Snips and Snails

I seem destined to never be able to wake up for class. I set two alarms every night: one in my phone, and one on my computer that's generally loud enough to wake the entire apartment building, if it goes off.

Today, neither did. I'm sure I'm losing credit in my translation class or something - I've never missed my 9:00AM class, but somehow waking up at 10:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays is incredibly difficult.

Classes have been getting more and more painful. Each class is an hour and a half long - which is only ten minutes longer than the twice-a-week classes at Whitman - but somehow that hour and a half seems to drag on for eternity. I have to restock my gum supplies this weekend - it's sometimes the only thing that keeps be going.

I finally went to my courses at the ICP this week - they're both fine. Epistemology of History meets once a week for an hour - I'm amazed they can get away with giving it a 3-credit status. Art history turned out to be essentially the same art history course that I'm taking at IES - so on Tuesday night we looked at the very same paintings that we had been staring at on Monday morning. Apparently, the teacher is putting together make-up classes on upcoming Saturdays to account for...something. Brittany (the other IES student in the class) and I have decided that we'll be unavailable on Saturdays. The grades they give us at the university (or at IES for that matter) don't actually count towards our GPAs, so essentially we're just trying to get credit for completing them. And the only ones I technically need to complete are my IES courses, which is hardly a problem - so yes, it's turning out to be what amounts to a semester off.

This past week was Fashion Week in Paris, so everyone was out in their most interesting plumage. Linzy somehow made it into the Gareth Pugh show, and hence the Gareth Pugh after-party, which sort of blows my mind a little bit. Anyway, it was sort of amusing to see the metro fill up with models for the weekend - even if they're terrifyingly skinny and sickly-looking. Rachel also just managed to pick up some internship at Vivian Westwood, and Linzy's working at some little dress atelier (along with another internship at a photography studio) - so I feel like I should be doing more with my life. The truth is, though, that I really like just wandering around the back streets. On Tuesday I walked from Hotel de Ville into the Marais, and got myself utterly lost. It was beautiful out, and it was probably the best lost I've ever been. I've also decided that if I ever move here I want to live in the Marais.

Tuesday night (after art history) we all showed up at Linzy's apartment to celebrate her birthday dinner with her host parents. They were a funny little couple; very French and more conservative than I'm used to (more religious, too - the mother kept calling me Gaspard and asking me if I knew what the name was from, among other things), but they made a fine dinner for Linzy, including what had to be some of the best cake I've ever eaten. According to the mother, it was essentially half butter and half chocolate, but hey - that's what birthdays are for, right?

Today I'm off to the Marais again to try to find a salon. My hair is out of control, and I'm getting incredibly sick of it. I just hope that whoever I go to doesn't absolutely ruin me. It would be nice to be incredibly rich and have a traveling stylist, but I suppose that's a dream I'll have to try to fulfill later in life.