The the horizon, spreading of headscarves

The title is what happens when you try to translate French into English. Gobbledigook.

Making iTunes mixes of Bon Iver (though the song "Babys" creeps me out for more than the obvious grammatical error), TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, Beirut, and Phoenix and working on my final conversation assignment for my last interview tomorrow: choose 4 more poems by Leopold Senghor and analyze. The only hard part is that they're in French and the vagueness of my English translation ensures inaccuracies, though frankly as long as I can talk for about 12 minutes in French about slavery and racism and metaphors (all of these words are basically the same in French as in English, fortunately) and I can sound not completely daft then I will end up doing quite well I believe. Like last time, the first time I ever was told anything other than "wow, your French isn't actually...um...very good." Ah the joys of a shitty study abroad department that lies to you to get your money.

Other than that, things are good. Stayed up late last night writing my last cinema paper on queer French cinema since the 1980s, and while I didn't exactly get to all of the basics in 7 pages, I did do a broad analysis of representations of masculinities and desire in a couple of freaky films that I didn't actually watch, but read many an article about. I watched soccer highlights with my brothers and ate clementines and folded laundry, woke up at 8am to drink coffee and pace, trying to finish my thoughts and to chew on some dry bread for breakfast (yum), walked farther than necessary to the RER because I felt like it and spent two hours after cinema class reading, staring into space and contemplating coming home for a nap.

What I was thinking about:

#1. where the hell to find a job in Chapel Hill. I need it to be at least 20 hrs/week, so if y'all have any tips, I would prefer food service or a grocery store in the produce section. Or catering. Or fuck, freelance I-make-you-dinner-and-clean-your-kitchen-while-editing-essays. I don't care, really.

#2. Fete de la Science on Saturday. Sally and I found bagels and cheddar cheese and got stared at all the way to Porte de la Villette in the 19eme to take advantage of the free admission to the Paris science museum, where we learned about human genes, bananas, cane sugar, drinking beer in a science museum, space, technology sucking, optical illusions, and light games. And fish with voices!

#3. Morocco (2 weeks!), Normandy (this weekend!), and Amsterdam (3 weeks!)

#4. The fact that France cheated against Ireland last week. (Wikipedia will tell you all about it)

#5. The ridiculous amounts of food that I will be cooking once I regain access to my parents' kitchen in Wilmington in a month, and along with that, the fact that today marks the 75% complete mark of my journey. Class ends this Friday, exams are all next week, and the program ends December 7th, when I jet off to Marrakech (the hash capital of the world, according to my host family). Also, the amounts of food that I will be bringing to Wilmington pseudo-potlucks for the likes of Steven McQueen, Hilary, Donta, Kelsey, and Edens. I miss these 910 fools, especially those I saw last up in Boston & Philly in early July and not since.

#6. The fact that while I do not exactly consider myself homesick, my inability to have a personality not based on my blond hair and decidedly 21st century alt style of dress is really starting to get me down. People only express any interest in me because they want to sleep with me and do not hesitate to express these interests. It's just a big city thing, but I have nothing to say except "fuck off I'll kill you," and my inability to do what I do best, i.e. branch out, is really hurting my heart. Though my main bitches keep me in line for sure, along with my dreams in which every person I love in the world appears at least once to give me bisous and

#7. I want to plan my coming back to CH party. NOW. DREW MILLARD, HELP. I also want to throw a costume party to make up for Halloween.

Now I'm thinking about just watching Dexter and hitting the hay, getting up around 9:30 to finish my project for class and making pancakes. Maybe? Tomorrow night I have a date at Michel Bondurand's apartment in Montmartre for dinner with Cinema class. Very exciting.

Working on a poem tentatively titled "To James Ensor, Upon Our Second Meeting."

I leave you with some quotes:

"The thing I like best about French is that the words for 'avocado' and 'lawyer' are the same."

- A. Dietly

"I'm wearing a turtleneck. You can have all my sexy."

- A. Dietly

"Vous connaissez 'capitalisme'? Acheter? Vendre?"

- Mlle. Reverseau

"You've got to reach outside of your carnal envelope to achieve touch with a spiritual dimension."

- M. Bondurand

Bisous!