Meaning of Life.scm

TUESDAY – June 30
• Saw I Mostri and satirically anti-learned about 50s-era italian misogny. Slow in most bits, but sharply brilliant in others.

• Showed Heidi around a bit more. Margaret took her shoe shopping while I wandered all up and down the Rue Rivoli not finding other things.

• Another Jules-Verne find : both From the Earth to the Moon and Five Weeks in a Balloon from a little used bookstand by the Seine. Now I’ve got to collect all the Vernes in this series, as they’ve got the handsome engravings reproduced inside. Also, I die for the bad 60s covers.
[I picked up 500 Millions of the Begum during our first week. Read through it and marked all the new vocabulary to look up as part of my culture course.]

WEDNESDAY – July 01
• Freak, it’s July already? Making this time count…

• Profiting from the National Cinema Festival (all tickets are only €3 until Friday) to go visit various moviehouses we haven’t yet seen. For the next two weeks after that, the specifically Parisian film festival will bring lots of cool events, appearances, and some discounts, too. Johnny Depp is here. I’ll let you know if he rings us up.

THURSDAY – July 02
• The more work I do to try in applying myself to academic and productiony documentary stuff – planning, mapping, juggling and balancing resources, depending so much on timing – and the more that I procrastinate doing those things by polaying Starcraft, the more I realize that life is like a big game of Starcraft because of the very same aspects I just cited. Then I get thinking about whether it’s logical that I use Starcraft to put off the planning, resourcing, etc. and my brain breaks with embarrassed fatigue.

• Went to La Pagode cinema to see a French film called Le Hérisson. I misread both the Pariscope magazine (see “Tools” section of About Us” page) and the personalized festival grid Margot made for me and learned too late that it wasn’t showing. We decided to give Woody Allen just one more chance and saw Whatever Works there, as we wanted to see something in such a unique building (a rich entrepreneur constructed an actual asian pagoda to impress his wife, then allowed it to be converted into a cinema after she left him).

As for Woody… oh, gosh. We walked out. Not only were we just too danged bored by his worn-out screenplay technique, wherein all the characters function as merely puppets for what are obviously the same two or three facets of his personality, but the old-man-protagonist-getting-involved-with-some-impossibly-clever-hot-young-girl-next-door pattern is really beginning to creep us out. The self-indulgence, conscientious or not, is barely ironic, and it doesn’t go far enough to be an edifying farce. It’s just uncomfortable and kinda yicky. It’s like I’ve fallen asleep and slipped into one of his godless, perverted dreams. [Don't get me wrong, though, I love the man and revere the early-to-mid work of his which I've seen.]

• Split-up after movie ditchal. Margot went home to get some headache medicine and we said we’d meet up at the Bazaar Hôtel de Ville to shop for an air mattress for when her mum comes over. I sneakily went by Poilâne to get her her favorite – a chausson aux pommes. My sneaking took forever, as I misread the map. Spent a long, supersweaty afternoon hoofing it around before finally meeting her.

• Bought a fan. Needed it to live.

• BHV’s the best departmentstoreish place I’ve seen, where you can get basic stuff and home repair whatnot for normal prices, rather than the premiums you pay in special shops. Funny how dealing with different plugs/sockets and so forth reveals little ethnocentricities in people like myself. I never really contemplated how things like power plugs worked, so I assumed they’d be the same all over the world – universal principle wouild mean some sort of universal design.

• Ran around, metroing and hustling and still missed the Jean-Pierre Mocky film I wanted to catch at the Brady. Oh well, have to Brady another day.

• Watched the Maria Bamford show and revered it.
The pugs !!! I drew one in my journal :

FRIDAY – July 03
• Got up “early” (9 AM) for second interview with M. Schpoliansky. Learned a bunch about interviewing skills. Hit some great points, and also witnessed a couple of my questions sort of making things awkward. Still, did excellently for time and I think I walked away with some good stuff to share with people. In any case, I learned loads about both the industrial and artistic situations on which he commentated and about how to do interviews with “strangers”.

• Congratulated ourselves for getting some good work and had a picnic in the shade on the grassy sidepark of the Avenue Foch, just a few blocks west of the Arc de Triomphe.

• Les Vacances de M. Hulot at the Lincoln. I’ve already reported on this.

• Played Poohsticks on the Seine. Little video coming soon.

• Sunbathed on the Champ de Mars lawn with the Eiffel Tower looming right over us. Margot slept and I sketched the tower. Sounds so summer-afternoon-in-Paris-y, doesn’t it just?

