mother nature also senses where a bathroom is

every single night when i come home, i have to pee REALLY bad. even if i haven't had any alcohol, it's like i'm gonna pee my pants when i'm riding up the elevator. i do that little jig and pinch my legs together and bend down in some sort of crazy pee dance. then i take a deep breath and tell myself that i'm fine. but as the elevator soars up (okay, creaks past every floor), i feel the urge to go more and more.

why is that? why is it that when you get close to a bathroom, you have you pee even more? like, once the bathroom is in sight, your bladder is like "YOU HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW!" even if you've been holding it for hours...your bladder just can't hold on 2 more minutes.

oh, and speaking of bodily functions...so i have this cold right now. there are two ways to treat a cold (at least, according to me): either have some medicine or fix things the natural way. how do you do the natural way? by eating oranges and drinking tea. i feel like when i do it the natural way, i'm giving my body more troops to fight the war. "come on, healthy cells! you can do it!" but when i take drugs, i feel like i'm giving up and asking another country for help...like i'm stuck in iraq and realize i can't get out, so i'm like "ugh...china, will you help please?" but, with medicine and in my body.

"you looked like a rat coming out of a hole"

(and other great paris)

-"oh...well, i've never been in love, so i don't think i could take that class." (lr)

-"what is the only country that has more holidays than france?"
"thanksgiving!"

-"that's a MISTAKE!"

(to be added to later...oh, and if you're not here, you won't get these. i mean, you can receive them, but you won't understand them. see? that's why i don't like the verb "to get"...it's ambiguous and weak.)

don't be surprised if i fall asleep on you

i just took some nighttime cold medicine. a couple days ago i got that tell tale sore throat. it's the one that trumpets my annual fall/winter cold that i generally have for half of fall quarter and half of winter quarter. i never give my body a chance to rest, so i can't really be mad at myself for staying sick. but really, there are just so many things i want to do right now. i don't want to sit around for a whole day, thinking about how i've got this rhume. that's boring. so instead, i went to the pharmacie (no, that's not spelled wrong. it's in french) and asked for cold medicine. the woman handed me some magical french medicine...you take 3 pills during the day and one at night for four days, and then i think your cold is supposed to be gone. i started yesterday. i'll tell you how it looks in a couple days.

oh, but i also went out to le queen last night. that could set me back and it might have canceled out the magical healing powers of the french medicine. yeah yeah yeah, i should have stayed in and gone to bed early. but i recently found this quote that i think fits quite nicely here: "how can you get to heaven if you never die?"

i had pasta, half a peanut butter sandwich and a cookie for dinner tonight. helloooooo lame college kid.

french musings

some interesting things:
1. the milk i put in my cereal yesterday is good until december 31st of this year. also, you don't have to refrigerate the milk if you don't want to.
2. the buildings in paris are actually pretty ugly from the top.
3. i dont even have to say anything, and people just KNOW i'm american.
4. mtv only lets me watch certain things...for instance, the hills, newport harbor and life of ryan are okay to watch outside the us. the music awards, however, are not.
5. putting things into list format makes everything more fun. wasn't this entry more fun than the last ones?

ooo i hope the popular girls like this outfit!

that's what i feel like when i'm getting dressed to go to the clubs (ha, i say that like i've been to tons. i've gone like twice). i look at my clothes and sigh, because none of them are "good enough." do i have to wear heels to get in? if i put on a green shirt, will the bouncers still let me in? or do i have to wear black? i haven't showered today...will they still let me in?

bahhhh i hate it. i thought i escaped this whole "cool" thing years ago. i thought i didn't need to dress to fit in anymore. but here i am, stressing over what color jeans to wear to get in to a club.

fumer a interdit

oui, c'est vrai! restaurants, bars, cafes and nightclubs will have until january 2008 to adjust.

did you hear me? SMOKING IS BEING BANNED IN PUBLIC PLACES IN FRANCE. here, look at the article. it's old, i know, but recently in le parisien (a big newspaper here) they had a big "90 JOURS" across the front, and we just talked about it in french today (we all still suck at french, so it wasn't a particularly enlightening discussion, but no matter).

