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heureux


souffrir


réussir
April 15, 2002, 0830 hrs

Je suis en retard cette matin. I didn't sleep too well, the room being quite cold and my prison blanket (oops, student blanket) being very lightweight and almost useless. If I had been awake, I would have thought to try the steam heat..

After I came back from the Marché yesterday I had half the baguette with butter and the St.Marcellin, read some in L'Équipe magazine and then just passed out. I was very tired (I think my sleep deprivation this last week just caught up with me) and I slept until 1700 in the afternoon.

Got up and went looking for the concierge (no joy, they don't seem to work office hours on the weekend so I have been unable to update the site or even to check my email). I wasn't about to go into the City just to check email. So yesterday was a quiet day. This morning I'm doing my laundry as yesterday everybody and their grandmother was (just like in college). Some habits of French students are different, les autres, les même choses.

The TV room (which I have yet to use) was dominated all afternoon and evening by a group of Arabic (probably Lebanese or Egyptian because they were light-skinned) students playing ethnic music. Quite good actually, but there was no way I could get in there to watch the news.

So I updated the site, listened to good jazz, and read some more. Then I finally took the time to watch the DVD movie I had converted and put on my laptop (Le Cinquiême Element). Brilliant sci-fi by the French director Luc Besson. Probably my favorite science fiction film of all. So that whiled away a couple of hours. Then my sleepless night.

This morning I'm for laundry, uploading stuff to the Web site, and then homework and into town to visit both Brentano's (an English language bookstore) and La Place des Vosges, near the Bastille which is supposed to be quite beautiful. Today the weather is high overcast but I already see the sun trying to break through so I remain hopeful.

Today is tax day in the US so I also need to mail off my extension form (while I brought the software and some 1099s, all my receipts for my deductions remain in boxes back in storage in the US).

2337

Another long day. Went to class (where we are now working on the future tense, having "mastered" the simple past). I like my fellow students, I sit next to a Libyan cardiologist doing a residency here, we have people from Poland, Spain, Mexico, Cape Verde (I had to look up where it was), mainland China, and the US in the class. I converse with the Polish guys in French, since it is our only common language. I can't believe how cool that is. Just can't get over it. I try and stay away from the Americans. Nice and all, but they just can't resist the need to converse in English, and it's hard for me to resist either when I'm with them (I guess that's human nature).

Went to Patrizia's gym this evening and had a work out. Hard to call it that 'cause the equipment was either in poor shape or I couldn't get to it. I hope it's not representative of all French gyms - people definitely seemed to spend more time socializing than working out. Of course, I got into a stretching class with Patrizia that was great - and met some of her nice friends so that was a plus. But all in all, I wouldn't want to lift weights or try to do cardio there regularly. No towels available, and the bathroom was primitive (no toilet seat or toilet paper). I just couldn't deal with that for 9E/day. But we're going to visit a couple of other gyms this week and see if there is something better out there. Espace vit'Halles claims to have been rated the No.1 gym in Paris by somebody so we're visiting in Friday am I think.

Had dinner in Place d'Italie (too late home to get a baguette) and I ate a pizza and had a couple of glasses of red wine.

Tomorrow is visiting gyms, trying to translate my resume into French, contacting a bunch of fellow alumni in Paris (and maybe setting up an alumni club here) and visiting Place des Vosges and maybe Brentano's if I have time.

Bonne soirée to all!

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