As it’s her first summer with a wedding band on her finger, Margaret noted “I’ve got a ring tan.” I replied “I’ve got a silverback gorilla.”

• I messed up our métroing and missed the film we were counting on as well as the Plan B film. Plan C, however, worked out famously well. Playtime by Jacques Tati at the Champo, a cinema eternally devoted to the irector himself (thus perhaps THE place to see catch Tati films!). As we hopped in line, a young woman ran up and gave us a ticket she couldn’t use. Fortuitous as heck.

• Then, as we left, the evening clouds were lit up with marvelous puceness and fuschia-ry. Got a couple of photos of which I think quite highly.

• Exhausting myself trying to locate and follow leads for documentary work. Also updated my cinescape map :
BLUE = still unvisited
ORANGEY = 1/2 visited (not really explored inside or made contact)
RED = thoroughly visited (contacts, screenings attended)

It feel SOO good to feel the pennies merely trickle away with every minute I spend wandering about, rather gush away as they do when you’re on holiday someplace. When one spends thousands for travel and lodging only to spend a few days in a place like Paris, that means that it averages out to dollars a minute – which puts quite a pressure on a person trying to navigate with a map or whatever. We’ve invested a lot of money, it’s true, but spending 3 or 4 months makes the average so much more reasonable – the money trickling through my head isn’t so loud and I can actually focus and enjoy.

** Oh yeah… On Wednesday, this floating down onto our heads from an apartment window, accompanied by lots of happy children’s giggling :

(Guess I won !!!)

4th of Juraye (derka derka derka derka)

Our first holiday as a married couple. We’re poor in Paris, but neither factor would stop us from having a good Independence Day.

Sort of sad to have our Provo apartment be THE perfect spot for the festivities back home, but we compensated with the following formula :

• watched Team America : World Police
• Barbecue chicken
• Pasta salad
• Fresh watermelon
• American apple pie (that is, a chausson au pommes with a flag in it)

<img src="http://letmyforbyngo.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/barbecue-flag.jpg" alt="Barbecue flag" title="Barbecue flag" width="497" height="279" class="alignright size-full wp-image-253" /

“Slam Your Doors in Golden Silence”

I’ve got a couple daysworth of catching up to do, but I’m flat-out exhausted. There’s a 3-week cinema festival going on, so we’ve been taking advantage of the cheap tickets.

Today, in addition to conducting a second interview with M. Schpoliansky, the director of the Cinéma le Balzac, saw Margot and I gorging on Jacques Tati films. Les Vacances de M. Hulot at the Lincoln, Playtime at the Champo, and then l’École des Facteurs at home on the computer.

Go ahead at watch the last one here:

L'Ecole Des Facteurs (Tati)

Walk It Off (”It” = Desserts)

A.M.
• Ice cream
• Starcraft
• Some more icecream
• Happiness

Noonish
• Set up 2 terabyte hard drive
• Installed Final Cut and figured out some technical stuff.
• Margaret watched Gossip Girl, I straightened out computer cords.
• Picked up a cool-looking satirical book outside a little shop :

• Tried a new sandwich place
• Went by the Madeleine, macarons and the best chocolate Religieuse at Ladurée,
• Window shopping along St. Honoré, Rivoli, etc.

Eveningytime
• Layed in the grass at the Parc de Bercy, watching dogs, discussing names we definitely won’t name our children, and pretending to start to read.
• Met Heidi outside the adjacent Cinémathèque Française (exploration and report forthcoming) after her Luis Buñuel movie.
• Introduced her to Tomme noire de Pyrénées, double chocolate Magnums, and showed her our wee apartment.

Night
• We walked Heidi home (a decent trot) and walked back home :

*Risottonononooodangit…

[Okay, okay. I went a bit overboard with the Michael Jackson thing. I did care and still do, but I am done hearing about it. There. Retraction printed.]

So, I’m blogging daily. Today was Sunday, thus church. So tired from loads of newlywed talking that we almost didn’t go, but it was good that we did because who turned up but the Hathaways! I met Heather and Heidi in preparation for our London study abroad in 2005, and now Heather’s finishing up as a missionary, so the family’s here to pick her up. Chatting about what to do and where to do, then dinner with Heidi at the Cafe Vavin near the Jardin du Luxembourg. (Drs. Lee and Olivier have slipped recommendations onto numerous pages of the BYU guidebook.) Super good salads, sesame salmon & mushroom risotto, and chocolate fondant and apple crumble deserts (with creme anglaise and egg-vanilla ice cream, bien sur.)

