I’m in Texas! I got home Saturday night. It was exhausting. I was supposed to take off out of CDG at 12:15, and I got to the airport at 8:30 after very little sleep, and the plane was already delayed to 3:45. They gave us sandwiches at least. So then they had to route me through Dallas so I had two connections instead of one. It was really hard to wake up and get off of that plane. But I made it and here I am on my new MacBook Pro!!! It is wonderful! I don’t think it’s lighter than my old computer (which I just posted on ebay) but it certainly feels more compact and sturdy. I think I’ve just finished transferring over everything I want from the old computer, so now I just have to wipe it clean.

The doogs are good and were very happy to see me (as I was them). No one else arrives till Wednesday night so I’m going to do things like buy violin strings, buy some sheet music, bind my masters report, possibly buy new sheets, until they arrive. When I get back I think I’m going to rearrange my bedroom and make it cosier since I can now go on the internet in it. Allergies are not great but not horrible either. Annnnd that’s all.

I can barely believe it. This week has been stuffed with work. Mostly I’ve been reading rough drafts and deciding what exactly to tell my students to work on for the final papers. Otherwise, since it’s the last week before Christmas, I haven’t planned anything too serious for actual class time. I just have to teach my students how to write in half an hour tomorrow. Here’s what’s on the menu:

1) Run-on sentences
2) Not citing wikipedia
3) That/which
4) Remembering to say THE U.S.A. and THE U.K.
5) Putting their names on things
6) Not using contractions in formal writing
7) Not writing conversationally in general
8 ) Not triple-spacing when I said to double-space
9) Self-editing in general

Plus I seem to have caught some sort of cold so I may not be thinking too too clearly tomorrow morning. Also my usual ride to school (my roommate) is already on vacation so I’ll be taking the bus. Also IT’S COLD. It’s been hovering around 30 all week. And I can’t actually believe I think 30 degrees is really cold. What happened?? Two winters in France + one in Austin has taken all the Minnesota out of me! 30 degrees feels like -30 to me (though, obviously, am dressed differently than I was for that). Maybe it’s all of the waiting for the bus that I do.

Otherwise, after I teach my students how to write in one 30-minute cram session, we are going to listen to the “Tough Room” episode of This American Life for the Onion meeting room section. Then we’re going to watch this episode of the Ill Doctrine, because it made me laugh. On Thursday I listen to more first-year presentations, and on Friday with my 3A GCs we are going to do muted Friends episodes (just the cheesecake episode, in pairs) and then watch Garden State. And then I’m going to get on the train to Paris to spend the night at Marie’s little sister’s, in order to catch my 12:15 plane home on Saturday. So I really just have to get through tomorrow morning and it’s all easy after that.

I’ve got some exciting presents to take home. I got some super yummy foie gras when I was at Marie’s a couple weekend’s ago. I also got some mustards. Then Saturday I bought some chocolate for mon frère and my cousin, plus a sweater for mon frère’s copine and something for my mom which will remain undescribed for the moment. I got a book about Poitiers, one with pretty pictures, for my masters report advisor, who did an exchange program in Poitiers years ago (the Moncton-Poitiers exchange is still going strong). There are actually pictures of the school I teach at in it.

Oh! I forgot to mention that I’m also giving my students this article on culture to read. Yes, it is the first thing that shows up when you google “cultural awareness.” But I also think it is really good and easy to understand. I teaching culture. I also do not know how to make a heart symbol.

One of my third-year students was giving his presentation yesterday, using a powerpoint presentation, and the presentation was already pretty funny. Then suddenly there was a slide that just said this:

3 GC won in football last night
• It is awesome.
• We are the best.

(3 GC=3rd year civil engineering specialty—these are the group I have on Fridays)

It’s still making me laugh.

The GRE is changing.

I had a dream last night that I turned 26 and I just wasn’t ready. It was horrible. It’s weird though because normally I’m ready to get older on my birthday.

I also dreamt the other night that I had only 400 euros left in my bank account (a significant drop, meaning that I had spent it all without realizing it) and that my French ex was following me around inviting me to hang out with him and his girlfriend and just generally trying to talk to me.

Those are sort of obvious fears. But the weird one is the first one. I think I’m perfectly happy being 25 but by the time I’m 26 my subconscious thinks maybe I shouldn’t be alone anymore. Otherwise, there’s nothing to freak out about—I have more or less a career, a masters degree, I make my own money. I guess it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me what I want out of life, and parts of that seem as far away as ever, which was fine when I was 23, but maybe not as much now. Who knows. Anyway, the dream sort of freaked me out.

I don’t know what their writing in French is like. Some of them litter their writing with contractions, the first person, “it’s,” etc, and a lot of them are terrible about run-ons. I think some of this comes from French, but not all of it. A lot of them write in a really personal style. They all do paragraphs differently and some of them thought double spacing meant triple spacing. It’s a good thing they turned in rough drafts. But it means a lot of marking for me this week.

in the middle of all this weekend-ing away that on Friday I (well, my friend Alyson) turned in everything that was left for my masters degree (which was just masters report paperwork). I got an e-mail from my department head (also my reader on my report committee) congratulating everyone who is graduating this fall, so, everything is done, I should get my diploma in the mail sometime in January I think! Dept head/reader also thought I should turn it into a paper, so I’ll work on that in the spring. Huzzah! Grad school is finished. That was fast.

(Seriously, facebook keeps telling me to reconnect with my French ex. Or to suggest friends for him. Over and over. It’s like it just doesn’t get the joke.)

So, I’ve been single for a little over two years now. And I just about have marre of it. I’ve never liked being single. And I’ve met a few guys (3-4) I’ve liked in my time since returning to France. Here are the two problems that always, always seem to interfere:

1) They don’t live in Poitiers.

2) We hit it off and they don’t make a move.

This has all been fine and good (I mean, I enjoy meeting people even if nothing happens) until this past weekend when I met one that I really, really liked, and who I’m pretty dang sure liked me too. And once again the evening ended and nothing happened. Here’s my question: how much of a move is a girl allowed to make when doing so involves going through two other people, and when the guy lives four hours away anyway? And when, in theory, the guy could figure out how to contact me if he wanted? I really liked this one. I’d settle for just some sort of possibility that we’d meet again.

Blurg.

(This is a post that I am very likely to take down someday, but for the moment I’ll say this: it was a friend of my roommate’s brother’s.)

Is #2 because of #1? Otherwise I’m running out of explanations. Do I have to start giving my number out myself or surreptitiously sticking it in pockets?

with Marie’s family. I went down to Lyon for the fête des lumières last night just for the night to hang out with Zandra + other Avignon people and stayed with the mother of a friend, so there was no apartment-sharing with 13 other people.

A separate note: one of my students was trying to explain the hostess of the Miss France competition to me (since they were all laughing about it and I had no clue who she was) and he said this:
“She’s particularly … old.” I thought it was hilarious.