it's like siberia

Today is over. Thank god.

I couldn't sleep last night at all. I was having dreams of a shopping mall. When my alarm went off this morning I just stayed in bed until it stopped ringing. I finally got up and decided that I didn't care about being on time to class. I just wasn't feeling living today. I checked facebook and then saw an email from mom. She said that she likes the black pointed toe flats I suggested but thinks I should wait to find better cardigans. Writing this post reminded me to finally respond to her. Thanks, diary. I pulled myself away from the computer and finally made myself a cup of coffee with milk and sugar before starting my routine. I've resorted to leaving my towel heater on in an attempt to warm my room. It works surprisingly well. I took an extra long time doing my makeup this morning because I didn't feel like rushing off anywhere. I did dark eyeshadow and cat eyeliner. It took forever, and dark streaks kept appearing under my eyes. I kept wiping them away just to have to redo my eyeliner again. I finally just gave up and finished getting dressed. I ate two pain au chocolats while getting dressed. I wore the black dress I bought at the thrift store with a shirt underneath, a pair of tights, and my fleece tights. I knew that I'd be freezing during French no matter what I wore, but I figured it was worth the effort.

I had to leave five minutes early in order to print my composition before class, but I still managed to leave late. I shoved on both pairs of mittens, threw on my coat, and ran out the door. I got to Accent and printed my composition before going upstairs. No one was in the room so I came back downstairs to go to the bathroom. On my way out, I held the door open for my professor. She said class would start in five minutes. It was already five minutes past starting time. I went upstairs and talked with the other students who were just as confused as I am about what we're going to be covering in class. We had just decided to ask our professor to explain it in English when she came upstairs. Our class only had ten people in it, and one person came late. That's right, five people were missing today. Our class feels small when one person is missing, and today the room seemed downright empty. We were all very low energy today, and it didn't help that we were missing half the class.

Our professor started class by stating that we're having a quiz on Tuesday on the subjunctive. It's going to be a ten minute quiz just on the conjugations. I'm still worried. We then spent some time reexplaining ce qui/ce que due to amount of failure that happened on last week's quiz. Next up was talking about the subjunctive. We did some exercises in the book and then took a break. I sat downstairs and read my book until five minutes after the time that we were supposed to regroup. I went upstairs and found one other student already there with our professor nowhere in sight. She didn't come up for another few minutes. We were complaining about how cold the room was so she moved us to another room across the hall. We finally had few enough people to fit into the smaller room, and it was supposedly supposed to be warmer than our usual room. It wasn't, and I spent the rest of class shivering.

For some reason I felt very sad today. During class I kept feeling the need to cry. Maybe the cold is stressing me out. Our professor told us that we're doing presentations on Tuesday, and it was almost too much for me to bear. I couldn't focus as we talked about French ideas of friendship, and could barely mutter a sentence when asked if I had a friend that I've know since childhood. It didn't help my mood when we started to discuss our final presentations. On the last day of class we're going to give a six paragraph essay entitled "my Paris" without the help of a prewritten speech. I can't even think about it. Class finally ended and I scurried out.

I sulked my way home and immediately reached for some nutella to comfort me. I've eaten about half of a 630g jar since Tuesday. I might have a problem. I knew that my day would only get worse considering that I had to meet with Mindy today. I didn't think that I could make it. During my break I got right to work studying for French for an hour. I started by working on memorizing the subjunctive (I think I can remember nous fassions and vous puissiez, but I need to remember there's no "i" in the -ent ending). I then spent the remaining half an hour reviewing. It turns out that I was working on reviewing material from last week's quiz. I seem to have forgotten it all.

By the time I finished studying for French it was already 12:25. I decided to have lunch (honey smacks and another cup of sweet coffee) before going to pop to face my doom. I wanted to have a few minutes of relaxation before class, but I ended up shoving down my cereal and only managing to drink part of my coffee before having to get dressed. Putting on my hat and redoing my lipstick ran into overtime, and I had to run out the door in a hurry. Why am I always running late?

I ran to school to find out that we couldn't even go into class yet. I sat and talked to Francisco for a minute before going into class. Mindy and I were the only ones in the room, and she asked me how my other classes were going and which classes I was in. For some reason my only comment on them was that they were going fine and that they were easy. Seriously??! That's what I had to say?! I couldn't muster a response about my histories class being fascinating or my inability to speak French? I'm a disgrace. Presentations started a few minutes after my shameful comment.