It was cool to introduce Margot to Heidi and vice-versa. They really have too much in common to not end up being friends, what with the doctor dads in common, etc. etc. We took her walking around the St. Sulpice, around St. Germain-des-Pres, St. Andre-des-Arts, St. Michel, over the Seine, through Chetelet and back to her hotel by the Louvre. As it was such a nice summer night, Marg and I decided to hoof it happily up past the opera, St. Estienne-d’Orves, and to our cozy little flat in the St. Georges neighborhood.

It feels good to be at the point where we can walk all the way across Paris without needing a map. Our BYU history walks were often like little parachute drops (except the opposite of a drop, since it’s up from the metro) into around around neighborhoods prior to another subterranean self-extraction. If you only get around via the metro, you don’t develop a very good sense of the proximity between landmarks and neighborhoods and Paris (or Lyon or London or New York) could very well seem 10 times bigger or smaller than it really is. I haven’t really caught up on our Lyon and London trips, yet, but in order to get the cheap train fare you have to leave super early – before the metros and buses even run. So our Lyon trip began with a 5-miles-in-two-hours luggage-hefting twilight jog literally across 6 arrondissements. Sweaty and stressful, but remarkably empowering. So we did a similar walk today, only this time at our Sunday night leisure (say “lezz-shur”).

Home. Lifegiving shower. Pear juice. Apricot juice. Skyping Margot’s parents. Blog. Typing this sentence. Typing this next sentence. Gosh, I need to get some more picture on here.

Oh, I need to talk about the Balzac!!!

Jean-Jacques Schpoliansky is a total dude and exactly the sort of moviehouse proprietor I’ve been hoping to encounter. He inherited the direction of his cinema from his father, who took it over from his grandfather, each of whom seems to have gone to great lengths to keep the public attention by investing their own pride and personality into the happenings of their theatre, making of it a cultural institution and a lively community space in addition to showing flicks.

Upon our showing up, one of the employees referred us to the projectionist who showed us round the main cabin and discussed some of the ins and outs of subsidies and community support that he’s observed in his 20 years of working there. Then we hopped down to catch the British film Looking for Eric (a prostressful story taking on some very timely familial, social, and psychological problems) which I’d highly recommend.

As we were leaving, the director, Mr. Schpoliansky himself, was outside handing out flyers for the upcoming activities, warmly greeting each person in line. We attached ourselves to the end of the line and, when he got to us, explained what we were up to and how much we’d love to talk to him sometime. He was delighted and informed us that his daughter is traveling through Asia and the Americas this summer doing a very similar project.

He whisked us into his office, not minding my camera at all, and explained quite a lot about the cinema and his devotion to it in the few minutes he had before the next film’s beginning. Then he bustled us out, shoved some tickets in our hands, and invited us back into the theatre to witness that night’s cine-concert. Every Saturday night, he invites musician(s) to come and perform as an appetizer for the evening’s film. Last night it was a husband/baritone-wife/pianist dup who delivered 5 or 6 magnificent pieces from Saint-Saens and friends. The various clients murmured to each other “Wait, this is the showing of Departures, right?” and then got the idea… settled into it… then succame to the movement. The woman immediately behind us even broke into major tears halfway through the mournful Victor Hugo lyrics.

Then M. Schpoliansky was back on the stage, mic in hand, to assure us that tonight’s film was a handpicked chef-d’oeuvre and that he was grateful to them for choosing the cinema Balzac – “the only truly independent art cinema on the Champs-Elysees”, because he works hard to keep it interesting and welcoming for them. A quick handshake and an invitation to call the number on the classic business card he’d palmed me, and it was time to enjoy one of most beautiful Japanese films I’ve seen.

Gosh. It was so good going down, but if I don’t fight it, I have a feeling this risotto is coming back up. Gosh dang it. First the one in Sardinia and now this. When will I learn? Seafood + risotto + me = intensely concentrated stomachular malararial nastygitis syndrome. …guiiieesh…

* Not the name of a village in India. Or Sri Lanka.

‹‹ Beeeet Eeet ››

If he had died near the apex or even within 5 years of the apex of his admittedly brilliant career, I would’ve cared. But, honestly… I can endure most random interviews on the subject, but – LIZA freaking MINELLI !?!?!? “And he was just such an inspiration and blablabla and blablabla and years later they were calling it the moonwalk!!!” gihhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..

