So yay, I don’t work Saturday morning after all–training has been switched to Sunday and Monday, which makes my weekend pretty swell. I’m going to S’s Arrested-Development-themed Halloween party as Michael’s unfortunate love interest Rita:

I have acquired a coonskin hat and am going to make a backpack (well clearly it won’t be utilitarian) out of my stuffed baboon by attaching yellow ribbons to it. Also am going to make a cheap ribbon MRF bracelet. And possibly buy some cheap beads. All of those materials (except, obviously, my awesome stuffed baboon) are to be acquired tomorrow.

I hope to remember to take pictures of everyone. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in years.

I voted today! I’ve stuck my “I voted” sticker on top of my Obama button but the Obama button has a real habit of falling off my bag so we’ll see if either of them make it through the day tomorrow much less till election day. It was my first time voting with electronic machines so that was a bit weird.

I also registered for classes. I have to take a French literature class. You wouldn’t think I’d mind, considering that I was an English major. But I’d really rather spend my time on linguistics and teaching classes.

I need

1 teddy bear backpack
1 coonskin hat
1 MRF bracelet

and blond hair would be helpful but I think it’s probably not gonna happen. Not sure about most of these items actually.

I also I had all my solo violin music in that box from France too. Bruch, Barber, anything Kreisler, the Bach partitas. Not sure what else. WHY didn’t I just it in my violin case???

Sad. Sad. Am going to rent a carshare car and go to Strait Music tomorrow to see what I can do about this with limited funds. But I’ll never have those fingerings back!

I got a job at a burger place. It’s not waiting tables, it’s building burgers and working the register. It’s like five blocks from here. I’ll start when the place is done being built in November. Yay for cash flow.

Also am going to finally go in to sign a contract with the tutoring service on Friday. If I pick up enough students I’ll let go of the other job but I’m pretty sure that’ll take a while.

Talked to Advisor 1 today about the possibility of doing my report while I’m in France and she said she didn’t think it would be a problem. You just have to get all the paperwork in and keep up with your report advisor. So I should probably run it by Advisor 2 but I’m not too worried about it.

Am so tired. Had a frustrating French homework assignment and e-mailed the professor for help and got what seemed like an irritated answer back. It kind of killed my motivation. I wonder if e-mail is just a cursed medium.

I’m a big sucker and have fallen for the show So You Think You Can Dance. I downloaded it (shh) over the summer while I was still in France. And then I got back and found out that the top ten tour was coming to Austin and Lisa from high school was going. So I went! Here’s the proof!

Here they all are:

My camera’s not really good enough for shots like this so here’s a picture from a recognizable routine. But I could definitely see a lot better and closer than this.

And we got to meet them all! I think it must be a trip for them, having all these people crazy about them when they’re still basically nobodies. It was a lot of fun and afterward Lisa and I and her friend went to the Kerbey Lane Cafe (at around midnight) and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever. I’m still thinking about it.

Not a whole lot to say here. Getting advised this week so hopefully I’ll have some ideas about the degree plan. Am starting to wonder where to try to plant myself back in France. It’s tempting to try a new place but it’s also tempting to stay in places where I already have a network (as in, Nancy and Reims).

I went to SA for the weekend. I got a lot of work done. My parents are trying to buy a house there. Boris and Otto suspect nothing.

I’ve decided to renew my passport since I don’t know when I’ll next be in the U.S. for a big chunk of time. It’ll be weird to start afresh. I’ve got so many stamps in there.

I bought a laser printer so I can stop mooching off of friends and paying at the library. But I forgot that you have to buy the cable to your computer separately (seriously, why?) so I’ll go do that tomorrow.

Oh, and I got a job at a burger place. Going in Tuesday to fill out papers but the place isn’t finished yet so I won’t start working till November.

Also went to see W. Not sure what I thought.

And by did I mean dyed, or highlighted. For free! I went out with Roommate A Saturday night and this woman she knows asked if I would be interested in being a color model. She’s doing some demonstrations at a salon downtown as part of some sort of interview process to potentially work there. She did this fancy technique where you don’t use foil or anything, you just paint directly on the hair. Anyway am very happy with it though it is very subtle so I’m not sure you can tell too well:

I am so tired.

I’m also thinking about how to possibly do my degree in one year. It wouldn’t really be a year. I could do everything but the report by next August. So am going to talk to the advisors about their take on doing the report from somewhere else. If that doesn’t fly, and if I’m sure I want to do it in one year, I could come back and do the report next summer. In the meantime I’d have to start looking for work back in France around February. I don’t think it will be hard to get another lectrice job. Anything more permanent than that though is a bit intimidating. Did I say a bit? I meant a lot.

Promise. Waiting for photos.

Need a new camera. This 3 megapixel thing is just not cutting it.

So as far as the department goes, I can pretty much do whatever I want concerning an internship abroad. And the IFE program is pretty perfect–internship, research component, final report. But it costs 6500 euros. Which is like, twice my UT tuition. And there doesn’t seem to be much out there in terms of grants for doing educational research abroad like that (as in, by someone who’s already lived in France, and wants to do it in one semester). The advisor did suggest looking for an internship on my own given that I’ve lived in France and I have sort of a network. But all of the people I know there work in the public school system and I’m not interested in interning in the public system because, umm, I already basically did that. So I dunno. I mean, maybe I’ll just graduate in December 09 and shit around for the spring. That sounds productive. I mean, fuck it.