Crèpes Salées

The first experience of seeing one's friends after many long months without them, in a normal case, might be a hug and possibly a kiss, maybe a handshake... But when you're friends are Jared... A HURRICANE OF LOVE WILL BEFALL YOU.

I swear... if you've never literally been swept off of your feet...

And that was how Paris and my trip with Tim began. I covered Jared's eyes by means of sneaking up on him and suddenly I was being picked up and carried to "FIND YOUR BOYFRIEND, WHERE IS HE? GET OUT OF THE WAY! NO!" It was great, he's so helpful.

Now we're in Lille, cleaning out the room and taking a last look at the city. Already we've had a hitch in our train plans that meant we have to (as if it's a challenge) stay an extra day in Paris before heading to Barcelona on the night train next friday.

The pile of belongings on my floor, waiting to be packed into our backpacks, doesn't look particularly daunting or particularly skimpy... In fact, it looks just right-- but then, we haven't tried to get it into the back packs yet and we have yet to find out if five pairs of socks is enough.

This is the last access to free internet I'll have for a while, but I'll try like crazy to update this whenever I can, just so you know that we're still alive and kicking.

This is Captain Madness, over and out.

Last Dance for Mary Jane

I'm not sure whether or not I believe that this is my last night in Lille. Packing for this next trip has been so incredibly complicated that there's no way to adjust to the idea that after tomorrow morning, realistically, I'll never see any of my friends here again. I think Alexis put it best when he said "so, you and I probably won't ever talk again but... I'll think about you." I concur.

For some reason the friendships made in the past few days seem to have been moulded in bronze, or some sich material, fired by the realization that we just finished this, and we finished it all together. It's more than a bit of shock.

It feels like someone should throw a party for us but instead, everyone's just disappearing one by one, as if the tide is pulling them out to sea, sitting on a suitcase.

This is why they say it's hard to go back Home, because there's no way to explain this to someone who's never done it. And there's a 98% chance that if they haven't done it, they won't care what you've discovered anyway.

now, if I could somehow fit every single possession that I've had with me into that one tiny suitcase and that little dufflebag... maybe I could move on.

Maybe not.

My Actor Roommate is ugly and Untalented

Honestly, click on Other Peoples Secrets Are Fascinating.

Je vous salut...

Lille on a summer day, no class, no worries, just wandering about in a short skirt looking at all of the wonderful things I could put in my mouth, which include (but are not limited to) puffy desserts, fresh flowers, beautiful dresses and Gulliver's Travels (which I didn't buy but strongly considered).

The unanimous conscensous seems to be that we all should have come for the first semester as to reap the benefits of the sun and then think warmly upon them in the winter of our discontent. Let that be a lesson to you whippersnappers.

Basically, the best thing about being in another country is being in it. It's been so cold and gloomy that my bed held more appeal for me that the entirety of France and all it had to offer (even the cheese, if you can believe it), but the freeing element of sunlight and lack of responsibility has allowed me to finally have a conversation or two in relative comfort with the people I live with.

"You, me, good conversation" Ethan Hawke says in that movie where he has ugly hair (backup, that's nearly all of them), in Reality Bites. Somehow I can't get over how redeemed everything is by a sprinkling of sunlight.

Here is my Potato Soup recipe for Laura:

To a pot add:
3-4 Cups Chopped Potatoes
2-3 Finely chopped Carrots
lots o' salt, black pepper and herbs as you like them
water to cover it all

Boil

In a frying pan brown:
1 Yellow Onion
1/2 Red Onion
2 cloves Garlic
Lots o' Mushrooms
A chunk of Butter
(if you're into that kind of thing you can add a little wine at this point, it makes the mushrooms fancy-like)

Add this to the boiling water along with:
3 Cubes Chicken Bullion
1/2 cup Cream
1 Cup Sour Cream
Milk and Water 'til your happy

Boil until the potatoes are the desired consistancy. Eat with a big, fresh, baguette. Eat some more.

I like cold beverages

Since I have no desire to drink but everyone else seems to, my solution is to manipulte them in their drunkenness into participating in my artistic experiments.
Last night I decided to take close ups of well, obviously, their eyes. The funniest part is watching people try to guess who they belong too. If you can guess which one is mine you get a french cookie.

