Saturday, October 31, 2009

I'm having the babysitter for dinner...

Well, today started off well...I 'tutored' the 4 year old this morning, but she was having none of it. I should have known something was up when her mother left the room, saying: 'now, be nice to Kathryn today...' ah shit.

We began with colors, and she actually repeated everything I said really well. Then we tried shapes, but she was like, NON we are finished. And I was like, quoi? comment? No sirree we are NOT finished. But then it was all downhill...I kept speaking in English, and she was like ARRET! So I of course ignored her and kept saying words and phrases in English in response to her outbursts of French. She kept telling me to stop talking, stop laughing, it's not funny! (which of course made me laugh even harder.) She started running around the room, picking up her dolls and hiding from me, telling me to stop looking at her. So I pretended to enjoy the game and staggered after her, holding up a coloring book and asking if she wanted to color something, goddammit! (no, I didn't actually swear out loud, but dude, inside...pfff!) AND THEN she busted out 'you're not pretty! I'm TOO pretty! You have no friends! You are evil! I will cut off your face and eat it!'

OK, so all but the last was true...she definitely said something about mange-ing something, which would have been funny except the look in her eyes gave me the "woah, back off Mademoiselle Lecter" vibes.

She kept leaving the room and trying to color on the walls...I was swinging her around and instigating sword fights with our pens, and when her mom came back in (probably b/c we were making so many weird noises and opening and closing doors) we tag-team finished the 'lesson' with a more subdued-but-still-glowering little girl trying to stuff her dolls into her pink backpack and go off on a roadtrip. I told her mom next time I was bringing some damn Sesame Street...viva la television!

kK

Friday, October 30, 2009

Halloween in a sweat-stained red dress with Tim Burton

So tonight I head to cinema Champo at midnight for a Tim Burton marathon, ending around 6 or 7 am with a communal breakfast shared by fellow theater-goers.

Did I mention that earlier in the day I will be partaking in the red dress hash run?

Not sure when the tradition started, but every year at Halloween the members of the hash organize a run during which everyone, including the men, wears a red dress! The easier to go out partying and already be in costume, I guess.

Donc, after running and drinking for several hours in the Parisian streets, I head to Champo where I start with Beetlejuice, move on to Edward Scissorhands, and end with Corpse Bride. WOOHOO!

Bets on the scene in any of the movies during which I'll finally fall asleep?

kK

Taken by a toilet

Wasn't New York City supposed to knock my "GULLIBLE" to just "gullible"???

So I have just learned that I most likely swallowed quite the story when I was told by my concierge that I had to pay him for fixing my toilet. I know, shocker...I always believe everything everyone who seems nice says to me. I wondered why he was so insistent that if anything ever broke again I should call him b/c oh dear, the agency would just be so much more expensive...so sincere...so much emPHAsis on the wrong sylABLE. HA! Oh this is too much...I will pretty much never live this one down, not even from myself!

I really have nothing else to say about this...I laughed so hard I'm not even angry. Besides, Karma is out to GET that guy! HA!

HAHA! I just got taken by a TOILET. HAHAHA!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

No such thing as a free...toilet?

I swear, it is just about time I take myself to mechanic-stuff and plumbing-type school so I can fix all the *^$#@! objects that always *&^%$#@! break.

So my toilet broke. I call my concierge, the guy who takes care of the apt complex. He comes right away to fix it. Good as new. Totally awesome.

Two days later (as in, just a few minutes ago) I come home and find him still in the building (he usually leaves around 4 or 4.30 and it's definitely later than that right about now!) and he says that it was good I called him b/c if I'd called the agency who owns the building they'd have charged me 30 or 40 euros to fix it, but him, he fixes things for cheaper. This is all in French, mind you, and I'm really tired, so I sort of stare at him in a haze, like, what? Are you saying you want me to give you money? He was like, you know, give me whatever you want, like 20 euros or whatever. So I pull out the absolute last of my money, a 20 euro bill, and give it to him, in total shock. He's a lovely guy, my concierge...it must have been awkward for him to have to explain to me that I had to pay him, but now he's got some beer money, woohoo!

So lesson #435: Apartment maintenance in France = NOT free like it is in America. Score one for my homies! When does my teaching contract end, again? lol!

OK, off to a Turkish restaurant to stuff myself with...whatever Turkish people eat. My hash friend Late For Dinner is moving back to Turkey after a year of being in Paris, so we're having a goodbye party for her tonight. I plan on drinking beaucoup...maybe by the end of the night my broken toilet story will actually be funny!

kK

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The countdown has begun...

