Les chose s'améliorent...?

After my last post, I really didn't think life could get any worse, so as I predicted, it got a little bit better.  I suppose the most notable development was that I FINALLY finished Aurélien, and am now about 4 pages in to my exposé (I would like to get it to 6 pages).  So I'm hoping that I can knock those out today.  Next, I have to start back up on Sans famille, which I have sort of neglected this past week in the name of getting Aurélien finished.  I'm giving myself until next Friday to finish the remaining 350 pages of Sans famille, which is definitely doable, because, since it's childhood literature, it's a significantly easier read than, say, Aurélien.  Once I finish that, I'll start working on my paper for Sans famille that needs to be 10 pages.  In conjunction with that, I'm going to start studying for finals.  

As of tomorrow, I will have 1 MONTH left until home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  That's a pretty significant benchmark!  And after Thanksgiving weekend, I will have exactly 3 weeks until I'm home.  So even though I tend to get caught up in the immediate despair of the situation, I'm trying to give myself little things to look forward to.  And the way I've planned out my finals study days, I'm trying not to do 2 consecutive days of studying for a single exam, because I have 6 to study for, so I really have to equally distribute my time.  And once I can finally get the letters and give them to my teachers, I'll hopefully know for sure when my finals are and exactly what I need to do for them.  

A weekend of Skype is definitely keeping my mood up as well; I know that I feel better when I can have contact with the world of home.  I feel awful that I've pretty much had to be a social recluse here in the name of getting my boatloads of work done, but I would rather not fail 6 finals.  Because then, Georgetown would not give me credit for all of the hard work I've done.  In any case, if I find that I'm being really productive, I think some friends and I might try to go to Colmar tomorrow.  We'll see.  If it looks like they don't want to go, I'm not going to, because, as much as I have said that I sort of like traveling by myself in terms of being able to dictate my own schedule, it was pretty lonely going to Luxembourg by myself last weekend.  The only reason I went by myself was that my friends backed out at the last minute, and I had already paid 30 euro for my ticket, so in lieu of wasting that money, I just went.  We'll see, hopefully Colmar will happen.

According to my host mom, the Christmas market here in the 'bourg starts next week, and let me tell you that I can't WAIT!!! That will definitely be a good study break (since my study breaks now consist of going to the gym), and I've heard that they really know how to do Christmas here, so I can't wait to experience a little bit of Christmas in Alsace. 

I feel like I should mention a couple of interesting things that have happened here within the past week: the first was that, when I came back from Luxembourg last Saturday, there was a not affixed to the one working elevator in the building (my elevator, the one that goes to the even-numbered floors, has been out since I got back from Toussaint; I don't know what the problem is, but they're taking their pretty time fixing it) saying that a college-age girl who lives in the building was having a birthday party.  The way she worded it was almost apologetic, saying things like "I hope it's not an inconvenience to anyone," "we'll try to keep the noise level down", and "the party will be finished by 1am."  Wow.  In France, the party culture is definitely different.  In Georgetown, the best parties are house parties, but in France, especially when you're living in an apartment building, that is very frowned upon.  Hence the note.  There is no chance- not in a million years- of such a note ever surfacing in the US.

When I  was in my Aurélien class, one of my classmates was giving a presentation on the epilogue, and at the end, he said "et donc, il n'y a pas de happy end."  It's really strange to see the English phrases that the French choose to use.  And I guess it's not just a lightly-used term, because my professor also used it.  And it's not pronounced the way we pronounce it, the h is dropped and the "a" is made to sound more like an "e" making it sound more like "aeppy end."  It was quite funny, really.

Then, in my Religions et sociétés class yesterday, my professor made sure to make us all aware that there was a grève, a strike.  I believe that this one was a strike of the teachers union, protesting God knows what.  But she made perfectly clear that she was not in the union, but had great respect for a lot of the demands they were making. However, despite this respect, she could not show solidarity with them because there was so little time left in the semester and she thought it would be in our best interests for her to teach the class.  Oh France.

I hope you're all a little less terrified after reading this post than you were with the last one.  As I've told a lot of people, I'm trying to take it one day at a time, but as you can see from these posts, it really does go up and down from day to day.  I'm trying desperately to stay hydrated, because I think I'm in the early stages of a cold, but hopefully it will be tame compared to the last one.  I miss you all, and am sending you my love.

Kristen