Last night was Carrie's last night as my roomie so in honor of that I took a few normal pictures while we all hung out in Alexis's room last night and, realizing that shortly, I won't live in my room anymore, posted pictures here of the place I live. Not having Carrie here is the weirdest thing, like losing an arm or a finger, only less painful. As long as there are no phantom pains and I don't here her voice at night and whatnot, this shouldn't be too bad.

Huzzah!

You're a nut. You're crazy in the coconut!

This is one of the greatest things about French poetic truth.

In case you can't read that it says:

Franchement vous exagerez
la vie en communaute demande qu'on se respecte des uns des autres_
Alohrs S.V.P pensez à ceux qui passent derriere vous et prenez
la peine de tirer la chasse d'eau en sortant.

Il y a aussi une brosse W.C. qui ne demande qu'a être utilise.
Je tire la chasse et je nettoie les W.C si je les ai salis, POUR QUOI PAS VOUS?
MERCI

And for those of you who upon whom the humor is lost here is a loose translation:

Really, you complicate things
Community life demands that we respect one another_
so PLEASE think of those who pass behind you and take
the trouble to flush the toilet upon leaving.

There is also a toilet brush which asks nothing but to be used.
I flush the toilet and clean the bowl if I besmirch it, WHY NOT YOU?
THANKS.

This is posted in the upstairs toilet. And it's not exceptional among the number of colorful signs and warnings which are posted about our residence. But this one really is my favorite of all. It's something of a found poem. Hurrah!

Take on me

Take on me
(take on me)
Take me on
(take on me)
I'll be gone
de de de de deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I have one final left. This has been the longest finals-week of my life. Probably because it's been a month long.

I'm excited by the fact that Tim is touring with the choir right now even though he doesn't know the words and the songs are in other languages (read: un-lip-sync-able). That's gutsy.

Now I get to spend the next week looking at train schedules and arguing with the crazy cleaning lady about the things that were broken in my room before I got there, that I should therefore not have to pay for.

Phrase du Jour: J'aime être un personnage dans un bande dessinée. (I like being a comic book character.) (Thanks Alsn)

Once, Twice, Three times a lady...

Alright, look, I got the whole "Lille-will-do-whatever-it-can-to-screw-up-your-life-thing" already. Think again, France, think again. It's actually getting more and more comical at this point, and not like, tragical comical, more like shakespearian comical comical.

Last night, as I'm sitting on the cement floor in the basement, at one in the morning, in Tim's gymshorts, not having showered for two days, trying to pry open the washing machine with a butter knife (which lives in the basement for just that purpose), so that it might relinquish every single pair of pants that Carrie and I own, I thought to myself: ha. Ha. hee hee hee. what?

And then I realized that this place is beyond the twilite zone.

This morning I woke and walked to the showers. But when I noticed that they were both locked though no water was running, I knocked on both doors. Nothing. Apparently, the showers flooded the other day and they have since been locked. Which means trecking up to the second floor to bath. Which I LOVE, especially since most people on the first floor will just hold out because they'd rather be dirty than walk up the stairs.

Mostly I spent the whole day studying (called revising by Europeans) for my British Civilization Oral Exam. It was actually quite nice because I learned everything there is to know about the Tudor and Stewart dynasties (success!) and the only thing I was asked about was William III and the problem of the Catholic Pretenders. This is what I like, lots o' knowledge and then a ten minute quiz. I'll take two, please. With fries and a coke.

I still have three finals, a paper and a makeup assignment which, I'm afraid, will be thwarted by the discovery that, for some reason, my computer saved every AIM conversation that I had between November 28th, 2004 and March 7, 2005. If I currently had access to AIM that wouldn't be a problem, but since I've been deprived of witty banter I have to settle for nostalgia.... ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I have to say, reading my conversations with Tim from the pre-dating era is an exericize in hind-sight. I was totally retarded for him, and the two of us are an intellectual force to be reckoned with. Although, I have to admit, evidence suggests I might also be partially retarded for Kacie, but who isn't?

Anyway- that was the first oral exam I've ever taken and I'm going to pretend that it was like a tiny practice round for someday defending my thesis. Tiny the way that watching Wimbledon on TV is practice for the olympic swim team, but still, practice makes perfect.

Phrase du jour: Vive Charles De Gaulle! Sauf qu'il est mort. -Yannick (Long live Charles de Gaulle! Except that he's dead.)