So Michael Jackson dies after a decade-and-a-half of starkly unsettling behaviour.
Farrah Fawcett dies of anal cancer.
David Carradine dies of autoerotic asphyxiation.
Ed MacMahon dies from… I haven’t researched it, but I’m just going to believe it was something awesome and non-gross, just to break the pattern. Let’s say he crashed his jet-ski into a den of mountain lions.

Still not as traumatizing as the spring of 1998, where we lost Frank Sinatra, Phil Hartman, and Desmond Llewelyn (Q from James Bond). If it weren’t for the advent of Starcraft, I dunno how I would’ve kept it together.

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Okay, that punctuation barrier ought to keep the following images and stuff safe from any Textually Transmitted Diseases the above “news” could’ve been carrying:

As it’s ‹‹ SOLDES ››, the biannual nationwide French supersale, we decided to hit some of the biggest stores on the Grands Boulevards for some windowshopping. We might’ve actually purchased some things (a gorgeous Claude Dozorme cheeseknife, for example… yes, I covet a cheeseknife) but the 40% discounts are immediately neutralized by the -40% disadvantage of buying with USD. Gr..

Here’s the view from the top of Printemps (see also http://departmentstoreparis.printemps.com/history/index.aspx ) :

White Man Sampler

The frequency and thoroughness of my bloggery looks like it’s increasing steadily. This is partly, I think, because I’ve finished all my organized city walks and my extra-parisian trips (traveling requires so much planning!) but mostly due to the fact that Margaret is busying herself more and more with the journal, pens, and oil paint(brushe)s we got her. It’s hard enough for me to get my brain off its metaphorical butt and into accomplishing mode, but when Margaret provides a lovely distraction it becomes nearly impossible.

I’ve been blogging in one form or another for about 5 years now, and I still feel a bit of anxiety over posting my every little bit of quotidian news – is anybody really interested in reading them? Even if they are, isn’t it maybe sickly or at least sadly self-indulgent to keep scrapbooking and publishing my unsolicited twaddle?

I will implicitly answer my own question and invest the next 20 minutes of my time telling you about the pear juice I just drank. Ok, so not implicitly… explicitly. I’m explying the answer.

But, seriously : It’s like drinking a &%*$# pear, people! Buy a plane ticket (get into debt or whatever, just snap to it), come to France, find a Carrefour supermarket, purchase the store brand ‹‹ jus de poire ›› and – you think I’m joking, don’t you? Well, I’m not. Join me. Pour a pear down your throat, it’s exhilarating.

Better calm down. I was listening to Quadrophenia and reading about Keith Moon on fr.wikipedia.org. Gets you worked up.

Amazing that we’ve put quite a lot of time and money into working out an independent semester abroad in Paris and yet I still find my lazy natural man taking command and spending 3 days out of 10 on playing Starcraft and snarfing various dairy products. Quite the expression of freedom, though. And that’s what we’re all over here we’re fighting for, isn’t it?

I did do some stuff yesterday, though. For my French Culture Proofs (instinct says “prooves” but I won’t, as I’ve already “explied” all over this entry*) class, we continued researching Parisian cemetery culture by visiting the nearby Cimetière de Montmartre. I’ll publish my write-up on that soon.

Afterward, it was up to visit Studio 28, one of the oldest moviehouses in Paris and, unfortunately, one of the most full of itself. I have yet to encounter that sort of self-important kitsch in any other “salles”, so the countless framed moviestar autographs and photos of the owner with various Sundance and Cannes attendees made me wonder when Studio 28 stopped creating its own community and started living off its own reputation. Despite the establishment’s thick applebeesish aura, instead of an appetizer menu, the grumpy ticket lady offered only a stinkeyed surveillance.

Then it was shopping in a couple of attractive papetries ( entire boutiques devoted to JUST notepads and whatnot!!! ) and the purchase of another moleskine in which to put my life, after which THE ORIGINAL COQUELICOT ! You see, after much experimentation and deliberation, our search for the best boulangerie (bakery) in our neighborhood is la Prairie Coquelicot, whose baguettes beat the rest by a bit and whose croque monsieurs give any competition a pounding (prudent use of sauce beschamel, actual bread instead of sliced honky pain de mie, and more reasonably priced). Well, we heard the original, larger store was up on the Montmartre butte and yesterday we finally made it. Heaven! For one thing, they actually TOAST the items you’d like reheated, keeping them appropriately crispy and even, rather than committing the soggy microwaved crimes which nearly every other bakery has disappointed us with. Seriously, guys! I’m really concerned that a culture so proud of its bakeries would tolerate such lazy destruction so easily avoided by means of a small toaster oven. I’m honestly writing the Ministry of Culture about this…

SEE: http://www.coquelicot-montmartre.com/

* Yeah, that’s right : exply. I delved into the latin a bit and imply (also employ) comes from the Old French and latin verbs plier/plicare meaning “to fold in”; thus “explain”, which comes from expliquer/explicare, signifies “unfolding”. There’s implicate and explicate, so there can logically be imply and exply. It’s just not commonly used outside of … well… the several foot radius around my mouth.

