love's the only thing that matters anyhow

This semester, instead of phonetiques in the afternoon, I have it in the morning, from 10:30 to 11:30 every day, every other week. Last week was a phonetiques week. I arose each morning, more or less, at 9, got a shower, checked the weather, and got made-up for the day. I aimed to leave the house at 10 and usually got out around 10:10, which is pretty impressive.

There's a boulangerie/patisserie on the corner of my street on the way to the metro where I pop in to buy a croissant, baked fresh each morning, for only 90 cents. Sometimes I eat it on the metro, other times I eat it while waiting for class to start. My classroom is on the other side of a small garden courtyard, and when I get there early, I sit in a gazebo and watch other students walk by, nibbling my croissant.

Phonetiques this time around is less about the pronunciation of individual words, and more about the rhythm of the language and the melody of each phrase. French is very different from English when spoken. In English, words have emphasised and unemphasised syllables whereas in French, all syllables are equal. How you say the words depends on its place in the entire sentence. It's a lot like choral work, really, with phrasing.

After phonetiques, I either take the bus or the metro over to Luxembourg, where my cours pratique is located this semester. I'm now in the Superieur level, wherein we learn obscure, out-dated verb tenses (l'imparfait du subjoncif, anyone?) and talk about French literature. We're expected to read a French novel every month, and learn around 40 new vocabulary words a week. This would all be made significantly easier if my teacher weren't a bald, older man who is far too familiar with his female students, and likes to wear tight leather pants. The two hours of class pass quickly enough if I daydream and drink my daily coke.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm taking a course on French cinema. We watch a film then discuss it, if only to the extent that other students are willing to speak up. Sadly, most people are proud to contribute "I liked it; it had a happy ending!" I'd have said more last week, except I lost my voice and couldn't form many sounds beyond crackling and croaking. So far we've watched two films by Jean Renoir, son of the famous painter, and two by Jean Vigo. The latter's cinematography I prefer, even if his plotline was non-existent and trivial. He'd have made an excellent photographer, and his short film (a compilation of videos from Nice, all set to music and not having a story at all) was much more entertaining. My favorite that we've watched is Partie de Campagne by Renoir. It was filmed in the 1930s, but if you can find a copy (subtitled in English), I'd recommend it.

I know I've been absent since January, and there's far too much to say to really be able to catch you up properly, but I've been preoccupied with other things, namely, living. I spend a lot of time sitting in cafés, people watching, reading, writing, and even drawing. I've started a sketchbook again for the first time since high school. The weather has gradually been getting more bearable, even if it is always cloudy. My only real complaint would be the fact that I can't seem to go anywhere without a creepy older man propositioning me. Why can't it ever be a young, intelligent, attractive guy near my age but also near my maturity?

Yeah, I'll keep dreaming.

I haven't been spending much time with the new spring semester students, even the girls who now live on the other side of my bedroom wall. They're not annoying, per se, nor mean, but they simply aren't the type of people whose company I would actively seek out, so I prefer to do things on my own. If I can't hang out with people I like, I'd rather hang out with me. That's one thing I've learned for certain this year. I like my own company, and because it annoys me when people hang out with me even though they don't want to, I try to give other people the same courtesy of not being a passively-aggressive dipshit.

Don't know how much sense that makes to those outside my head. Well, and so.

Friday after cours pratique, I went out with a friend to find a decent sushi restaurant in Paris. We didn't succeed, but we ate sushi anyway. (I miss properly spicy tuna.) It turned into one of those days where you go from place to place to place to place to place and before you know it, it's two AM and you're catching the last metro home. I'd intended to go home after sushi but got invited to go to said friend's friend's apartment. Maybe it was a pity-invite, but even if it was, I went, because I don't care much either way.


We sat around in the apartment for a few hours, listening to music and talking, and smoking in everyone else's case (I appear to be one of the only people in the city who doesn't smoke). Again, my plan afterward was to go home, but the same friend invited me along to go meet one of his other friends for a drink across the river. His friend was late arriving, so we went to another friend of his' apartment for a quick cup of tea. The entire apartment would've fit inside the bathroom of my apartment in Columbia last year. In fact, my bathroom might've been bigger.