Ok folks, this is the end of the line

Just because I can, I think I'm going to go ahead and let the pictures do the talking for this weekend. There has never in the history of time been a more irreverent trip to Paris. This is not to say that we didn't see things and fully appreciate them On the contrary, I think we have soaked in more of the good life than can possibly be imagined. The following picture reflects only a small part of the good times that were had.

This is Kakie's new image. I, personally, think it's hot. I believe this should be the new face of the "we're in Paris" group on facebook.

We managed to see, in five short days, nearly everything that I had ever dreamed of seeing in Paris (except Tim). We made it to the Louvre twice, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou, Versaille, the Arc de Triomph, the Champs Elysee, the Musée Rodin, Notre Dame, Le Madeline, the cemetary Père Lachaise and many, many others. It was grand to just sit on the banks of the Seinne, under Notre Dame (two blocks from the hostel) and talk to people who walked by. There were a number of times that I suspected Kakie might flash the bateaux mouches (tour boats) as they went by, but she resisted.

Kakie and me in the Gardens of Versaille.

It's big and gaudy and well, frankly kind of ugly. The famous "hall of mirrors" was built only as a piece of propaganda, asserting the kings wealth. I love rich people. They're awesome. The gardens on the other hand, are quite lovely and amazing even though the flowers haven't been planted yet and the fountains are not yet on.

Shannon feeds pidgeons like the "tuppens a bag" lady in Mary Poppins.

My favorite thing about Shannon is that, well, he's awesome in every concievable way. This is why there's nothing like taking a trip with near-perfect strangers. They cease to be strangers in away you hadn't before imagined. The whole time I've been here I've been trying to think of a symbol that represents everything about Europe and all I can think of is the pidgeon. Nothing, I think, represents travel in general like pidgeons. Pidgeons are universal. If people liked to eat them, the world would be a different place.

For those of you who have yet to live in a hostel, I can guarantee that you'll sleep better if you can push the beds together and spoon.

Technically we didn't sleep this way. It was Erin, Kakie, Myself and Megan. Kakie talks in here sleep. Megan hits me. Erin mutters and I snore. Though it could be much worse. You know you're loved when people are willing to split beds with you. The hostel we stayed in is directly behind the Cluny museum, besides the thermal bath that is the oldest structure in Paris, dating from even before the Jesus.

This is us, the A-Team. Mr. T is behind the camera.

Paris is a completely interesting city in every moment. This sculpture garden has I'm not sure what significance, but we did a good job of standing/sitting on pillars. It was quite nice. There really is no part of Paris bordering the river that is not interesting. I say that if we ever communicate with Aliens we tell them Paris is the capital.

In case you're wondering, that sign says that the Pompidou has the largest collection of modern art in the world. Which is a lie unless they mention also that their collection is not there right now and that if you pay the fee and go in you won't see Matisse, Polluck or anything else but you will see a video of a woman gargling milk and some other crap that really, I'm sorry, is not art. The only cool thing was an entire soundproof room which you had to duck to get into, and it it was a piano and a feather. I wanted to hear the piano SO bad. I think (though I can't be sure) that that was the point.

In general, I have no quarrel with modern art. I have to say though that will the fine art in the Louvre moved me, and the sculptures in Pomidou confused/bothered me, the impressionist art in the Musée d'Orsay brought me to my knees. The impressionist artists seem to have more of a grasp on life than any other movement. There's just something so intrensically beautiful about the way they break away from realism like a dancer who leaves not only the other dancers but the music behind for his own steps. I. Love. It.

These are my Paris buddies in the height of their cuteness. unfortunately no one told me that I should not have worn the tourist-suit that day, thereby ruining the pictures.

Essentially, because I was too busy doing things to write down all the things I ws doing, this will have to suffice for the story of Paris. Though I will say that I haven't laughed that hard all semester. There is absolutely no substitute for a Centenary person, or if possible, a large group of them.

And don't let the fondue tear you apart.

For the rest of the pics, click here.

50 Euros

This pay-by-the-minute blog entry brought to you by: Paris

Today's sights:
The Rodin museum, The Kiss and The Thinker (both incredibly cool, it's hard to soak in that you're actually looking at something you've seen lampooned a million times)
Napoleon's Tomb at l'Hôtel des Invalides (wow, he's nice and dead)
The inside of my eyelids (we're plum tuckered out from spending a million hours in the Louvre yesterday and then hanging out by the Seinne, looking at Notre Dame last night)

Having a hotel in the Latin Quarter is way cooler than staying anywhere else in Paris.

