Now it begins...

Friday I did laundry at the laundromat. I went to the closest one to me, and since it was a weekday, I had the place to myself. I lugged my overflowing laundry bag down the 6 flights of stairs and down the block while also carrying a bag with my laptop and other stuff i needed to study. Now I’m not a fan of laundromats in the US, but they are even worse in Paris. Like everything else in Europe, they are small. We’re talking like fisher-price sized little washing machines. This particular laundromat advertised one “giant capacity” washer. Size is relative because their “giant” sized one is basically the same size as the average American one. I opt for that one. I sat down there in the tiny laundromat using the folding table as a desk and drinking tea out of my travel mug. Laundry at home is the chore I mind the least, but here it is painful when you have to pay so much.

Saturday I spent most of the day working on my presentation “NGOs and the EU”. I took a break in the evening though, for some time with friends. Glenn, my Singaporean friend, lives with the Brian Kirby, my pastor here, and his wife Denise and little girl Annalise. The Kirby’s were stateside for the week, so Glenn wanted to organize a hangout evening in honor of our friend Sarah whose time in Paris was coming to an end. Andrea volunteered to make an attempt at mexican food and it was pretty good despite the improvisation. It was a fun night to just relax with friends and play a little Taboo, which is always entertaining, especially when not everyone is a native english speaker.

Sunday my partner Loren was to come over at 5 to practice our presentation, so I spent the afternoon working really hard on my half, and cleaning up. I even turned the heat on for the first time because I didn’t want to freeze my guest to death. (I had been putting off turning on the heat as long as possible since it hadn’t been reeeeally cold yet, and when you wear a fleece bathrobe and wrap up in a blanket it’s plenty warm-lol) Working with Loren actually wasn’t bad. It was basically the same kind of conversation you’d have with an American student you don’t know very well.
“Wow that’s a lot of steps up to your apartment. No elevator?”
“Nope. You should have seen me trying to get my huge suitcases up those stairs by myself.”
“By yourself?! And the first flight is completely crooked.”
“I know, I have a near-death experience weekly. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just some water, thanks. This is a great apartment. So much nicer than most students. If you don’t mind, how much do you pay?”
You know, typical stuff, but with less smiling and laughing than most American interactions.
We decided to run through our presentation. Loren had the benefit of it being her native language so she could just use notes and freely talk about the topic. I, on the other hand, was stuck reading mine word for word from the paper. We ran through it once and I asked if she understood me or had some things to correct. She volunteered to go through my entire (about 10 minute) presentation and fix the French mistakes. How awesome is that?! She sat there for 20 minutes going “see this sentence doesn’t make sense in French, what are you trying to say?” When you try to do a presentation on something academic, it’s when you realize the limitations of translating sometimes. Certain words just do not have an equivalent in another language. I was trying to use the word “constituency” and I had looked it up and used what the dictionary listed as the translation.
Loren looked at me, “I don’t think this is the word you meant to use.”
Yes, I said, I want to talk about the people who are represented by each representative. The people who vote for them.
“Oh, then you say ‘citizens’. Is that what you mean?”
No, that doesn’t mean exactly the same thing. In english ‘constituent’ is more specific than ‘citizen’. Is there no word like that?
“I don’t think so...”
And so I wrote about European representatives being more removed from their “citizens” than national representatives. Close enough.

We ran through the presentation again, and halfway through, Andrea called. She was supposed to come over that evening as well to make plans for our trip to Italy for the end of the week, and I had told her I’d probably be done by 6 since I thought we’d only just run through it a couple times. I didn't’ foresee the editing and the discussion or Loren wanting to practice 4 times. I didn’t mind the extra work on it of course, because I need all the help I can get. But Andrea didn’t have anything to do in the city since it was Sunday night and everything was closed, so I told her to come on over and she could just hang out til we finished.
Andrea got there as we were finishing our last run-through. Loren and I finished up. She had prepared the outline that we have to pass out to all the students in the class to follow along with, all I had to do was add my notes. And print it. The problem being, I don’t have a printer at home and with our class starting at 8, we weren’t sure what time the computer rooms open at school to print it off. I suggested that I could run by a friend’s apartment to get at least one copy printed and then just run-off copies before class the next day. The problem being that the only friend I know in the city with a printer, lives on the other side of town.

