fuck you

Dear god, today was a mess.

I woke up at seven this morning so that I could have a slightly less stressful day than I'm used to. I was at my desk my 7:30. I had a lot of troubling finishing my French composition, but I finally got it done by a few minutes after eight. Next up was...what was next. Hmmmm. I think that I started studying for pop. That sounds right. I wanted to have at least all of the new material done by the time I had to go to class at four. I studied pop for an hour and then moved on to studying for an hour for French. That was a disaster. I nearly started crying due to my massive headache and inability to remember how to conjugate venir in the conditional. Don't even get me started on my inability to use the imparfait. I just have to keep reminding myself that I can do this. I'm not going to fail my French final (which is on Tuesday, by the way). I spent so much time figuring out how to use the subjunctive and conditional that I only had 15 minutes to start my cycle of review again. I only made it through part of the instruction for chapter nine. My day was taking a turn for the worse.

I made myself a cup of coffee and went back to studying for pop. There's so much to remember. I keep forgetting that Place de la République starts with only a piano which is important for Coeur de Pirate's connection to chanson. What about the heavy reverb in her voice?! Ahhhhhh!! I was getting hungry and frustrated so I heated up the rest of my pasta and then took a few minutes to write out my feelings. I labeled all of my anxieties, my reassurances, and my motivational phrases. Its been scientifically proven that if you write out your anxiety that it helps destress you. It worked on me...for a minute. I finished studying for pop at 11:30 and figured that it was the opportune time to get dressed and go to the UC Center. I rushed getting ready and ran out the door by about noonish. I was determined to be back home and studying by one.

I got to the UC and Nic was there. I was surprised to also see Victor from my pop class. He was there working on his paper. I was just going to put in the footnotes and go home, but life is never that easy. First off, I forgot to cite one of the articles in my works cited page. I asked Victor if he had his reader on him, but he scoffed and said that he never reads. I just so happened to remember that Mindy had emailed us that particular reading so I looked it up in my email. I found it and got the bibliographical information from there. Then I realized that none of my citations were standardized. I then had to fix those. Then I had to google exactly how to do footnotes, but I could only find it for MLA. I figured that was close enough. I set about inserting all of my footnotes only to realize that Word wasn't putting the citations at the bottom of the right pages. I tried to fix it, but it was no use. A few pages even have lines at the bottom of them like there's a footnote under it but there isn't. Then I had to figure out exactly what sized paper is used in Europe so I can set my margins to be perfectly sized. That took finding a package of paper and then converting millimeters into inches and then figuring out that I had to use a comma instead of a period when typing in the number. Next was figuring out how to format my notes. The citations are supposed to be listed in the order that I use them in my paper, but what about the songs? I cite those, but don't have a footnote for them in my paper. I put those in their own separate song section.

I was so frustrated already and then Victor and I started talking. It turns out that he got a 94 on the midterm and barely studied. You know how much I studied and he did just as well as me!!!!! He's so relaxed about everything, and I'm stressing over formatting just to make sure everything was perfect. I was literally about to cry/scream/or explode right there in the center. I made the mistake of having Nic look at my paper to find formatting problems. He decided to read it and give me advice about how to make it better. I was already out of words, so he stopped making comments and just skimmed it. He said that since I had to cut everything down to make the word count that I lost my creativity. He said that my paper was good and sure to get an A, but it just wasn't creative. I was going to murder him. I was already so stressed out that I was literally shaking and now he tells me this?!!!!! I printed my paper again (he had marked my first copy) and went home to die.

I got home and tried my best to outline my histories papers. I was so stressed out that I went straight for the nutella jar to avoid crying in a ball of stress and insanity. I hate that everyone else works way less than I do just do get the same grades. Even worse than that is that everyone thinks that I'm insane. I feel insane. The nutella worked enough to take the edge off so that I could focus on my histories essays. They're coming together, but still not awesome. I am, however, very excited about my soft power essay. I feel like my thesis is good, but the material I'm using to support my argument really isn't in depth. I just don't know....at least I have most of the material I need for my essays memorized already.

I finished my essay outlining with 45 minutes to spare. I checked my email and saw that I had a LinkedIn request from my French professor from Santa Barbara. I accepted him and then looked at his profile. It had said that he left Santa Barbara. I sent him an email asking him if he was in Paris and if he was if he'd like to get coffee sometime before I leave. After my emailing I still had about half an hour left before I had to get dressed. I had planned to give myself 15 minutes to get dressed for pop today, so I figured why waste time. I set to work studying the old material for pop. The entire time I was cursing Victor in my head and hearing his words "I don't think all the studying you put in was worth an extra six points." Shut up!! I made myself some popcorn and continued my studying. I got to Françoise Hardy's song and then decided to stop for now. It was three minutes until 3:30 so I had to start getting dressed.