my god, the parisians are going to freak out. they LOVE to smoke. i talked about it before. and i'm not just going off of stereotypes here...when i go to the cafes or clubs, it's so smoky that i look around to make sure nothing's on fire. then i realize it's just the ends of the cigarettes (which isn't much better).

i think this is great news. je deteste fumer! it's icky and smells bad and some other more grown up reasons to hate smoking. i just hope the french don't get too pissy. i'd be afraid they'd take it to the streets.

careful, dad's in charge

so mme jeanson's gone for the next 5 days at some sort of conference. last night, when she told me, she was like "soooo my husband's not that good at cooking, so you can just take whatever you want out of the fridge." he retorted with a quick, "no! i'll make you a salad and put out some cheese tomorrow night." i laughed and said that would be great.

tonight, mr jeanson pops his head into my room and says something about dinner in french, which i figure out 2 minutes later is, "dinner is ready whenever you want it." i go out to the kitchen table and find a salad (aka lettuce with some oil and vinegar poured on it) with the cheeses laid out on a plate next to it. usually, for mme jeanson, those things are just sides to the main course, but tonight, that's the whole sha-bang (but i'm not complaining! cheese+salad=delicious)

i started eating and mr jeanson popped his head into the kitchen and asked me if it was all good. then he brightens up and goes, "you want a beer?" (just the last night, i had said how i usually drink beer in the states) he beered me the...beer...and then goes, "for dessert, you can have anything in the fridge."

lol. i love dads. nothing is the same as when mom is around...it's just not as orderly. usually, when i go to the kitchen to eat bfast in the morning, the cereals are nicely laid out, my bowl is centered on my plate, and my spoon is resting just next to my plate. and that's it. when i went out this morning, there was other random food left out, coffee sitting open, milk hanging out near the cereal, and general messiness. haha.

oohhh it's ALWAYS fun when mom leaves dad in charge :-)

bon nuit

my earlier analysis was correct: today WAS a great day.

i got all my french done this morning. i even read some econ. french class wasn't bad...as always, 80 minutes is a little much, but i'll deal.

uh oh. this internet connection is weak and prone to disconnection.

i went shopping with my nike+ ipod thing today. i walked about 3.5 miles, just shopping. that's why the french are so skinny.

mme jeanson (who i really want to call "isabelle," because i'm tired of the formality thing) is leaving tomorrow for 5 days. it's just me, christophe and paul. oooo boy. get ready for 5 days of miscommunication and language barriers.

things have been getting more lax around here, and i love it. i'm wearing my pjs around more, the jeansons pop their heads in to my room more often just to say hello, and i'm getting more comfortable walking around the house with them around. i don't dread coming home to them in the living room anymore. i know that sounds awful (and it's a dramatization), but i just didn't want to have to speak french or worry about how i should act or whatever. i feel like eap told us we had to act a certain way--always dress nice, be overly polite, conform to your family's schedule, always speak french (even if you suck at it), etc. that's hard for me. i'm a way informal person...i remember when i would do interviews, i would call the interviewee by first name unless i was told specifically otherwise. i think it makes things friendlier, like we're all on the same playing field. yeah yeah, i know calling someone "mr. blank" is more respectful. spit on that.

i'm very rambly and prone to tangents (and prone to overusing the phrase "prone to"). i think that's a sign that i should get some rest.

i'm already planning for 2008

my new year's resolution (new years without an apostrophe? *grammar meltdown*): run 1000 miles in 2008.

oh, this entry isn't about paris at all.

bon matin!

nobody actually says that, i don't think.

i woke up at 7:50 am all by myself this morning. that might have been because i went to sleep at 10:40 pm last night (er, 22:40...crazy army time). i put ratatouille on and, in typical arnold fashion, i was out. i'm just like mom; if you put on a movie after like 9:30 pm, i will fall asleep. i can almost guarantee that.

but, nothing is lost, because i love waking up early. already i can tell today is going to be a lovely day :-D

paul and nicki play games

we play all the time. we can't really talk (he says something to me, i look at him confused, he laughs), but playing still rules.

he's made me realize how much i love kids. i can't believe i forgot. they're just so carefree and easily pleased. it was crazy how much he laughed when he threw the ball over my head, or when i made a dumb noise. what was even more phenomenal was how happy his happiness made me.

living here with him has made me realize how much i want to work with kids when i grow up and quit being one myself.