** Actually, these two asterisks don’t correspond to anything. I just wanted a place to announce that, for the first time in my life, I remembered the names of the two grumpy old critics on the Muppet Show : Statler & Waldorf. Good timing, too, because if I had to go look that up one more time, I would’ve likely ended my own life. It just happens so often and it really takes a lot out of you.

Homeawayfromhomework Update

Soon to come on the blog:
- photos
- videos !?!?!
- categories for the blog entries, to make them more filed-away-ey

For now, an excerpt from my report to BYU Field Studies regarding my coursework:

I’ve finished my first class (Walking Through Paris’ History) and have got almost half of my French Culture Proofs completed. As for the French Cinéculture class Dr. Lee and I created, it’s going really well. I’ve mapped out all the independent cinemas in central Paris, read up on their histories, perused theri websites, visited about a third of them in person, and learned a lot about the official cultural institutions which certify them as independent cinemas.

I haven’t done much interviewing yet, as I’ve been getting the other classwork done, but I have had a couple of very rewarding interviews. Just today I popped in to take a look at the Studio des Ursulines, which is an 84 year-old moviehouse which for the last 5 years has operated as an independent theatre geared uniquely to children’s films. One of the projectionists (1 of the 4 total employees) asked me if I’d like him to show me around. He was also happy to have me get my camera out, so I recorded a tour of the main foyer, showroom, and the projection cabin, all while interviewing him about how the business works and where it fits in culturally. With very little encouragement on my part, he thoroughly covered most aspects of my primary research questions (whether cinemas like that rely on subsidies or other forms of support besides normal ticket sales, which government bodies they interact with most, etc.) and we struck up a nice friendship. One of the other team members, the one charged with directing pedagogical activities for schoolgroups who frequent the cinema, answered more questions for me and invited us back to watch and film some little film festivals they’ll be having for short movies the kids have created.

I could use today’s footage alone for the vlogumentary project Dr. Lee and I planned on coming away with, so that’s really reassuring. There are still a couple dozen more moviehouses I’d like to dig into similarly, though, and over a month to do it, so I’m hoping to get at least a handful of recorded interactions like that yet. Also, I had a similar encounter with the proprietor of an independent moviehouse in Lyon during a southern trip a couple of weeks ago, and not only would I like to film his moviehouse’s operation, but he put me in contact with a man who just finished a dissertation of the history of early cinema in Lyon specifically. That’s the city where the Lumière brothers invented cinematography, so there might be some great material there, too. First, I’ve got to read his thesis, but then I’m going to try and interview him, too.

Keybored

Back in France since last Tuesday night – keyboard in hand! Took a few days to catch up on class planning, computer fixing, and T-mobile representative wrestling, and now I’m ready to start posting all the stuff I’ve been keeping in paper notebooks. That means my miniessay thingers, more travelogues, and probably some stupid drawings.

Also, photos and videos online in the next few days!

All this business and catchingupness makes me reflect on the fact that I haven’t been bored for… years. At least 6 or so years. I remember when I was smaller and I’d occasionally complain of boredom and implore my parents to give me ideas. It still happened from time to time in highschool, but really since I got to university and figured out how to learn on my own, I’ve not spent a minute with “nothing to do”. Rather, every minute spent requires a choice between 15-70 things from which to choose. Especially since I’ve been back from my mission, during which time I accrued and built up a lot of goals and lists and whatnot, any given moment is either a conscious or default choice to either do some sort of schoolwork, browse some kind of media, watch a movie, read a book, listen to a song, play guitar, go someplace, study scripture, draw something, cook something, &c. &c. That’s why standing still for even a few minutes seems like such a crime. I am, however, learning that the standing still and pondering/digesting/incorporating is also a vital activity, so I’m trying to choose that at regular intervals. (On a completely related note, Margaret and I have invested no less than 7 of this week’s hours in watching and discussing all three Jurassic Park films over tubettes of hummous.)

