Num-Squat!

So today I took the PSATs, and this thoroughly complexed my French family, because why the hell would I take a test to prepare for another test that has nothing to do with this crazy year that I’m spending abroad.

And since universities in France are free, the whole scholarship thing took a little more explaining.

But, you know something, WHY DID I TAKE THE PSATs???

All they did was make my French a little worse that it would be at this very second.

My cough has progressed from a catch in my chest to a full-on mucus-full embarrassment that attacks every time I laugh, or breathe deeply.

Which makes me French a little worse that it would be.

SO YAY.

In other news, I have gymnastics tonight, it’s raining like crazy right now, and tomorrow in Art History, we’re having a crazy quiz where we have to identify the artists of fifteen paintings that we’ve never seen before based on the characteristics of their previous work.

HOW COOL IS THAT??

Also, reading the best book ever from the Franco-American library here, which has ENGLISH BOOKS. It’s called The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine, and I think that it has stolen my heart. I think in return, I shall steal it from the Franco-American institute and bring it back to the States in May as a souvenir.

Hey! Souvenir! That’s like the French verb souvenir, which is to remember.

Sad that I never thought about that before.

And, I got my first package from my mommy and it was the best thing in the entire world EVER. Peanut butter and the AffNo and Mark Doty and face wash and my blue-suede flats (Mommy, where did you find them???). It was amazing. Thank you, mommy and ga-ga. It’s perfect.

Okay, so that was just a random update of what’s going on right this very moment, here in Rennes.

Hope it sounds CRAZY, cuz that’s what it is, and that’s what I am.

I miss you.

Until Next Time, Helen: “One ought to make one’s child happy. But not one’s lover; I deny any obligation there. If we only knew beforehand, and accepter the implications, that happiness is the last thing to ask of love! A divine realization of life, yes, and awakening to the world outside and the soul within – but not happiness. A man or a woman loved is simply the occasion of a dream. The stronger the love, as we say, the clearer and more life-like seems the vision. To make your lover altogether happy would be a contradiction of terms; if he’s really your lover he will see in you far more than you are, but if you prove less than he sees, he will be unhappy. I am peculiar case – every one is who has known love – but we have to build up the illusion before we can be disappointed.”

COUNTDOWN to return: 231 days