Wednesday, January 28, 2009

TRIUMPH!

I feel I have reached a few milestones in the 2 and half weeks that I've been in Paris.  First off today as I was walking to the bus to go to school a lady asked me in French if I knew where some street was.  So she thought I was French or at least that I knew where the hell I was and where I was going.  Of course I had no idea where that street was and even if I did know where it was I’m the last person to give out directions.  So I said IN French that I'm sorry I'm not from this area I don't know where that is.  "Desolee, je suis pas d'ici.  Je ne sais pas ou est cette rue"  In case you were wondering that's how you say it in French.

My second triumph is a little more important to me.   I can now make it up ALL 6 flights of stairs to my apartment without stopping!  Ok this might not seem like a big deal but imagine you lived on the 6th floor and there were no elevators and you had to climb the windy staircase EVERY single day.  And I should add that I am in no way an active athlete anymore.  Yes in high school I played soccer but that was a long time ago my friend.  And going to the gym is rarer than snow in San Diego.  So making it up all 6 flights without stopping is kind of a big deal to me.  And I’m pretty proud of myself for accomplishing that goal.  Now I just need to do it without feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack each time is the next goal.

School is in full swing now.  I really need to change my attitude about the readings and the essays.  I need to just love it and not wish there was less of it.  I'm in Graduate School for chrissake what did I expect?  So last night as I was reading for one of my classes I started to really take notes on the readings and try to fully understand it and not just skim it.  Then what happened in class today?  He spent all of 5 minutes on the reading I was so prepared for!  Ugh.  Love it.  Must love it.

Oh and on a fun note I just signed up for the cultural trip to London!  We get to go on tours of the BBC and last year they got to go to Bloomberg.  I'm not sure if we're going to Bloomberg this time but at least we get to go to the BBC which I think is pretty cool.  Hopefully it's more interesting of a tour than the ones we used to give at CC!  Also the trip happens to fall on my birthday (March 20th) and so I will have some sort of birthday celebration in London with Molly & Suzanne!!  And I haven't seen them in what feels like forever so i'm super excited to see them again!

Tomorrow is a planned public transportation strike in France.  This means that the metro and busses will not be running.  I have heard though that they will run a smaller percentage of public transportation though so i'm not sure how bad it'll be.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow!  

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Love the new layout!

Anonymous said...

Congrats Nilo!! Way to go!! Can't wait to see you in March :)