We’re hustling to church in a few minutes, but the plan is to come write up our Lyon and London trips this afternoon. In the meantime, here’s the map I made for my Cinéculture course. Each point is an independent moviehouse within Paris proper. I made it desktop size so that all (five-ish) of you can make it your computer’s background and (sorta) feel like you’re right here, choosing which place to explore in which order (but not really… like you’d even want to… [yes, you would]) :

Horse & Country

We’re in Duston village, outside Northampton in England. My missionary papa, Luke Mace, and his wife Charlie have welcomed us with perfect hospitatlity, and sharing their new little home with them and their baby son, Milo, is delightful. He got married straightaway after returning from the mission only a bit before I finished, myself), and Milo came along a year later. After mixing with their friends and siblings, all of whom have been married a handful of years and have one, two, or three little people scampering around their feet, Margaret find ourselves feeling very differently from how we did in France, where nearly set of parents we encountered got married later than we did and waited quite a while before having children.

Of course, the Maces and their friends are probably an anomaly in England, but it’s a new feeling for Marg and I to be in a community where the childrened couples are the same age or younger than we. Whereas most europeans we meet congratulate us for our bravery in getting hithced so so so very young, it’s funny to be here and observe people my age (23) or younger shepherding multiple children, owning property, building things, and being rather autonomous.  I don’t know whether to measure our lifespeed in mormon miles or “normal” kilometres. I suppose it’s healthy to feel averaged somewhere in between the two.  Whereas the Maces and Company all grew up together, with families inhabiting the same region interdating and interknowing each other for years prior to marriages, Margaret and I have known one another for less than a year, which sends most peoples’ heads spinning. So in a way we’re behind, but in another way we’re going with insane quickness.

In any case, we’re feeling that the best thing is to spend a year or two developing a healthy regular routine of work, exercise, and relaxation time together and forge a good base before taking any other major step in life. For one thing, I’ve got to graduate from BYU and get all my connections and possibilities sorted out so we can see where work could lead us. I’d like to know whether we’re aiming for France, the UK, or the USA before trying to set up the baby factory… but I’m simultaneously very excited to have some little creatures to look after.

In the meantime, we’re sticking with the plan: plants, a cat, a dog, a second dog, then babies. We’ll see how quickly we can move through that.

We’re very seriously considering France as a permanent settling location, but I DO feel surprisingly at home here in England, so there’s much left to ponder. Gotta investigate learning institutions, dig deep into social services research (it’s a bizillion times more expensive to have children or get medical care in the States, but then again how hard would it be for us to get integrated into French or British citizenship?), and pursue potentially long and windy lists of contacts and tips in order to figure out which place/job/etc. will be the right fit for us. I’m really glad we set up this summer project so that we can make the seeing and feelingout of some of these professional and education institutions, geographical regions, and social communities an objective. The contacts can be done from Utah by phone and email, but you have to have scoped out a habitat before you can know whether you really want to up and transplant yourself into it, don’t you?

It looks like after April 2010 when I’ll’ve graduated, we’re going to spend a year or so “just working” and working on that healthy routine thing while I make contacts and hatch plans. Depending on what I find out between now and then, I might start applying to grad schools for 2011, but only if we find some promising opportunities. Otherwise, I’m honestly feeling the need for a year or two to simplify my daily life and absorb/process the education I’ve already received. It’s like I’ve crammed so much in, taking 5 classes simultaneously for semesters upon semesters in a row, that I’ve “let my schooling get in the way of my education” as it’s sometimes diagnosed, and I definitely couldn’t handle rushing off to some school and paying some largeish amount of money just to feel as overburdened, distracted, and ineffecient as I’ve felt over the last couple of years. I need to learn my lessons, improve my methods, and focus on doing one or two things well – which, fortunately, seems to be the idea behind masters’ and doctorate programs. Until I’ve worked out a Plan A, B, and C which deeply excite and motivate me, I’m looking forward to just digesting the courses I’ve already taken.

Well, I’ve got quite a lot more to say about babies, France vs. England, and so on,  but I’m exhausted tired and Margaret’s nearly sacked out, herself. I’ll get right on it, though, because I finally have a keyboard which permits me to use my previously hampered Macbook — that is, IF I ever make it back to our apartment in Paris. See, Margaret just found out that the British TV channel SKY has an entire channel devoted to horse jumping and other equine sports, so I don’t foresee us leaving until I get my hands on either some chloroform or one of those cage-dolly things they used to transport Steve Buscemi in Con Air.