Spooning with Erin, Megan and Kakie after four months with no Centenary is way cooler than exploring Europe with strangers.

Just a note

The Louvre is the coolest thing ever created.

When you're happy and you know it...

This is for JStrange, who says my french life-story made her frown.

This is one of the greatest things that Europe has to offer, besides an international rail system and more culture than you can shake a stick at; this is Mont Blanc pudding in a can. There is seriously nother better after a hard day's worth of sleeping than to wake up and pop the tab on a cool, creamy can of vanilla, chocolate, caramel, grand marnier, hazelnut or pistachio pudding. It really can't be beaten.

Today we get the results of the one final we've already taken and then I get to pack for a weekend in Paris with the module from Centenary. This means I get to go to Versaille, which I didn't think I was going to be able to do. Ah, 'tis a good day indeed.

Friggen Idiots

So, the news of the day:

A) Carrie and I are trying to break a world record for most hours slept in one day, which is difficult because there are only 24 hours in a day, meaning that in order to break the record one must establish a day in which there are more than 24 hours. So, I think we're going to break the record for most hours spent sleeping in one week. We're well on our way. Also, I've noticed that sleeping for more than 20 hours a day has the interesting affect of making your waking life seem like a dream, and your dreams (wherein you wade around in a plastic pool in your grandmother's backyard, trying to save a blind man's seeing-eye-cat from your own cat) seem oddly real.

B) Finally something good in the school department. I got an A (ie a 14) on the paper for which I sacrificed a number of hours in DC. YES!! I'm glad that it payed off because I easily could have spent those hours seeing movies, going for walks, and generally enjoying Tim's company. But I now know more about Lady Jane Gray than anyone on earth could ever want to know.

Here's something about the French school-system. This week has been the week of Rattrapage. Which essentially means the week of "recovering" missed work or classes. Which, essentially means a week of doing sheer nothing. I've complained about dead week before because teachers assign things and we still have to go to classes, but I will never again complain: this week is the ultimate dead week (I think I've forgotten anything I may have learned).

The plus to having free time is that Virginia Wolff's Orlando is blowing my mind as Virginia is wont to do. I love her.

On the Wrong Side of the Tracks

my brain is here right now

Today's observation: you how you can tell, for the most part, what a person's general attitude/"character" is going to be like just by looking at their clothes? Even if you can't make assumptions about their actual personality you can make some general assumptions about them?

Well, I haven't put my finger on the french dress=personality types yet. Thus far most people look like the ultimate case of schitsophrenia. But I'll be damned ifI don't see some of the most awesmome clothes I've ever seen.

Today: I write a paper in french about how the Abstract Movement freed artists from the "world of representation" in the beginning of the 20th century.

Phrase du jour: "La peinture abstrait est celle qui ne représente pas les apparences visibles du monde extérieur, et qui n'est déterminée, ni dans ses fins, ni dans ses moyens, ni dans son esprit, par cette representation." -Léon Degand

(The abstract painter is he who does not represent the visible appearances of the outside world, and who is determined neither in his ends, his means, nor in his mind, by this representation.)

Truth! Truth! And nothing but the truth!

If I was home today for Mother's day I would make Crèpes with sweet cream cheese filling and fresh raspberry sauce for brunch. Then we could go for a hike, go to dinner, then come home and drink margaritas while playing Scrabble. And just because it's mother's day, Mama, I would let you win. Ok, maybe not. it's not like it would be hard to beat me, I haven't been around native English speakers for five months (People in Washington DC don't count).

It's been a grand weekend. I can list the things I've done on ten fingers.

1) Sleep
2) Read Orlando by Virginia Wolff
3) Watch The Simple Life 2 on DVD
4) Laundry
5) Drink wine that was a gift (oddly, in France, they chose to give us a California sauvignon, dumb Americans)
6) Sleep
7) Do Push ups (inspired by the fact that every time Gio sees me he bites my arms, which means that my biceps look more fluffy than foreboding, which needs to change)
8) sleep
9) Eat a chicken from market
10) shower

Nothing I do in the next 18 hours will be outside of this list, unless the building burns down, which I don't think it would.

On the other hand, I owe a great debt of thanks to those who did a whole lot more than I did Yesterday and the day before. Tim had the GARGANTUAN task of recruiting people to move my stuff out of Merrick House. I think this makes him an official candidate for knighthood or sainthood or to be a member of the Harlem Globe Trotters or something because it's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me.

