Monday April 11th: A day to tie up loose ends from the weekend. I finished my readings for Sport and Politics and headed to class. Afterwards, I chatted with Rook about the Paris-Roubaix and the class. Again, I've really appreciated having a closer relationship with a teacher. Definitely going to try and keep in touch and use it for reference purposes come grad school time. After eating my salad in the Sciences Po garden, I hit the library to edit my paper and officially finish it a whole 3 weeks early! I did some blog work (last time I posted) before heading home for dinner with my beaugosse colloc Etienne over some episodes of Scrubs.
Tuesday after dealing with some good old UBC transfer credit mixups that cost me an hour of my life, I headed to school for my longstanding Lina's Lunch date with Daniel and then ballroom. Only one week left before our big performance, and I'm feeling pretty good about our line up of Cha Cha, Tango and Quick Step. In order to motivate the return to the library at 5pm, Ilona and I hit up Monoprix for a little viennoiserie. After a treat like that, I always bring my game face to the apple store (our library). I got down to business with my sport and politics research for my paper. It seems my attempts to refine my sources for my question only led me in more circles. This can be a problem when your very specific angle, like American television network influence on the Olympic programme, hasn't been as widely written on academically. I think I did make some headway though, or at least eliminated a lot of possibilities. I also observed different types of library frequenters. When I come to the library I get into a zone, put my head down and work concertedly for a length on time. This level of exertion is the reason I don't spend infinite amounts of time at the library, or come that frequently. The other type is Ilona. She spends entire days at the library, but features many distractions including numerous library friends coming to say hi and commiserate, facebook etc. For her, the library is both social and work. I'd rather seperate the two into distinct catagories. Work seperate from play. Then the breaks feel real and restful. Speaking of breaks, when I did make it home by 9 I had some dinner and then curled up with Breakfast at Tiffany's in bed.
One thing about my relationship with the library is wariness of what I like to call library burnout. Too much library wears me down spiritually so I have to mix up my study locations in order to get max efficiency. Hence why I avoided the lin this wednesday morning before Structues and Crises class and yoga. Afterwards, I returned for a meeting for my Vichy France term paper, and we sorted out division of labour and content of our essay on Cinema and memory. While I wasn't very keen on the idea of a group paper when it was assigned, I'm appreciating it now when it means that with planning out of the way, its going to be a quarter of the work of my other papers. Sa-weet! Work completed, Annie and I teamed up for yet another fantastic dinner of salmon with roasted baby potatoes and zuchini. Deliciousness. I am going to miss my better half in the kitchen dearly next year. We eat so well together. Afterwards, David rolled up and we had a school comparison party, at which point I showed them the UBC LipDub video made earlier this fall. If you haven't seen it, go to youtube and do so, because its freaking awesome. Libdubs are one-continuous shot to music. Ours involves thousands of students dancing all around campus, a scuba session in the pool and a helicopter. All financed by donations and volunteers. It makes me proud to be from UBC. In 5 days it already half a million hits. Not too shabby. Tom finally made his appearance and we settled down to watch Despicable Me. It was really cute and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Hehe.
Sadly, for the next two Thursdays, swimming has been cancelled! Oh no! In the end it was all ok since I worked hard on paper all morning before doing some cleaning and running before my Vichy Class. It was all good until I got my midterm back and didn't do so well. It doesn't happen that often that I think I kill a test I studied for when in fact I didn't. This annoyed me to no end, especially since the profs didn't really point out where I needed to improve. I proceeded to rant over beers with Daniel at Le Basile. At 9 we headed north to meet the crew and check out some of the good bar seen by Canal St Martin. Unfortunately, it seems this was a popular idea and so no bar around there could handle the size of our group! While we waited for everyone to arrive, we decided to chill in a Tabac. A tabac is a small convenience store that sells cigarettes and lottery tickets, and occasionally serves alcohol. This particular one was fairly large and featured a sizeable seating area, hence why we sat down and profited from the very cheap drinks. We ended up sitting all night, much to the fascination of the various greasy middle aged men at the bar who were clearly regulars. One even wanted a picture with us, which we naturally declined. All in all a entertaining time with Eva, Daniel, David, Tom, Annie and myself. Called it a night at 11:30 in order to get a good night's sleep in advance of another busy weekend.
