting to set up counsellings sessions, guided tours, or a help desk. I can only bet that the professors are worse. I would never invite them to my house for dinner, and if I did, they would never want to come.

One of the girls in my Arabic class went to the informational meeting two weeks ago about the program we're doing. She told me that the teachers said they'll call on students in question/answer rounds in an auditorium full of 50 or 60 students, and that the students will be expected to shout out the answer. Now, really, is this really the ideal foreign-language learning environment? Talk about embarrassment. Talk about putting people out of their comfort zone. Talk about freaking the shit out of me. I pray those people never call on me. But I know that, just because I'm the most freaked out, they're bound to call on me twice as much as my confident and totally chill neighbor.

Ach, well... I've surprised myself recently. Hopefully I'll be able to get through this year in one piece. I had this moment today where I said, "Hey, outside of Arabic, I'll only have four classes this semester! I'm so on top of this! That's nothing!" And then I remembered that all the work for them will be in French. As will all the readings, all the papers, and all the tests. Which, let's just be honest here, is gonna really slow me down.

I've always been the type to do my homework. I rarely, if ever, go to class unprepared. I hate the feeling unpreparedness gives me, and I figure the effort it takes to do the homework is less painful than the nervousness and fear that sits in my stomach on days when I haven't done the work. That's really the only reason I do it. But I also do it because it usually doesn't really take as much effort or time as one would think. I usually understand things pretty quickly in class, and then go through the homework methodically enough so that it doesn't take hours and hours (granted, Arabic is a definite exception. There's just no way around that one, but I enjoy the homework in my own little sick, masochistic way).

I used to live with a girl who literally spent seven hours one day writing a one-page paper. Some reaction to a book or something. I just couldn't fathom it. Although we were following pretty much the same courseload, the time she spent on homework on average was probably triple what I did. But oddly, she got far lower grades than me and never quite seemed to understand anything. That was probably because she was rather stupid, but still... I felt like her diligent homework should have made up for her lack of intellect. But I guess if you're not bright, your homework will reflect that, and teachers aren't going to give you brownie points for handing in something crappy just because you spent hours and hours slaving over it.

And I guess I've always sort of felt lucky that I can get through things reasonably quickly and still get pretty good grades. But I'm sort of thinking that my ability to fly through homework is going to be greatly reduced this year. And that's sort of unsettling. No, actually, that's really freakin unsettling. It's going to throw my whole system for coping with school stress way outta whack.

I looked at the books I have to read for my classes and it occured to me that they are all (except two) textbooks in French. Sure, I can read stories and newspapers and all that in French, but I have a hard enough time keeping my concentration on English textbooks, I'm a bit concerned about doing the same when French is involved. I want to get good grades, but I also want to laugh and see movies and go out to dinner. I pray I can make the two happen.

But why worry before classes even start? Righto. I just have to keep asking myself that. And chill. I have to chill.

Well, you'll find out how it all goes tomorrow. Hopefully I'll only have blushed my average of 214 times per day, and my usual idiotic comments will be kept to the normal 88 or so. If I can stay within those limits, I'll consider the day a success.

PS I'm not really as psycho and paranoid as I am making myself sound. I'm just being dramatic. Even though I honestly am a bit nervous. Just a lil bit, though. Ok, fine, I'm freaking my shit out.

We called The Repair Guy, who charged us up the ass for our window replacement - a normal window would only be 75 euros but our special slanted window is going to put us out about 200. The Repair Guy came around 18.00, and apparently he brought the wrong type of window. He didn't figure that out, of course, until after he had completely uninstalled the previous window.
And as it was already past six, he couldn't run back to the store, grab a new window, and come all the way back to our house before it was time to head home for the day.

So now we have a bit more than a noticeable September (October, whatever) chill coming into our kitchen. We have a huge-ass hole with a serious current, threatening to powerhouse some rain onto my onions and spice rack. By huge-ass hole, I mean a hole that literally takes up 1/3 of my kitchen wall facing west. It's big, and it's empty. I would feel like my house is exposed to robbers or thieves, were it not six flights up. Instead, I feel like a pigeon is going to think he can just keep right on flying through that gaping hole, straight on into my house where he will flap and squawk and shit on my carpet until I force him out with a broomstick.

I've decided to spend tomorrow far, far from the house. There just better be a window in my kitchen when I get back by nightfall.