james bond, jackie chan and that bitch mcguyver
What-wha-what-what (to complete the title of the entry). More pictures from the past two weeks: http://community.webshots.com/user/margarethair
If you're ever living in a foreign country to study for a semester, and people from home come to visit you, here's a few things to know:
- you will spend more money than you're used to
- you will be tired, and should remember not to wear shoes that basically amount to slippers in the rain (feels like wet socks)
- your friends will also, most likely, be tired
- your extreme annoyance at tourists will be tried
- you might want to remember the social acclimation of each of your friends
But, all in all, a fun weekend. I finally got the motivation to do things in Paris that I've been meaning to do for awhile now: picnic out at Bercy, go to the top of l'Arc de Triomphe, buy a particularly cheesy souvenir featuring the eiffel tower, order a mojito in a bar, go out to La Defense during the day, take the #5 metro line (I've got almost all 14 now, collect them while they last!), force people to see my neighborhood (which is not at all interesting).
Having people from home in Paris, particularly the UNC kids who, for circumstances only partially under my control (re: the Daily Tar Heel and a mild case of mania), I haven't really hung out with in ... a year. I am, by the way, pretty horrible at playing hostess. I told a painter in Montmartre that life wasn't easy, and repeatedly told people to "suck it up" all weekend. Yeah, that's right. Step. (Alpha step, that is).
Puccini rocks my socks. In a very "look at this Bohemian painter from the Latin Quarter fall in and out of love until the girl finally dies of something looking like tuberculosis" kind of way. But you know what? Dude could set that mess to some mean dramatic scoring. "It was quite good - I wept." - Dr. Costello's (NC Paris program director) impression of "La Boheme," which we all went to see Friday night. And, I'm not going to lie, between the arias where Mimi and Rodolpho sing together and the French horn part in the final scene, I almost had the same reaction. (Because really, it's not like we didn't all already know that I am, shall we say, not a cool person).
I've decided that I'm a big fan of medication. In most cases, I would tend to think that medicating things like anxiety (unless in the case of attacks), stress, mild and not chemical depression, etc - is done much too frequently. But, you know what? Fuck that. Put everyone on drugs. All of 'em. I have nothing to back this up. At all. Somehow though, it seems that being drugged - cognizant of yet almost mentally unable to care about - what is going on around you - it can have its benefits. I'm not sure where that came from, but you know. Whateva whateva.
At some point I need to start emailing people about work over winter break. And work next semester. And classes. And returning to the real world.
But first, I'm going to get my hair cut! Woooooo! I have no idea what vocabularly to use, or what I want done to my hair. "Make it look, somehow, like there is something to it. Without becoming poofy, because my hair is similar in consistency to...something really thick."
Going to a jazz club tonight with Ciani and her friends! New people! Adventure! Music! That's not technoeuropop!