Friday April 15th: I managed to pull myself out of bed at a reasonable hour in order to get down to some reading, deciding it was necessary to take a break from all my essay studying. By 2, I was off to meet Fran and Annie for some gala dress shopping along Rivoli. Despite having budgeted 4 hours, none of us had any success, or at least if you evaluate it in terms of dress finding. We all managed to make off with some good cheap spring finds though. I seem to have packed a distinctive lack of summer clothes. Normally I come home before it is rightly summer, and I didn't really take into account last september how warm it would be getting over here in the summer. Add in the effect of some baguette eating and a few of my old numbers are none to comfortable for wearing and it was getting to be a bit of an issue. Accordingly, I've been able to pick up a few skirts and dresses on the cheap so now I'm all covered! I stopped by Annie's briefly afterwards to borrow a dress for an upcoming party next week before heading over to Lauren Bailey's for a little family dinner. Pedro, Poullette, Ayumi and us Lauren's whipped a mighty fine meal with homemade guac, salad, rice and cajun chicken with real cajun spice courtesy of Lauren's texas roots. It was lovely for our whole group to get together and catch up, reminisce about our friends we miss and of course play some old music and dance! It really was a great night, and I know we're all so stoked for the reunion trip in Helsinki! More family birthday cards greeted me when I got home :)
Family Dinner with Pedro, Poullette, LB and Ayumi.
Getting silly with Dance Hats!Saturday dawned sunny and bright, and this somehow convinced me to stay inside temporarily and finish off my Monday readings by 11. After picking up some groceries for the week I had lunch with Etienne, Loic, and Marie, Etienne's sister who is visiting for a few nights. After, I finally got back to some work on my essay, and its starting to take shape in my mind, which is always a promising sign. Then, it was out to the streets to try and find a gala dress. None of my friends are really my size so borrowing wasn't going to be a good option. This was my last chance to hunt because the next two weeks will really be crazy with work and social activities. I had a recommendation of a small store along Rue St. Dominique and then to try the largest H&M on Champs Elysees. I enjoyed the afternoon of walking around outside, and even stumbled upon Place du Canada while walking up towards to Champs Elysees! After dealing with the hectic change room lines, I finally found success in a lovely cream coloured dress - you'll see pictures in an upcoming post. Best of all, it was only 40 euros and I found a great pair of shoes to match for only 20! Now that is great shopping! Afterwards, I headed back to Corina's for a little chat, which is always nice and we of course discussed plans for the future etc. I also learned about a terrible Sciences Po tragedy, which I will get into detail a bit more. The implications of it, didn't hit me right away, and so though saddened, I was able to carry on with things much better. After a quick dinner at home, I headed up to Oberkampf to go to a cool bar called Pop In with Annie, Tom and David. It was a great bar with lots of personality, cheap beer, and a small cave downstairs that served up some good dancing. It was really an ideal solid Saturday night, complete with last metro.
I got up and headed straight out the door on Sunday morning for a run before heading to my neighbourhood farmer's market to pick up some supplies for a picnic at Bois de Vincennes. Buddy Program had had a meet and greet there in the fall, but I didn't really get a chance to explore so I was keen to go back. Basically it was a perfect day with great friends. Beautiful spring weather and low twenties, picnic lunch by a pond, walk through an incredible tulip garden, fooling around in the playground, walking through a massive forest, playing Nerfball in an giant field in front of Chateau Vincennes, actually paying a toll to cross a river and my first experience in a real old-fashioned row boat. You couldn't ask for a better day, one of the happiest of Paris this term, or perhaps the year. All throughout I kept on exclaiming how days like this nourish the soul. I also found out Annie has no idea what real lemonade it (she thinks its sprite poor girl), and Jordana makes sexy faces rather than happy faces. I also got some more bad news about the tragedy, and spent part of the day comforting Ilona. I think I fully realized how sad it was on the metro home, and got a bit down for the rest of the night. Talking to the family, Sunday dinner with Etienne and listening to Phish over a bottle of wine was soothing. By the end of the night, Etienne and I even talked French and Canadian politics. Weird ending to a magnificent day.