Thanks too, to Zack, Scott, Jared, JT, and Barkley, who all rock my face off. I would have been lost without my CD collection and my bike when I get home... God, there really is no one on earth cooler than the TKEs except maybe George Harrison but he never helped me out personally with anything and he's dead.

Anyway, it's nice to finally have a computer (ONE!) in the dorm- except that we can never get these three hussies who make conference calls to Africa all night OFF OF IT. Oh, and it's nice to know that even if there's no phone in the building, when there's an emergency we can email the police.

This is a silly, silly place. Oddly though, since school is out for a week before finals start... Lille feels a lot more livable and little less like some sort of really bad game show where you just can't win.

Happy Mom's day.

Je Te Mangerai

So if I'm a scottish Scott from Scottland, where did the word "Scotch" come from?

Does "ch" equal "ish," and if so does that mean that britches are actually Britishes?

This is what I thought about last night while I laid awake until 5 am.

Things around here haven't gotten much better since I still haven't gotten word from Will about whether or not I can hang with the choir if I take care of my own accomidations...

Also, I've gotten another midterm back with a less-than agreeable grade and I'm really wondering what the point of me coming here was. The teacher oh-so-sweetly graded not on content, but on grammar. Had I known this I would have spent more time writing and less time reading the books we were tested on.

Meanwhile, Santiago and I took a walk yesterday to the cemetary in the south part of town. The French have some unfamiliar practices as far as remembering their dead. The pictures can explain it better than I can. It was interesting to take a walk to a new part of town (we found the Arabic district), except that we got lost and were therefor late. So it wasn't long before the caretaker asked us to leave the cemetary so he could shut the gates. He was oddly cheerfully for someone who sits around and looks at graves all day: "Quoi? Vous voulez dormir ici?" ("What? You want to sleep here tonight?")

Other than that I'm really just trying to hang on. This school has been such a let down and it seems to only get worse. There's no such thing as pulling your self up by the bootstraps here; you basically just have to accept whatever bad news they want to give you and there's no way to work with anyone. I'm totally unaccustomed to that and I sometimes feel like I should have followed my initial instincts and come home in the first week.

This all probably sounds remarkably less comedic than usual, but I figure you read this to know how my life is going and I should be completely honest, even if it doesn't sound nice.

Essentially, I don't know if I've ever really regretted anything in my life but I regret coming here. On the bright side, I'll leave with a few hundred pictures of things I've never seen before, but considering my personality and Tim's, I'm relatively sure I would have seen the best things eventually. And if not, I wouldn't have known what I was missing.

To everyone in Shreveport, I wish with all my heart that I was there. I think about you guys all day long. Be so glad you spent your semester together, because we only had eight (well, some of us have nine or ten) and a couple of us wasted one.

Rest assured, I'd be there if I didn't have to take care of the commitment that I made when I enrolled myself to come to this horrid school.

I'm not mad at France for all the crappy things that have happened this semester, some of them would have happened no matter where I was. But it all would have been a lot easier to take if I was with people who made me laugh.

I blame G. W.

Phrase du jour: En France, nous n'avons pas des reforms; nous avons des revolutions. (In france, we don't have reforms, we have revolutions.)

File it under "H" for Heartbreak

Brown Cat (AKA Wiley Cat) got hit by a car last night. Sorry Carly, Tim, Kacie, Zach, Jared and everyone else who loved him a little bit.

And a horrid person moved into my great grandmother's cabin like a louse and has destroyed the one place on earth that was always sacred and never bad. Camp is lost to us. Sorry Trina, Emily, my Family and most of all, Tim, who will never see it the way it was.

On top of that there's no room for me on choir tour (make that another five days I have to sit alone in Lille).

Another student has died at Centenary.

And I can't take any more bad news.

It's funny, I dreamed about this. But it turned out worse.

I'd ask you to call me but my cell phone is gone. Good night.

I would buy myself a gray guitar...

roxie and her lobster

So... I haven't been totally worthless while in French-Land (as mon petit singe calls it). For one of my classes we had to create a self-portrait and write about it in French. I'm a bit perplexed because I made a 19, which is the grade equivalent of Jesus having written the paper for me. The teacher commented that she was more impressed with my paper than with even the native speakers. Hmmmmmm...

