Stream of consciousness post, so let's see if the content is worth anything...

I had to run off to class at the end of the last post, sorry about that.

The time between the last day I described and this one...pretty routine. On Sunday we went to Sorgues again and saw a dance involving one woman, three children, and two pieces of rope. I've had two picnics on the island since I last updated: a quick trip into one of the supermarkets, a free ferry ride across the Rhone, and an afternoon spent lying in the sun in the grass doing nothing of great importance. Times like that have been really quite fantastic, excellent opportunities to get to know people. I feel like going out to the bars at night is fun and all, but that the music is loud, and I tend to feel a little more disconnected on those nights. So a couple of baguettes and a wheel of Camembert is a welcome alternative. Plus the weather is finally like it should be!

The sun is out, the rain is gone, the Mistral hasn't been around much lately. The weather is absolutely gorgeous, and for the first time I really feel like I'm in the south of France in springtime. Danielle jokes that we "brought the bad weather from Athens in our suitcases," and that's why it's been rainings so much since we got here. I'm glad to have stopped wearing the same sweater all the time, and haven't needed said sweater for a few weeks now. I'm still sticking to long sleeves, but that's a personal preference thing.

Classes have been a little tough for me to sit through this week: lots of work for Resistance, lots of dull lecture in Civ, and I'd already read the poem we analyzed in Lit yesterday. In written production (creative writing, essentially) this week, we walked around the city and wrote poems. I wasn't really feeling it, I cobbled one together from words I gleaned from street signs.

BLUE ZONE- FORBIDDEN
Green Zone-Forbidden
SECURITY ZONE- ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN
Do not park here
GIVE PASSAGE to the public
LONG LIVE LIBERTY, antiques, ARTISTS,
Pain au chocolat, ROMEO AND JULIET, and
LOVE in concert
WELCOME TO the free ZONE, knock and enter.

Roughly translated, but you get the idea of the kind of thing I'm expected to do for my participation grade in that class. In Oral Production today (that's the other half of the production class: that and written make up four credit hours together) we wrote commercials. Cathy's and my oven cleaner commercial was awesome. I keep doing things like that, and I get my participation grades, and that's that! Wish all of the classes were that simple.

Well, what can I say? It's about lunchtime here in France, and all the French students are getting out of their classes. Ian's correspondant has attracted a small crowd and they're all talking to him. Makes me realize that my correspondent hasn't answered any of my emails since February--hit and miss, I guess.

This post feels very frivolous compared to the ones I write as word documents, haha, but I did say that I'd try to update again this week. I never know what kinds of things you folks like to hear about--grand adventures, everyday stuff, or both. Would you rather I describe my excursion or my dinner? Or both, actually? I have an excursion tomorrow so a "grand adventure" post should be forthcoming, although I do have to get motivated to write some journal entries sometime this weekend. And I think Danielle is going to Sorgues again, though I can't decide if I want to go. I never buy anything, and it's crowded there to the point of claustrophobia. I don't do well with five different people bumping into me all at once from every side.

It feels fantastic to have classes overwith until Monday, I can tell you that much. I'm usually so busy during the weekdays that it's not until Friday that I can sit back and marvel that yes, another week has really sped by. Tomorrow is possibly the biggest milestone I've encountered since leaving: as of tomorrow night, I will have been away from the United States for exactly one month.

It doesn't feel like that long at all, not until I look ahead and realize that I'm not even halfway done with the program. That this so-called "big milestone" is not even the halfway mark. Time does funny things here--the two hours a morning I spend in Civ are two of the longest hours of my life, and yet a month has never seemed to go by faster than April of 2008. Strange the way things work out like that.

I feel like I should be saying something that lives up to the expectations you've come to have of this blog. I'm usually so much more observant than this, but I've caught the scent of weekend in the air, and then all the deep observant thoughts fly straight out of my head.

So I'm just going to start spouting random tidbits, if that's okay.

Food here is an adventure. Danielle is yet to repeat a main course, which I marvel at every time I find something different on my plate. Last night was lentils and sausage, which was medium on the dinner scale. Pasta nights tend to be my favorites. Side dishes are usually good too--lots of garlic and potatoes, although tragically none of them mashed. Other foods that aren't around: peanut butter (I'm not as traumatized as some other group members, but not having it does remind me that...well...I don't have the option of eating it.), cranberries, and decent potato chips. In return, I have discovered the tantalizing world of French pastry--mille feuille, strawberry tarts, and several chocolate-based treats, all of which call out to you from every patisserie window. French desserts are small and photogenic, and absolutely delicious. Maybe that accounts for the extra kilo that Danielle's scale claims has appeared....but enough of that particular observance.

None of my pants fit. This is true in the US too, but I really need to buy a belt. I think Cathy and I are going to end up on Rue de la Republique sometime this afternoon, maybe I'll actually bother buying something I need, instead of griping about it all the time like my need to buy double-A batteries for my camera. And since apparently I own no pants that fit in the waist, a belt would be a wise investment.

Ooh, I think I'm about to go to lunch...yeah, the others are heading out and I'm gonna join them. Hope this post hasn't been too useless. Excursion post coming soon-ish,

-G