Finally, the friend we were supposed to meet up with showed, and took us to a bar where pints of beer are 3,50 euro, a deal of which we partook. I ended up chatting with a 30-year-old Frenchman with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. He was watching a rugby match on TV, where the French were losing from what I could tell, and seemed very interested in talking to me. I ordered a glass of red wine to follow the beer (I can only stand so much beer—I know, where did I come from, right? Certainly not my family) and brushed him off after a few minutes.

Seeing as I'd never really had dinner and it was getting to be around 8, with a beer and glass of wine down, I decided on dinner. We walked to a falafel stand, and ate our dinner on the way to another bar—which turned out to be closed. Fortunately, Paris is never lacking in bars or places to drink, so we went down the street to another one and had a glass of wine there. It was 11 by the time we left. Instead of being satisfied on one side of the river, we crossed over to the left bank and walked around not-entirely-aimlessly, to yet another bar, this one small and cozy, tucked away on a back-side street in the 5th. Another glass of red wine ordered, and we sat in the back with another American girl and two Italians, who only spoke Italian and French.

I nursed my one glass for however long we ended up sitting there, til at least 1 in the morning. We discussed any number of things, from relationships to French cinema, and walked back to the metro before it closed for the night. I came  home to an empty apartment, because my host family is out of town for the weekend, as are my new roommates. I have the place to myself, which is novel and wonderful.

Saturday was one of the warmest days since September, without a cloud in the sky and reaching into the fifties, which I assure you is rare in Paris this time of year. A friend of mine was babysitting a little girl and had taken her to a park, so I joined them. The park is over on the other side of the Champs Elysee, and filled with rich young parents and their children, interspersed with rich young hoodlums who think they're tough. The 8th is an expensive part of town. An hour or so of watching the little girl play herself into exhaustion passed in blissful warmth and sunlight. Then we dropped her off at her parents', fast asleep in her stroller, and went walking down the Champs in search of food for a picnic we were going to have in the Tuileries gardens. I chose a proscuitto sandwich from Paul's with a coke for my lunch, and we found the only two vacant seats left in the garden to sit and enjoy the afternoon.

At sunset, we headed home. My plans were to dance around in my pajamas, singing showtunes and celebrating the fact that the house was mine by eating pizza in my room (against the rules!). Unfortunately, the oven and I had a disagreement. It wanted to burn my pizza, and then lock so I couldn't get it open no matter how hard I tugged and no matter what I used to try and pry it open with. So there was my charred remains of a pizza stuck inside an oven I couldn't open, and my host family was going to kill me because I'm really not supposed to use the appliances for the exact fear that I might not know how to work them. Funny thing, that.

I scoured the house in search of a screw-driver, intending on unplugging the darn thing and taking it apart just to get rid of the evidence that I'd attempted to use it and in the process broken it.

There was no screwdriver. Screws, yes, but nothing to screw them in with. In hindsight, that's probably a good thing. I know nothing about putting machines back together again.

I spent the next twelve hours in panic, even in my sleep I was haunted by the possibility of not being able to open the oven before my host family came home (and I had no idea when they were supposed to come back. Morning, afternoon, evening; I had no clue). My pride hates when I look stupid, and this would've been horrifying to explain. I woke up earlier than normal, just in case, and went to the kitchen to see if maybe it miraculously unlocked overnight.

It hadn't.

By this point, I'd developed a script of how I would explain the situation without coming off as a total ignoramus who can't even manage to work an oven (that has no instructions or directions whatsoever, only a dial with strange symbols that don't tell you at all what the function is supposed to be). In desperation and with hope fleeing on winged feet, I googled troubleshooting information on the brandname of the oven.

There was a frequently asked question about a childproof lock, and it instructed how to undo it once activated. Heart already pretty much sunk in my stomach and absolutely certain that this wasn't going to do any good, I set off toward the kitchen, intent on trying my one last hope.

Turn the nob counter-clockwise three times in rapid succession.

It worked.

I literally danced back to my end of the apartment, laughing in hysterical relief. Crisis averted.

It was time to set off for tea. And studying obscure verb conjugations that are only ever used in 18th and 19th century literature and most native French speakers don't even recognize.

I mentioned my professor wears leather pants, right?

In conclusion, I am really sick of not knowing where I stand with people, and I will be terribly sad to leave behind all these lovely cafes.

My host family has returned.