Enfin, une semaine pleine de miracles!

Getting ready for the Marché de Noël!!!

Georgetown group at Thanksgiving dinner!

The days until I go home are slowly getting smaller, and, while I keep hoping that the days will start to go by at warp speed so that I can go home and see my family, the other part of me wants time to slow down so I don't have to work at such a frenetic pace.  I am so surprised by my own productivity, and, while I need  to take a break every so often to have a Skype date, watch an episode of Gilmore Girls, The Office, or Gossip Girl, or go to the gym for a few hours, I have gotten SO much work done in the past four or five days!!!  The biggest thing to report, I guess, is that I have finished BOTH of my 700-page books!!!!!!!!!  Now I just have to write the 10-page paper for the second one and I'll be done (for those two classes, at least!)!!! I was so relieved to finish them that, after each one, I either went to the gym or watched an episode of Gilmore Girls online.  The exposé for Aurélien is written (I think I may go back and make absolutely sure that it is my best work- I'll explain more about that in a minute), and I made my outline for my Sans famille paper during my class on Wednesday.  I figure that my time is much better spent getting work done during class, especially since I already know what I'm writing about.  So, once I've finished that, I will be a  much happier person.  Then, I can continue studying for my exams (which I've already started studying for, but haven't been able to focus all of my energy on because of having to deal with the two books).  I think my approach for finals is a divide-and-conquer one: I'll rotate which ones I study for so I'm not cramming for one test for days straight.  All of my exams will be from the 13th to the 18th of December, so they're coming up soon-yikes!

An interesting thing happened this week in class; as I mentioned in previous posts, I wrote a paper for my History of Religion class on how religion applies to the Red Sox and their fans.  I actually really enjoyed writing the paper, and was a little upset to have been limited to 5 pages.  Anyway, in class on Monday, the professor was commenting on papers.  He came to mine and said, "Alors, mais qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?" ("Okay, what IS this?")  I quickly explained that it fell under the heading of "expressions du sacré dans le sport" (expressions of that which is religious in sports), a topic which he himself had proposed.  He laughed and explained that he had been confused, because they don't have the Red Sox in France.  No shit.  That's why I put a picture on the cover page and mentioned the word "sport" about 20 times in the first page of my paper alone.  Hopefully, he will appreciate it now that he knows what it's about...

This week is the week that everyone's Facebook statuses change to "so-and-so is going home for Thanksgiving." I definitely loved and appreciated my family before coming to France, but not being home for Thanksgiving definitely makes me appreciate them even more.  Grammy and Grampsy, who I haven't seen since May, are up at my house this week, and I wish so much that I was there with them.  And I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of contact I've had with Tim over the past week.  We talked a week ago, after he had finished his last set of Suffield exams (congratulations, bud, if you're reading this, which you're probably not!).  We went over the previous night's episode of The Office, which we sort of got each other hooked on over the summer.  As usual, he left me in stitches with his impersonations of Dwight and Michael.  We may tease him that he can't tell a story to save his life, but my God, that boy can recite lines from any movie!  And he does pretty good impersonations too!  And then, a couple of nights ago, he emailed me to tell me to buy "Prospekt's March," Coldplay's new bonus album that came out earlier this week. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do it himself because he has reached the mom-imposed iTunes limit for the month.  I guess that's what big sisters are for.  Oh how I miss my little brother.

So, a minorly amusing thing that happened yesterday (but which was sort of a big deal for me) was that I evaded the tram police, not once, but TWICE.  I'm sure I've mentioned Strasbourg's tram system, and it is especially useful when it gets cold, particularly when I want to get to the gym (which is a 45-minute walk from my house).  I'm usually sort of pressed for time when I go to the gym, so I need to get there and back as quickly as possible.  Anyway, you have to pay to use the tram.  The monthly passes are ridiculously expensive (I think they're about 22 or 23 euros), and an individual one-way ticket is 1€40.  That's pretty exorbitant.  So basically, I've been being a punk kid and have been riding the tram for free ever since I've been here (as have all of the other Georgetown girls).  It was really easy to pull of when the weather was nice, because there was never anyone checking tickets, but now that the weather has gotten cold and more people are riding the tram, the tram police have really stepped up their action.  Jinah got nailed a couple of weeks ago, and you have to pay 26€ on the spot.  If you don't have 26€ on you, you have to pay much more later.  Ever since that happened, I've been watching people at the tram stations and people in the tram like a hawk.  I joked to my mom that I've become such a skilled observer that I could be in the Secret Service :)  So anyway, yesterday I was riding the tram back from the gym, and as we pulled into the République stop, which is 4 stops away from my house, I saw a group of 4 people in identical black and gray coats with machines sticking out of their pockets.  'Those must be the tram police,' I thought to myself, so I quickly got off lest I be nailed and have to pay the fine.  I walked to the next station and caught the next tram, feeling very pleased with myself.  Then, three stations later, at Observatoire, the station before mine, I guess they got off the first train I had been on and planned to get on the second train I was on.  Crafty little devils.  So I got off again and walked the rest of the way home.  Now you may be asking yourself why I don't just pay for a pass and not have to worry about it.  First of all, the pass is a ripoff, and why would I do that when I can ride for free?  It's sort of becoming like a game: how long can I evade the tram police before getting caught?  Let me just say that it pays to be observant!

By far the most exciting thing this week happened on Wednesday.  Wait...Wednesday???  Yes, Wednesdays are usually my most hellish of days, but this Wednesday, the miracle that I mentioned in the title happened.  As I pointed out in a previous post, as of Wednesday, I was scheduled for 3 exams on December 13th, all of which are 4-hour finals.  Now, not only did I not want to take 3 exams in one day, but it is also physically impossible.  They're bound to overlap...right?  Yes.  Two of my classes, including my Aurélien class, overlapped.  So Susan called the secrétariat, sort of the equivalent of the registrar's office, on Wednesday morning to tell them about my situation.  So I went in to the secrétariat after one of my classes on Wednesday.  When I walked in and explained my situation, the two women in the office said, "Oh, YOU.  We heard about you."  They told me to talk to Mme. Grenouillet, who I considered to be the most evil of professors that I have ever come in to contact with.  She's the one who I'm convinced has hated me since the first day of class.  So at the end of my Aurélien class, I went up to Mme. Grenouillet, clutching my letter from Susan, absolutely dreading having to explain my situation.  When I had explained it, she said, "Yes, someone from the secrétariat talked to me.  I'll tell you what: you're doing an exposé, right?"  When I answered that I was, she said, "Okay, so if you get a good grade on your exposé, we'll just count that as your final grade, and if you don't get a good grade, you can do an oral exam."  I thought I hadn't heard her right.  I thanked her profusely, and felt like breaking into song and dance the entire way home!  I have a feeling that she was just to lazy to come up with another topic for me and another time for me to take the exam, but whatever the reason, I was thinking, "BLESS YOU, Mme. Grenouillet!."  So now I just have 2 exams on the 13th, and, while I'll be taking exams from 8 in the morning to 5:30 at night with only an hour-and-a-half in between tests, I'll take it!  It's better than nothing!  So that's why I want to go back and make sure that this is the best exposé I have ever written...

Tomorrow night, we're going to be cooking our own Thanksgiving dinner at Jill's house with the Thanksgiving supplies that my mom sent us.  Also, tomorrow the Christmas market starts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't WAIT!!!!!!!!!

Sending you my love on this holiday weekend!

Kristen