I've been talking a lot during the Q and A portion of the presentations. What is happening to me? I suddenly have thoughts that I'm willing to share with the class on just about everything. I'm not sure if I like this. After class Mindy asked the four of us who are meeting with her what order we wanted to go in. I said that I'd stick to my place as third in line and that I'd just hangout in the Accent center. I had brought my stuff to study for histories with (including earplugs) so I thought that I'd just do that while I waited. Mindy said that she'd hold her meetings in the classroom instead of in the UC center so I ran upstairs to print my paper. No use wasting my valuable allotment of printer sheets downstairs when I can print for free upstairs. I printed my paper and came back downstairs to study. I was trying to study about the mosaic in Sacré Coeur when I heard Callie approach the smoker who lives with Francisco (the same guy who got locked out over the weekend) and ask how the rest of his night went with a laugh. It said that it was fine, and then asked her if she had any *cough* of it. She said no, and he said that you're not supposed to take it while drinking because it will mess up your liver. I know so little about the kinds of drugs that kids do that I couldn't figure out exactly what they were talking about. I was trying to study anyway.

 I only got in twenty minutes of work before Mindy came to get me. I gave her my paper to start reading and said that I'd be inside in one second. I had a quick conversation with Sandrine about my Martha Stewart paper and then headed inside. Mindy said that my paper was a lot better than my last one and she was only on page two. Woohoo!!!! She read it and said that I need to fix my topic sentences. We rooted out the vague topic sentences so that I could fix them. We talked about how to fix them for a bit and then we decided to change my first paragraph. She said it was the weakest one, and that I should deemphasize the importance of jazz music. We talked about it, and then decided to change my paper to say that the orchestral jazz music that Petula uses is linked to the sophisticated, demure image she wanted to portray so that she could set herself apart from other yé-yés. That's so much better! I asked her what she would give the paper, and she said that she couldn't tell me but that it was better than my last paper. Yay!!!!!!!!! We then talked about how she's grading the presentations. I need to remember to make an outline of my presentation like she asked for on the presentation guidelines. I think that I should do okay, but I definitely need to practice (especially since I just changed some major points in my paper).

After the meeting I came home riding high. I know my skirt was really short and tight (I was wearing a sweater like it was a dress) and I was wearing red lipstick, but I ket getting stared at. An old man obviously stared at me as I passed him, and some teenagers "coocoo"ed at me! I didn't care. I wasn't a paper writing failure! I came upstairs and ate some nutella as a reward while listening to some music. I made some notations on my paper (to be completed another day) and then changed clothes. I then worked on studying for histories while finishing off the half of cat's tongue cookies that I opened yesterday. It was only 4:30 so I took some time to work on my pop presentation. I first turned my attention to rewriting my thesis so that I could fix my slide. I played around with the thesis for a bit before landing on a temporary one. It's not perfect yet, but it's an improvement. I then fixed a few things in my paper before turning my attention back to my presentation. I fixed some things and then did a run through. I kept jumbling over my words, but that's to be expected on the first run after some major changes have been made. I chose to only play part of the song, and I managed to do the presentation in 10 minutes 36 seconds. Perfect.

It was still early and my stomach was rumbling. I thought that it would be the perfect time to eat some ramen and watch South Park. It was so nice to have a life. That's weird to say, but my studying schedule is usually so crazy that I don't take time to eat dinner without holding a pen and textbook one hand with a fork in the other. Today I sat at my desk with my ramen and watched the new South Park episode in complete bliss. Yesterday when Nico and I were walking to school, I had told him that he should start watching South Park because the humor is really smart. He said that he didn't think that I'd be the kind of girl who would watch south park. I told him that it's such a smart show and that it has really intellectual humor. He then countered with the episode where Stan says that everything he hears is shit and then everything starts sounding like vile bodily noises. I told him that it was vulgar in order to make a larger point. He thinks that I'm wrong. Today the episode made my think about my pop class and my conversation with Nico. Part of the episode was about how Randy didn't want to perform as Lorde live because a lot of sound engineering goes into his sound and he couldn't perform it live without disappointing a bunch of people. What a comment on pop music today. The other point was about entertainment. Instead of playing video games, the kindergarteners only wanted to watch videos of  people commenting while playing the games online. Kyle was bemoaning the death of the living room and community activities. I love South Park.

After my break I studied for an hour for French. I'm upset that the final is going to be comprehensive, but for some reason it didn't bother me while I was studying today. There were only a few lectures after the final so the final isn't going to cover that much more material than the midterm. I actually kinda enjoyed studying about rock métis, raï, and republicanism. Who couldn't enjoy making the little face over the "i" when writing raï? I was really surprised that I was able to study two whole lectures during my hour of studying. I do admit taking a quick break after 33 minutes, though.

It was only about seven by the time I finished studying. I thought that today was going to be total hell, but it ended up being pretty okay. I did cut out editing my pop paper and only practiced my pop presentation once, but I feel pretty good about my choices. I have plenty of time over the weekend to torture myself. After studying, I wasted some time on the internet before taking my shower. After my shower I got bored on the internet again and then started writing to you.

I promise to try to go out tomorrow so I have something more interesting to tell you....or maybe I'll just watch a documentary in bed. You love when I stay at home in my pjs and don't explore Paris, right?