School next year
Let's see... I was "enthusiastically" accepted into the linguistics 4+1 Masters program at Tulane (which reminds me, I need to send a graduate application to the SLA....). I am still crazily planning this party for the school I work at. That happens tomorrow. I had a huge assignment, basically a take-home exam, due today that I spent most of the night working on and didn't finish. My professor gave the whole class an extension until Friday so hopefully that will be enough time. Mary and I are still searching for an apartment (and I am searching for a summer subletter... anyone planning on doing relief work in New Orleans this summer? Want to live in my bedroom-to-be?). I registered for classes. My tentative schedule for next semester is:
ANTH 329: The Nature of Language
ANTH 331: Introduction to Historical Linguistics
ASTR 100 : Descriptive Astronomy (yeah yeah, I haven't kept up with my science requirements, quelle surprise)
FREN 595: Senior Seminar - "Ici et Ailleurs" (I don't exactly know what this means yet, but it ought to be good)
FREN 621: History of French Language
ITAL 203: Intermediate Italian
That courseload looks insane after two semesters in a row of taking only four courses per semester. I probably won't be able to handle taking ALL of them. I'd like to take History of Language with Poe, but if I can get my Grammaire et Histoire de la Langue class from last semester to transfer as FREN 621, I might not, just in order to lessen my courseload. But I need to take at least one 600-level linguistics class next semester, and FREN 621 qualifies. Good times. And astronomy? We'll see how that goes. It can't be worse than Physical Geology, and I managed to finagle an A- in that class, though to this day I don't understand how.
Musical escapades
Last Tuesday night I went to see the Dropkick Murphys at le Bataclan. Carolyn took the train in from Rennes and she and Vaune and I went to the concert. I made myself a Boston shirt and I wore my Red Sox hat.
You have to admit, it's pretty impressive given my complete inability to draw, and the difficulty of drawing with marker on ribbed cloth.
Boston chic
We got there pretty early and made friends with the roadies who loved us because we are from the Boston area. The first band (called Deadly Sins) came on and the singer was like, "We're from Boston," and Carolyn and I screamed like crazy, and she asked us if we were from Boston and we said yes and then she loved us from then on, even though we're from the suburbs. Because of course, as she said, "We're all f***in' family!"
The first band, Deadly Sins
Then the second band came on. It was Against Me! who are apparently pretty well-known, but it's not really the kind of music I listen to. I liked them though. At that point I just kind of felt like taking a break until it was Dropkicks time.
Against Me!
By the time the Dropkicks came on, the place was packed. We were right right up at the front because we'd gotten there so early. I was right up against the metal thing that separates the audience from the stage. People started moshing and getting crazy and I ended up just kind of squished up against the metal thing unable to move. People started surging up and it was really painful, I kept getting elbowed in the head and kicked and stuff. I know that's normal for a concert like that, but it's not the kind of concert I usually go to. Crowd-surfers kept getting confused because I was shorter than the mass of guys around me, so they didn't see me and would kind of sit on my head as they got pulled over the barrier. The most priceless moment was when I realized that person involuntarily squashed up against me from behind was, in fact, NOT Carolyn. When I looked behind me and saw that, I had a kind of stricken look on my face. I think one of the stage roadies must have seen it, because he came down and asked me if I would like to go sit upstairs on the balconies. I must have looked pretty pathetic down there - I know I had a look of pain on my face and also I just looked pretty scared of all those big guys. But I told him, "No, I'm from Boston. I can handle it." There was no way I was going to give up my awesome spot. Also there was this dude next to me who I have since named Samuel who was very respectful and cool and we kind of took care of each other, teaming up to keep people from killing us. If it weren't for him I would probably have taken that guy up on his offer to pull me out of there.
Vaune rocking out
Best friends since age 12, representing Boston at a Dropkicks concert in Paris. It doesn't get better than this.
I'm so glad I stayed up front. For one of their last songs, the band had all the girls in the place come up onstage. At this point I had kind of started to channel my brother and was rockin out. I got up onstage and when Ken Casey (one of the singers, and the only original member still in the band) came around and sang to all the girls, he put his hand on the top of my head and kind of shook my hat around and I stuck out my tongue. The second time he came around he TOOK MY HAT AND PUT IT ON HIS HEAD AND SANG THE REST OF THE SONG WITH MY HAT ON HIS HEAD. And then he threw it back to me. And I caught it. That was by far the coolest concert-going moment of my life.
As the girls were being shuffled offstage Vaune and I took this picture. You can't really tell - BUT THIS IS A PICTURE OF US ONSTAGE WITH THE DROPKICK MURPHYS RIGHT AFTER KEN CASEY WORE MY HAT. This is legendary.
Afterwards we stumbled back home, exhausted, bruised, dehydrated and, in Vaune's words, drenched in "the sweat of a thousand Gauls." To help you understand, this is what my shirt looked like at the end of the night:
People
I saw Gigi (= Madame Girondel, my high school French teacher, family friend, and all-around extraordinary lady) on Friday. I pulled myself out of bed at 7 AM and managed to meet her and the LHS exchange students at the Musée d'Orsay at 9. I'm really glad I went, because I managed to sneak in free with their guided tour, and I had never even been before. The tour was really cool and interesting, and I just kind of side-hugged Gigi throughout the entirety of it. Claire J was there too so I got to chill with her a bit. I will probably also go to Chartres with them next Monday, hopefully with Carolyn in tow.
Last night Emily Holland stayed with me. She went to my high school and I haven't seen her since, and then she came into Paris this weekend because she's on vacation (she's living in Dijon for the semester) and she wanted to see Gigi. She needed a place to stay so she crashed with me. It was really really cool. I had a lot of work to do, but I couldn't help talking with her anyway. We reminisced about high school, and people we didn't even remember, and how I was a crazy person in high school (yes, folks, even more so than I am now) and all that jazz. It was really interesting to reminisce about high school with someone who I didn't hang out with then. And I don't know why not - clearly I was missing out. We had a really fun time just eating pizza and sitting in my room and reading the Swedish gossip magazine that Vaune brought me in January.
I've met so many cool people in Paris. First I got to know Vaune and the other people from my Tulane group. Then I met Alan at the Sorbonne. I met Julia through work (and through Erin), and I met Amy through Julia. I feel like I don't have enough time to hang out with these people as much as I want to. And now in the past week I have met even more people - Jim & Tim (roommates with rhyming names... how priceless is that? And the real question - is pricelessness quantifiable?) and then through them all of the people who wander in and out of their room (Becca, Kait, Stephanie, etc). And I only have a month and a half to get to know these people and then I may never see them again. I know I have a certain degree of wanderlust and that's how I end up with so many "short-term friends," people who I meet somewhere (Menotomy, Ste-Anne, Tufts, France...) and become close with and then I have to leave them. It's also why I don't have as many friends at Tulane, because I can't seem to stay grounded there. I love meeting new people, but it's kind of sad when it happens this late in the game.
So that's my über-long blog post. Tomorrow is the school party, and I have a CSer coming to stay. Then I have to finish up my assignment, then it will be the weekend, and then going to Chartres with Gigi and Carolyn, then working for two days, then off to Dublin, Brighton and St. Andrews!!
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