I put on the same outfit that I had worn when we visited the technology school a long time ago. I put on my rosary for good luck and went out the door. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I couldn't think straight. I could barely walk. I was dying. I got to school and I thought that I would faint. When our lecture hall opened up I went in. The room was still dark and only Mindy was there. She asked me how I was doing and I said stressed out. She asked me what about, and I said that my presentation was really making me nervous. She said that I was going to do great and gave me some tips about how to conquer my fear. She said to visual every step of my presentation. Visualize me walking up there, visualize everything going well, visualize me not being nervous. She said that if I visualize the victory then it's more likely to happen. She said that if you focus on "don't miss the ball" all your brain remembers is miss. Just think "i'm going to catch it" and you will. I'm going to catch the ball. Leila came in at that moment and said that she couldn't print her outline because the printer was out of ink. I told her to just go to the UC Center and print. She wanted me to go with her so I did.

We went upstairs and Victor was there. He asked me if I had come to get my paper out of the trash. I turned around without blinking an eye and said "fuck you." Nic laughed, Victor said "hey!", and so did the voice of Carole coming out of her office. I wasn't ashamed of myself. Victor and I left the center together and walked to class. He wanted me to walk down the stairs first because he was afraid that I would push him. I still like him even if he's stressing me out with his relaxed attitude. We got downstairs and I volunteered to go first. We'll skip ahead to my presentation. Mindy had some trouble working my presentation. The program kept cutting out or she'd accidentally skip to the wrong slide. I managed to make my entire presentation without really looking at the screen, and I only stumbled over my words a few times. The class looked so bored and most weren't even paying attention. I wanted to die. Was I too rehearsed? Did they even care about what I was saying? I wanted to sit down and forget about what was happening. I did better during the Q and A portion of the presentation. I was able to answer questions (mostly posed by Victor) and my classmates seemed more interested in my presentation after that. Mindy even played "Downtown" so that the class could hear Petula (everyone knows her music despite not knowing who sings it). I was proud of myself then, and I felt a lot more comfortable, but I felt out of place for the rest of class.

We got out of class at five instead of 5:30 today, and I went outside to find Kate. I wanted to ask her if I could leave my luggage in the dorms while I'm in Barcelona. She said that I couldn't because the cleaning crew was coming the day we were supposed to be out, and that everyone would be gone by the time I get back. I expected that answer. She also suggested that I just store my baggage at Gare de Lyon. It looks like that's what's going to happen.

I came home to finish the rest of my pop studying. I was surprised to see an email from Jordan (my French professor). He said that he was sadly back in Paris, and that he was planning on seeing some of the other kids in the program and that I should tag along. He also told me to add him on facebook. I added him and then got back to work. I did all except for one lecture and then took a break to shower. I took my shower and then thought about checking out Jordan's Facebook profile. Oh sweet Jesus. It turns out that he's gay and his boyfriend lives in California. I was shocked. I didn't think he was gay at all! The next (not so shock) was that he's a freelance model. There were tons of pictures of him modeling on his facebook. Here's the big shocker. There was a question on our final exam that asked how old our professor was. We asked him, and he said to make up an age/to say that we didn't know. He didn't want to tell us, but I've been dying to know. It turns out that he graduated from lycèe in 2009. He's maximum 25!!!!!!! What the fuck?!!!!! I thought that he was in his early 30s!!!!!!!!! Dude. Mind. Blown. I don't even know where to go from here!! My entire life has changed!!!!!

I finally settled down from this big news and finished my last pop lecture. I then diagramed my weekend/week. I had to write "pack" on every post it. I can't believe it. I'm packing. It has only started to sink in. Wow. Moving on. In other news, the three other students in the program and I are going to meet at a bar tomorrow night. The bar is called Le Violon Dingue and it's near the Sorbonne. I'm so excited. I do feel guilty for not studying all night tomorrow like a crazy person, but I deserve this. I work hard all the time, and I deserve to have a life. I'll studying during the weekend. It's not like I've been neglecting my work.

After all of this planning and excitement I figured that I should make some food for tomorrow. I made Mexican rice with the rice I had bought and the salsa that mom sent me. When I tasted it the rice was really hard so I decided to boil it for a bit. Big mistake. It's realllllly salty now. Whoops. I then made myself some ramen and got into bed to talk to mom.

Mom and I talked about all the excitement that has happened today. After an hour we signed off and I started to look for a flight to Barcelona. It turns out that the airline tricks you. They list one price, and then there are all of these fees that they sneak in! I looked at more flights, but it turns out that my flight is going to be $180 no matter what I do. I emailed mom for advice on what I should do. That's more than I was planning on spending. Not only is that stressing me out, but it took over all of the free time that I had earned for tv watching. It is now seven minutes until bedtime and all I got to do was watch a few minutes of Judge Judy before mom called. Maybe I'll go to bed a few minutes late so I can unwind. I slept so well last night, and I need a repeat. I can't be tired tomorrow; I have drinking to do.