Anyway, Loren left and Andrea and I got down to planning our trip. She had booked the plane tickets to Milan the day before, and now we had to find places to stay and figure out where all we wanted to go. We spent an hour or so looking at hostels online and when we had finally made the decision on which nights we wanted to spend where, Andrea had to run to catch the RER and get back out to Rueil, so I was left to book the hotels. Once that was taken care of, then I had to add in my notes to the outline. That took a while, and then I needed to print. I sent a text to my friend with a printer, hoping she would take pity on me. Not a problem. So at 10:30 at night I hopped on the metro and traversed the city to show up and print out 5 pieces of paper. We chatted a bit before I traipsed home. I had wanted to practice my part some more and maybe get to where I could do parts without the paper, but by the time I got home I was just so tired that I couldn’t make my brain function anymore.

The next morning came way too soon. It was still dark and cold and I could hear the rain drumming against the roof. Not a situation very conducive for getting up out of a soft, warm bed. I got dressed, put on my waterproof winter boots, and headed to school a good 30 mins earlier than I normally do, because I need to make the copies for the class and I didn’t know how crowded it might be or how long it might take. I arrived at ScPo at 7:20 and....it was locked. Seriously? I’m standing there in the cold rain and it’s barely light out, and I can see the little concierge guys running around in there, but they won’t open the door! And then I noticed two other international students from my class huddled in a doorway. They also had their presentation that morning and need to make copies. We stood looking forlornly at the barred doors and the warm light spilling out on the wet sidewalk. The computer room was supposed to be open at 7:25 I had learned so why were we still standing outside getting soaked? Finally one of the concierges noticed us and took pity and let us in even though they weren’t “ready” yet. Ready? Who cares! Open the door!
So I head for the copy room and...both copiers out of order. Great. Got to go to the computer room, pull up copies of the presentation that I emailed to myself and print out 25 copies. At least that worked out alright. I made it to class at 7:50 with papers in hand and as ready as I could have been for the presentation.

I was nervous, but knowing I could read it made it less nerve-wracking. I’d like to say that I’m just so good at French that once I got up there and started talking I realized I didn’t need my paper and did it just as fluidly as I would have done in English. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. I read every word from the paper. But, in my experience, better read and understandable, than incoherent free-speaking. All I was hoping was that people wouldn’t ask too many questions, or at least none that Loren couldn’t answer. I don’t know how I did, he didn’t give us our grades, but I was soo relieved to have it over, and a couple of the international students said I did a really good job, although they might have just been being polite. Loren and I sat back down and looked at each other and both made our phew!-glad that’s-over-with faces and smiled.

I headed home right afterwards in the rain. I arrived home tired, cold, and wet. I decided that after a week of stress about that presentation I deserved a break. So I got back into my PJs, made some hot chocolate, climbed into my nice warm bed, and watched a recently downloaded episode of Grey’s Anatomy while the rain tapped against the windows.

I had invited a bunch of people over for a Halloween/birthday soirée on Tuesday night, since Andrea and I were leaving for Italy early in the morning of the 31st. I took Monday afternoon to decorate for the gathering. I had Halloweeny decorations thanks to my mom who sent some fabric and odds and ends, and birthday decorations thanks to Carolyn who mailed me a “birthday in a bag”. And to that I added some festive fall colors and homemade decorations.

That evening I journeyed back out into the damp city to go to climbing class. It was a pretty exciting evening because I got to lead climb for the first time ever. There is definitely different schools of thought about climbing and of course, everyone thinks their own is the best. I may not agree with the lack of crash pads and mats under the climbing walls (just concrete floors!) and I may find it weird that they don’t make you do the whole “On belay? Belay on. Climbing? Climb on.” thing or that my way of belaying isn’t “safe” according to them, but I do like our teacher’s mindset that it is important for people to learn to lead climb as soon as possible, even if they aren’t great technical climbers. I have always wanted to lead climb but in most of the gyms back home you have to climb a certain higher-rated route perfectly and then take a class to learn how. Our instructor just picked an easy wall, showed us the basics and the safety precautions and said “go for it”. I thought it would be scarier than it was. I think it’s because I’ve been climbing so much and I’ve just gotten comfortable trusting the ropes and such and am more confident in my own abilities as a climber. Anyway, my first time up I followed a route and made it all the way to the top. I got down and my climbing instructor came over to me and asked if that was my first time climbing lead. “Really? I was watching you and you did really well.” I’m a sucker for a compliment so that totally made my day.

I wish that I could say that after a stressful week I was able to go home and relax. It was, unfortunately, just the beginning of what turned out to be an even more hectic week.