Last time we spoke, I had just returned from a splendid weekend in the capital of the Netherlands. I was warmly greeted back to La Belle Ville with a crushing load of assessment. I don't think it would have been possible to choose a more ill advised weekend to go away for 4 days and accomplish no work. But work hard play hard has always been a favorite saying of mine, so now that I had accomplished the play hard portion of the motto, the working factor hit home - and then some. Monday was spent in a frenzy of expose research, writing, and meeting with my partner to complete our expose due Tuesday morning. Worth 100% of our mark, 30min presentation in French. No sweat. Whipped off a little etude de texte for French language and in bed before 2. Not too shabby. The presentation, after a brush with disaster when all the school printers were down that morning and I couldn't print off my oral portion of the expose, went off quite nicely if I say so myself. The huge feeling of relief put me in the most splendid mood for the rest of the day as I glided through ballroom dancing and History of Fashion and then a nice long dinner with Corina.
Wednesday, unfortunately, dawned just as dark as Monday had. I rose and started to deal with the issue of no cell phone. My service had been inexplicably cut off on Sunday morning, so after a visit to the SFR store and a call to head office, it was revealed that the head office had never received any of my documents from the boutique when I had first set up my contract, and despite my first bill being successfully paid, they decided to just cut me off. How kind. Once that problem was dealt with though I moved back to the academic realm. Due Thursday morning was my term paper for Ethics of War, which I had somewhat started the research, but still had a long way to go. Of particular frustration was the failure of my T.A. (teaching assistant) to respond to my 3 emails asking her to post the correct reading on my topic in the documents folder for our class. In the end she never did, so by 1pm I faced facts and started looking for a new document and angle. Fortunately, being the champ that I am, I found an even better document that was fairly short and finished up all my research before I shimied off to salsa.
Paper writing is a love-hate relationship. When you're on a roll, it is such a high, and you feel like an intellectual giant. But nothing is more painful than having to force yourself to write when you have absolutely zero inspiration or desire. This was happening after I got home from salsa. It took me 2 hours of dinner and watching Scrubs to deal with my apathy and finally lock myself into my room and start writing at 8pm. Thank goodness once I got going I hit the best rhythm and pumped out 1500 words of genius (or at least acceptable critical thinking) and was done, including footnoting and editing by 1:30. And the feeling from finishing a paper is among the most satisfying and the reason I am an arts student.
As I handed in my paper Thursday, I was practically skipping home from class, being in such a good mood. With that paper handed in, I had no major assesment for 3 weeks! I love Sciences Po sometimes. (In my defense, my assessment calendar was the product of particularly good planning). This would be the first time in two years where the end of November did not equal death. A celebratory swim and some more Scrubs kept the good vibes rolling right along. Annie and Peta also came over to sample my stirfry for dinner and then all my Madeleines came over for a lovely reunion evening of drinking and chatting. It had been quite awhile since we had all seen each other together, so it was great to have everyone gathered and catch up on the semester, which has indeed been busy.
Josh and I overjoiced at the Madeleine reunion.Friday during the day was pretty useless and blissfully unproductive, a needed respite after the week's work. I pulled it together in time to go to my friend Tia from UBC's birthday at an Irish bar in the 5th before heading up to Marina for a cocktail party. A relatively tame night, but altogether enjoyable.