David amongst the beautiful tulips.
Throwbacks to childhood mischief.
Deftly maneuvering our rowboat. Totally in control.Monday the 18th was a day of a very heavy heart. In the early hours of the previous Thursday, three Sciences Po exchange students died in an apartment fire in the 20th arrondissement. Though we didn't learn all of the details until the memorial this morning, it was revealed that they had been at a soiree at a friends house. Around 3am, a fire started in the lobby of the building, and caught the gas pipe and shot up the stairs (all wooden). Hearing the commotion the party opened the doors and people were forced to jump out of 5th floor windows into the street trying to escape. Police suspected arson. Two of the girls died, and one was in critical care at the hospital. One of the victims, Jasmine, had been in two of my classes first term, History of Chile and French associations. We always chatted in the halls, and she was a lovely girl. The girl in hospital, Grace, had been my partner for the debat only a few weeks ago, and I had just been talking to her on the previous Monday. Needless to say, this tragedy really shook me, and the entire exchange community. We're not very big, but we're so interconnected, and by the end of the year, everyone seems to know everyone to some extent. The senselessness and abruptness of the deaths was shocking, and everyone was put in their shoes, unable to comprehend how lives so full of promise, coming to Paris to spend the year of their lives could suddenly just be over. The parents pain was unimaginable.
That Monday morning was a memorial service at Sciences Po. I attended with Annie and Ilona. All of Boutmy was packed. It was an emotionally heavy service, and it was hard seeing their close friends, many of whom were good friends of mine, describe how incredible these girls were. It makes you realize how short life is, and how we have to appreciate the people around us, and take advantage of our opportunities and blessings here. I can attest that these young women will not be forgotten. I have since learned that Grace, who suffered from broken bones and intense burns, has been making a great recovery in the hospital.
Somehow, I had to go to class afterwards at 12:30. I had lunch with Eva and we discussed how the pain was felt collectively by the whole exchange community. I had to fight back tears all day, and had a massive headache. Somehow, I took my mind off things by pholosophically blogging about the importance of family, and friends as your family. By the time I got home, I was in a quiet mood, but the headache was slowly receeding. That night, I also watched on of the first French movies I've watched while in France (shame on me). It was "Le premier jour du reste de ta vie), and I have to say it was really great. It was full of laughter and tears as a family grows up together and individually. It was what I needed to take my mind off things. I plan on trying to watch more films in French over the coming weeks.
It funny how mothers are often right about many things. One of which is that a good night's sleep will make things brighter in the morning. After being drained yesterday, I woke to a beautiful sunshine and I know that I can't keep carrying this sadness with me. Its important to go on living my life to the fullest as a tribute to the beautiful girls whose lives were cut terribly short. I headed to Daniel's early in the morning to practice ballroom before our performance later that day. The performance was at 12:30, and I felt so special since a number of friends came and watched and took pictures - thanks Annie, Corina, Eva and Lincoln! Daniel and I performed without fault and it was splendid, a really great time, and we got to watch some of the other dance styles and do some group line dancing! After, we grabbed some lunch and ate in the garden together. Then it was library session to write my entire Sports Essay! Except for a hot chocolate break with Annie and Ilona around 5, I managed to write the entire thing in one go! As expected, I was very thrilled with myself. At 9:15 I called it a day and Annie and I went home to cook up some delicious dinner and then for some silly reason she convinced me to introduce her to Sons of Anarchy...
All for now!
P.S. Very proud of two in two days!
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