Busy as a B

Okay so it's been kind of crazy lately, but in a good way.

Last Thursday night, Erin stayed over here because she had a flight out of Orly the next day and I was already borrowing her air mattress for a girl from CouchSurfing. So Erin slept here Thursday night and left at like 6:30 AM. Friday night I had to teach a class at the Louvre, and eight guys were signed up for it. Rachel, a friend from Ste-Anne who needed a place to stay in Paris on her way from Lille to Normandy, was supposed to arrive that night, so I invited her to join us. In the end, only one guy showed up and I had to awkwardly take him around the Louvre. Rachel and Jane arrived at the Louvre and left again before I ever got there. It was all pretty lame.

Eventually Rachel and Jane showed up around 10:30ish I guess. I was pretty exhausted so we went to bed, with Rachel and I squishing into my bed and Jane sleeping on the air mattress.

The next morning they, too, left disgustingly early and I stayed in bed for a bit. I got up and showered and such, and around 11:30 Thibault Holcombe, another friend from Ste-Anne who I haven't seen since my last summer there and is living in Amiens, texted me to say that he and his French girlfriend were at the Louvre and would I like to come meet them. So I did! It was really great to see Thibault. All we really did was look for shoes, first for his girlfriend and then for him, but it was still fun. We also went to Subway.



And then took a picture in front of McDonald's just to emphasize American fast-food presence in France. Except fast-food in France is neither cheap, nor fast, nor delicious, so I don't know why people like it.



After a bit I was exhausted so I went home and took a nap. In the evening, I got a text from Amy Wynkoop, who I had met the previous weekend at a party at a bar, saying she really just wanted to spend some time with someone and would I meet her. I had nothing else going on and she's a cool cat so I said yes. We're both poor, so getting a beer was a no, but I had some cheese and she got a baguette and we sat on the Champs-Elysées eating baguette and cheese and freezing our asses off. Turned out she'd had a pretty horrible twenty-four hours for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with people she cared about letting her down. So it makes sense that she would want to spend time with someone she doesn't know very well. So then we came back to my room and made a salad and drank hot chocolate and watched Family Guy. She just barely missed the last Metro, but it was no problem... because I still had Erin's air mattress! So yet another person slept in my room. The next we just kind of lazed around, although we did make a trip to the boulangerie and pooled our change to get a loaf of home-made complet bread, which is whole-grain. We found some cheese that had been mispriced in our favor and got it and went back to my building and ate pasta and bread and cheese. Then we watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin because Amy hadn't seen it, and afterwards she left.

I thought my cultivating-of-new-friendships was done for the day, but I was wrong. I walked past my neighbor's open door and waved, and he invited me in for an apple. His name is Marc and he's French but lived in America for a long time and has no accent in English, so I always forget that he's French until he doesn't understand a word I say. It's plays with your head - it's pretty awesome. I ended up staying in there trying weird snacks until Rachel and Jane showed up around 11:30 PM, back from Normandy and staying w/ me again. Again, Rachel and I squished and Jane slept on the air mattress. The next day, they got up early and went to see some touristy stuff, and Jane went to the airport. Rachel came back and we watched Family Guy, and then I had to go to work (meaning I had to take some students to see Juno, which was amazing). Rachel took a nap and later went to Gentilly to have gumbo with Erin and Veronique. After the movie I rushed back to the Fondation because our old Translation professor, Tatjana Silec, was coming over for dinner. Brennan made pasta al fredo, and it was delicious. We had a good time. Afterwards, I took some of the extra wine and went over to Marc's room and hung out w/ him and his German friend Sarah until Rachel and Erin showed up. Erin had come to get her air mattress (and patch it - somehow a hole had appeared during on it's final day in my room) and we all sat around and watched silly music videos. The next morning, Rachel got up early and went to Erin's to get her phone. We hugged goodbye, because she was off to do her thing and then catch a train to Barcelona. She'll be back on Sunday and I am hoping we will have brunch with my Mom and Dad.

It being Tuesday, I of course had class. I headed off to Méthodes et outils pour la linguistique française, where we started doing phonetics. Ah, yes. Phonetics. I've taken four classes that cover phonetics, two of which focus on it specifically. The French kids have never seen the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) before. So I have a head start, which is nice because our first devoir is transcribing 33 seconds of French. I am going to own it.

Tuesday night I went over to Amy's to help her dye her hair. Our night revolved around potato chips, and she had procured many varieties. It was a good night, and I have a lot of pictures to go with it, so here they are:

Many varieties of chips


?


Amy has Christmas socks


Sadly not hot chocolate, but Coca Light


Chips are delicious


Only the cool kids pause to give a thumbs up while taking off their sweatshirts


Oh boy




Amy's ready to rock




The hair dye looks like caramel, but please don't eat it


Well of course eventually I had to take over. What kind of hair dye party would it be if I didn't?




I started going through Amy's music and found a good deal of 98º, NSYNC and Backstreet Boys. This prompted us to decided a boy band cover duo. I am very excited.


This is how one dances to 90s pop while lying on the floor


Goofs


This is an amazing photograph


It was pretty late when we started so I slept over, on this foamy mattress thing of her roommate's which was exttremely squishy and comfortable. I slept like a rock. Didn't really want to get up the next morning though, as you can imagine.



I got up at 7:45 and was home by nine. Took a shower and got ready for class. I went to Atelier d'écriture and then went to Clignancourt for a Translation class. I decided to drop Cinema and Society and take Translation instead, so I went to Tatjana's Version (English to French) class in the afternoon. She's not teaching the same level of Thème (French to English) this semester, but she told me that she's teaching the next year's level of it, which is probably better for me anyway, on Wednesday mornings at eight. It's early, but she's a really good teacher so I think I am going to do it. Wednesday night I had an 8 PM movie class, which was horrendous. Only one guy showed up, and then we got to the theater really early, and it was just awkward. And the only thing playing at the right time was P.S. I Love You, so I was basically on this weird awkward chick flick date with my student. But I liked the movie and it made me want to move to Ireland. I think I will go there when I have a two-week break in April. I got home around midnight and put sheets on my bed and collapsed after the longest day I have had in a long time.

Today I dragged myself out of bed for my first Ancient Greek class, which was overwhelming since I missed it last week. But I think I am the only person in that class who has taken Latin, so I was the only one who fully understood what cases and declensions are. It made me feel smart. Even if I've forgotten how to write anything in Latin, at least the basic process of learning it has left me with some useful knowledge. Then I went to Malesherbes for my Grammaire et linguistique TD, stopping beforehand at my favorite traiteur asiatique to get me some raviolis pékinois (guess what that means) for lunch, along with a spring roll (Thai roll to those of you who go to Via Lago) the size of a burrito. Turns out Donal was in my new section, along with only about ten other people. Finally, a small class in France! Yes!

Now I have finally churned out this blog entry and I don't feel so blog-negligent. And tomorrow my parents will be here!

And just a picture of my popular pad which, if you weren't paying attention, four different people slept in on and off for five nights in a row: