Last week, my computer broke, Emmanuel finally took his TV back, I had a series of awful finals (literature, history, art history, grammar, written comprehension, oral comprehension and finally yesterday, speaking). But now it's all over, I'm celebrating Thanksgiving tonight, seeing my dad Friday, going to London in a week, Oslo four days after that and then going back to Madison, via Chicago, via Paris. I can't complain too much.


Time to go search this whole city for some cranberries! How is it December already, by the way?

goddammit, sweetheart

"and if you love somebody, you show it
you learn to open up your arms and let go of it
you don't stay up all night drinking cheap bear
and act like we oughta know it"



This weekend, Jessi forced me into studying for at least eight hours. It was horrible. Let me give you an image of Jessi and me studying. Jessi is sitting on a chair in my room, surrounded by stuff, reading diligently, asking intelligent questions. Taking notes of notes she's already taken. Highlighting. Speaking about Balzac and Baudelaire under her breath.

Then there's me. I'm usually rolling around my bed in a pile of papers which all have doodles covering them from when I was bored in lecture. Or notes to Jessi from when I was bored in lecture. (Examples: "JE SUIS SOO FATIGUEE!" "True/false: I speak better than french people?[false] how do they not get this? Where are we eating? FRENCH = STUPID." "I am going to kill that swedish bitch") One pages features a list of all 50 states which I made when my apartment flooded and I didn't know what else to do other than sit on my bed and try to list all of them...anyway. So I'm laying on my bed, whining to Jessi, pretending to look up useful information, and eating sour patch kids. Every few minutes when she turns away I try to sneak on facebook for a few precious seconds, always keeping a tab with something about Romanticism or whatever open for going back quickly when she looks. You might think I am a horrible student. And I am. But the lame truth about this is that I don't really have to study for my lit final and I know I'm going to do well because I've already done extensive reading on all of the topics we've covered on Wikipedia, in my own time. Or made Emmanuel teach me. Because I'm a loser. Still, I'm really grateful I have her to try and make me work.

The real highlights of the weekend (not studying, actually) were the Sigur Ros concert, to which Ida and I arrived an hour late, the Des Ark concert, to which we arrived two hours early, and all of the beer and Mexican food surrounding both. Des Ark felt like Madison- a shitty warehouse with random pieces of artwork and old furniture sitting around, people smoking pot, the guys at the "bar" selling cans of beer for 1 euro each...everything. It was kind of amazing, actually. And Ida was the perfect companion for both.
I think though, that the best moment of the weekend, musical orgasms aside, was tonight at dinner. Jessi, Siril (who lives above the arctic circle in Norway, just for reference) and I are eating burritos which we miraculously found in Saint-Michel. Siril takes one bite into hers-which has beef in it- makes a disgusted face and goes "But it tastes like reindeer!" I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Ok, maybe you had to be there.

ps- in what entry was one of my labels 'rabies?'

a pain au chocolat a day keeps the boyfriends away

Just kidding. I don't eat a pain au chocolat a day. But I think I should start. Life's too short not too, right? As it happens, this morning I was reading an article* which listed and described the "10 best pains au chocolat in Paris." In all honesty, there was a brief moment where I thought to myself, "Well, I've got nothing to do today..." but I forced myself** to stay home and do my work instead. Ah well. Maybe the tour du chocolat is best carried out over a long stretch of time rather than an afternoon.

For those of you who, upon reading my last entry, thought maybe I had actually fallen in love with somebody who loved me back and was in a healthy relationship or something, I'm sorry to say that is not the case. Every few weeks or so I will have an encounter with a very attractive man (this time it was a student who was in charge of helping us foreigners figure our school business out) and then convince myself that I am destined to be with this person forever. Besides this, I picked up a habit from Clara and Lucas of declaring I'm "in love with" anybody I might have the smallest crush on***. I think it is a result of trying to translate the word "amoureux" into english. Or maybe it is a result of me being silly and dramatic. And Parisien men being too goddamned attractive. Who will ever know?

Finally, I just want to give a small word of advice- never, ever try to purchase (transatlantic) plane tickets while intoxicated. I realize that for most people this is probably a given, but if you ever find yourself on the verge of doing it, know that you WILL drop your computer (although in my defense that less to do with my being inebriated and more to do with my having to sit on the microwave for internet), and you WILL make stupid decisions ("maybe being home for thanksgiving would be more important than finishing out the semester" ), but luckily you WILL get tired while expedia is loading and eventually give up.

*I can't pretend I innocently stumbled upon this article. google search: best patisseries in paris, et voila.
**sloth 1, gluttony 0
***I cringe when I end sentences with prepositions. Just in case anybody noticed that.

PLACES...

That I would like to visit by the end of the semester:

Barcelona, London, Luxembourg, Brussels, Strasbourg, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Rome, Reykajyi..ok the place in Iceland, Stockholm, Algiers.

Those are just "major" cities of countries, and I didn't count places I've already been, and I didn't count places I'd be happy to visit. I hate this feeling of "oh this is the only time I'll get the chance to wander around Europe blah blah blah." I refuse to believe that's true.

I have four months left. I feel like the adventure is already almost over. And, at the same time, that it's really just begun.

I have a sore bun from sitting on my microwave and have to be at the Sorbonne early tomorrow for a fucking test so I will leave it at that. bonne soiree.

i can't take it no more baby i'm comin for you

This is going to be one of my less focused blogs.

It’s really hard for me to concentrate on writing when I can’t stop to check Facebook/whatever every five minutes. Is that right? Shouldn’t my lack of connectivity help me focus on writing? Probably. Let me back up for a moment and explain that I’m in my apartment in Paris, sitting on my bed, not connected to the internet. To be so, I must literally sit on top of my refrigerator and hold my computer halfway out the window. Thank you, dear THOMSON, you naive soul who doesn’t know how to password protect his shit.

So yes. Since we last spoke, I have been to Berlin, to Liege, to Amsterdam, back to Paris, to Chicago/Madison/Chicago, to Cannes, to Saint-Raphael, to San Remo, and finally back to Paris. I don’t really want to say a whole lot about any of it because that would ruin it. Being home was so freakishly normal. It disturbs me that I can spend seven months in a foreign country and then come back to the exact same scene I left. I feel like January-July was like that piece of string in A Wrinkle in Time..well, I mean, I feel like January-July was a wrinkle in time. Profound, I know.

My apartment is really great. IS really great. WAS not really great this morning when I got here after bringing my mom to the airport. It’s 2:15 a.m. right now and since about 10 a.m. I have been cleaning and re-decorating. I could totally be an interior designer for young women living in tiny, shitty apartments who think they have really quirky taste in stupid shit. Really though, it’s nice. Cozy. Tiny.

I think the reason I’m so good at doing things like cleaning out my apartment and making it look completely different in a day is because when I’m cleaning I don’t have to think about stuff. I seriously won’t stop cleaning until everything looks perfect, and then I have to be alone with my thoughts. Like: I have a really nice little apartment in Paris and a ton of free time until school starts again but I miss my friends who have left and Luis and the entire city is on vacation this month so that's a little strange...

I think some rabid creature may have bit my hand during the night.
For some reason, once in awhile my mom thinks it’s appropriate for her to shop at Anthropologie. The best thing about it is that after she buys whatever it is, she realizes it’s not that appropriate and gives all the shit to me.
The song “Make Love In This Club” by Usher featuring Yung Jeezy- so, SO good and I'm only kind of embarrassed to say it.