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, ye teacher who gave me a D in translation.

Anyway that's a functioning maze with two converging routes behind my head. The moutains are all tiny words. The face, hands and lobster are all stippled (tiny dots). The robes are pencil. I like art. If you like art too you can see more pics and a couple of D.C. here.

Tim says roxie is beautiful

PS: Quit complaning that I'm not on Facebook. I have my eye on you. This means you, Mr. Brookshire, with your haters' club. And Chris Comeaux can shut it, too.

Time Travel Convention

In case my last post was a bit of a downer, here's something massively cooler. This is the first, and last, annual Time Travel Convention at MIT. The point is that Time Travelers really can go whenever they want to, there only needs to be one because they'll all show up at that point. Sadly, the guy needs help advertising so that time travelers in the distant future will still be able to receive the information. Technically, I'm just spreading the word. Check out the site here:

http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/

DO IT!

This formula represents my pain:

Me not graduating with honors(instead of graduating Summa Cum Laude)

(+) Me having no money and no job

(X) Me missing my Friends/Family/Boyfriend/RCB/Toga/ TKE House

(+) Me gaining nothing from my stupid French "education"

(+) Me potentially having to spend an extra semester and not graduate with my class

(-) the occasional crèpe

(X) the amount of regret I feel for coming to this rediculous school
____________________________________________
L'Université Catholique de Lille

Thanks a lot.

RE: THE FACEBOOK

I'm so disappointed in Centenary.

Facebook?

Honestly people, I thought you had more sense than that. Tell me, why do you need to read about each other on the internet when you could go to out to dinner, or um, walk across the hall and see each other? I only use this rediculous aparatus of internet-communication because I can't afford to actually talk to people.

I can't believe you're all selling out, you posers. It would be one thing if we went to a college with more than 900 people and it was actually some sort of social tool... W.T.F. guys?

But as I am majorly outnumbered, even by Kacie and my beloved TKEs, I will continue by saying only this: this will end badly, wait and see.

Karma police: This is what you get when you mess with us.

Why are some weekends to full of activity and others so completely boring? This has been one of the fuller weekends, where three days pass and you have no idea where they went. I would have posted sooner, thanks to the addition of one computer with internet access in the residence hall, except that there are two girls who are on it non-stop and they guard it like junkyard dogs. On the bizarre occasion that they leave their post to eat or bathe, a group of fifteen Spaniards swarms in, kamikaze-syle. Hence, no internet for the rest of us losers.

This I wouldn't really mind if one thing had not occurred. Yesterday at the market (which I'm not sure I will able to live without when I return to America) my cell-phone got stolen. Not only am I out 45€ because of the rebate and the phone time I had already paid for, I'm now nearly completely cut off from anyone I might have wanted to talk to. Or, if there was, say, an emergency... I have to resort to yelling, I suppose. What I don't understand is this: if you're going to steal a cell phone, why would you steal the absolute crappiest cell-phone ever produced? Honestly, the thing was made with twist-ties and Elmer's Glue. Fate is unkind.

Except for the unfortunate fact of the pilfered cell-phone, it's actually been a marvelous weekend. Since no one has any money left we're all sort of playing the "stone-soup" game, wherein we pool our means and meager ingredients and come up with some excellent food. I knew that 5 kilo bag of potatoes was a good investment.

Among exciting news is that Josh got a tattoo of a Celtic cross on his forearm that is the size of my face, Cody got his tongue pierced and it swelled up and filled his mouth and Alexis keeps cigarettes in his new eyebrow ring. This is pretty much where my body-art phase ends.

I went to the Park Vauban twice this weekend and I'm amazed by how much France can resemble the Renaissance Festival come-to-life at times. So many people lounging on the grass, juggling, playing Radiohead songs on their guitars, making out in public, airing out their dred-locks. It's fantastic really. Yesterday the cutest baby on earth wandered up to me while I was reading and gave me a daisy, while his parents laughed knowingly. You try living in an impressionist painting sometime-- if only the stupid university here (and the cell-phone thieves) weren't trying to thwart me, this place might actually be endearing.

There are moments of surprising clarity when France is everything it's cracked up to be.

Phrase du jour: J'ai perdu mon portable. Si vous le trouvez, j'habite dans chambre 007. J'ai vraiment besoin de cet portable. (I've lost my cell phone. If you find it, I live in room 7. I really need this cell phone.)