Peta, myself, and Annie at Marina's Madmen, Mojitos and Mischief cocktail party.Saturday I was up in good time and headed to Ile St Louis in the center of city to check out Rachel's new apartment and catch up over coffee. It was a lovely visit, her apartment is so cute and quaint and the neighbourhood is stunning, surrounded by the river and Notre Dame. I am so jealous of her walk to school. I hadn't seen a lot of Rachel since September when we moved out of Cite, so it was great to hear about her trips to Amsterdam, the south of France and Puerto Rico and New York, and just how her life was getting on in general. We then embarked on a shopping expedition for a winter coat for me, which was highly unsuccessful. Will have to reapply myself next week and find something with the temperatures projected to plunge below zero! I returned home later to have some dinner and rest (yes, I need rests during my day in my old age) before making my way over to Timon's to visit before heading out with he, Boudewijn, Kerem, Leo, Simon and a few others I didn't know back to Le Financier, the bar we had been to a few weeks previously in Montparnasse. Just as successful a night as the previous visit, with a packed dancefloor, solid music, and great dance moves. I also had the enjoyment of introducing Leo, Timon and Kerem to Jagerbombs. Note to self: don't do jagerbombs after 3am, it makes falling asleep even at 5:30 am very challenging. Nevertheless it was another great night out with what I call my "Dutch crowd" that I have been so happy to have been included in quite a bit the last little while because of the Amsterdam trip.
Sunday = my productive day (if at all possible). I got up and updated the blog a bit before heading out for a run in the rain (it was soft rain so all good) and cleaned the apartment with Etienne all afternoon before heading to the Pompidou to meet Timon for coffee. We had a very nice chat over hot chocolates (a necessity on cold wet evenings as all Vancouverites know) before heading back to his place (riding on the rear rack yet again) for dinner and Indiana Jones. Though we've hung out in group situations now a bunch, it was lovely to get to know him a bit better one on one. I find there are so many periphery friends, but closer ones don't come around quite as often, despite best intentions.
Monday and another school week began, and I was inspired by my completely lack of work weekend to go to class and get a bunch of readings done. After a surprisingly interesting French Politics Lecture (porbably because our TA gave the lecture for half the class on Cameroon), Daniel and Boudewijn came back home and I hosted an impromptu dinner. I have decided that they are the best thing ever. It is so much more pleasant to arrive home with friends and share a beer and a meal than doing so by yourself. I also put way more effort into my meals, and the boys were both thoroughly impressed and satisfied with my fajitas dinner (a real culinary challenge I know). After they left I proceeded to completely ignore studying for my quiz the next day over hanging out and catching up on skype with Vince. Fortunately the quiz (Fashion) went off without a hitch the next day at the end of another busy Tuesday with 6hrs of class and ballroom. I enjoyed another evening at home, this time with Nadir and Etienne. It was nice to have some French back in my life, which had been really missing the last little while. Since Etienne got back together with his girlfriend, we haven't seen each other as much, so it was fun to hang with my French boys once again.
And this is when the start of a 5 day weekend with no homework or forseeable future starts! That's right, a two day week of class, followed by 5 days of no responsibility (well hardly any). After a delicious sleep in, a blog writing session and salsa ensued for the rest of the day before I headed out to the Banlieu (suburbs) for an empanadas dinner chez Lucas, a boy in my History of Chile class. So many delicious empanadas of various flavours were consumed, followed by the heavenly dulce de leche. Not only was I really happy at the chance to practice French with my classmates, it was also cool to see how our class has bonded over the term, all thanks to having our Diner de Conference at the start of the year. Our class delegate Noemie, has been amazing organizing movie outings and dinners. Many of my classes haven't even had their dinner, and its really too bad because friendships have developed in the Chile class because of it. I am resolving to be a class delegate next semester and organizing a dinner.
Thursday I was up early and after finally finishing the Amsterdam post, went out on a mission for a winter coat. It had started the previous Saturday with Rachel on Rue de Rivoli with no luck. I had a very specific vision in mind: dark grey wool with a big collar, and came down just past the hips, but not much lower. How hard could it be? Well after 4 hours of going in and out of stores on Rue de Rennes, St Michel and Champs Elysees I finally settled on something! It is not remotely like my vision (dark brown, not wool, and mid thigh) but it has a sweet collar and I am really happy with it. (It could not have come a moment too soon either because starting that night the temperatures plummeted and its was freezing in Paris for the next week and a half.) Thoroughly pleased with my success, I extended my walk along the Seine, having yet another "I love being in Paris" moment. Which is all the time, and it never gets old.
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