7 days til Mozart L'Opera Rock! No seriously, Squash and I are going on Thursday next...SUCKAS!! You only WISH you were here to go w/ us...holy crap this is going to be the best.

(so yar, just in case anyone was confused and thought I was making fun of french music videos, let me assure you I WAS. And not. It's one and the same...I friggin LOVE French music videos b/c they're so weird and fabulous. I have this 'bizarre' threshold and so many French things fit snuggly right on up in there. Huzzah! Why am I not a French person yet!)

Just in case you need to see it again, and let me just tell you now, YOU DO, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfxFHZw9ww

That's right, we're groupies. Isn't that guy's voice so GOOD?! That's the thing here--as cheesy and uber-emo as everything is, everyone is really good at what they do, dancing, singing, being pretty, etc. Just sayin.

7 days!
KK

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My Goodness, My Guinness!

I went out to an actual bar for my first football match last week! The Sultan and I found a bar near the Pantheon, where we grabbed a Bulmer's and a Guinness (respectively) and settled in with a bunch of Brits supporting (of course) Liverpool. I was the only one at the table with a Guinness and a penchant for cheering on Team Lyon, so I tried to keep as quiet as possible as I "woohoo'ed" the second, and winning, goal from les français! I can't pretend to have a loyalty to any one team, of course...I haven't been a fan long enough to know anything about any of the teams, but it is REALLY fun to watch good soccer. Added bonus when a French team wins!

In other awesome-and-totally-gratuitous news, I bought my first item of French clothing today. The Sultan, Squash and I went falafel-ing at the greatest falafel stand in the entire world (L'As du Falafel, for you plebes), and walked in and out of shops, enjoying the fresh air. After about 12 different Kookaï's, I finally realized I couldn't stop thinking about this one sweater...basically a blanket with long sleeves. (NO IT IS NOT A SNUGGIE.) It is thick, THICK cotton (which is awesome b/c I can wash it myself without paying for drycleaning) and it is PERFECT for this chilly fall weather. Squash approved my purchase, saying I looked like I belonged in a leather armchair next to a fireplace in my home library reading a book with a cat and a glass of wine (which I wanted to change to tumbler of whiskey) as I unwind from a long day of professor-ing somewhere in Connecticut.

It's now midnight and I'm wrapped in said sweater, my jams warming themselves on top of my radiator so I'm extra cozy when I get ready for bed. (I also, in point of fact, am enjoying a glass of wine...and since I'm technically sort of 'un prof,' all I'm missing is the cat and Connecticut. We'll just pretend my radiator is a fireplace and my one-room cabin is a library in my otherwise huge house.) Pink Martini is playing on jiwa.fr and I'm trying unsuccessfully to convince myself to get up and brush my teeth.

Maybe just one more glass of wine...

kK

How 'bout a hot plate of gizzards? Anyone? Bueller?

Back in the day I used to eat EVERYTHING. No, I mean EVERYTHING--my good ole Midwest family would watch in amused horror as I wolfed down caribou or random green brains of sea-creatures or, worse, some vegan meal that looked nothing like actual food. I worked hard for that "Mikey" moniker.

**Random kK Tangent 400,002**
Confusion: Mikey in the Life Cereal commercial would 'eat anything,' so of COURSE he liked the stupid cereal. Why was that such a surprise to those other two boys? Why did that commercial ever make sense to me, even up until a couple of years ago?
**possible end to kK Tangent 400,002**

Anyway, I'll admit, the last few years I've mellowed out, subsisting mainly on cheese pizza, basic salads and cereal. When presented with smelly cheese over New Year's with Ageless, I just couldn't bear to even be in the same room with it, much less put a morsel in my no-longer-Mikey mouth.

The wheel turns again: While in Paris I've eaten Steak Tartare poêlé (which actually is a patty of meat that has been fried on the top and bottom, but the middle is still pretty raw...ok, it's REALLY raw), and a salad gourmande, a salade topped with fois gras, smoked duck and GIZZARDS. Friggin delicious. DELICIOUS. It was so rich I probably wouldn't be able to eat it more than once a year, but yar, YUM.

So far the pizza is still total crap...I'm thinking of taking a trip to Aix just to grab a few to go. Other than that, my favorite meal is fresh juice (I bought a juicer! It's like magic in a glass!) with a croissant from a bakery near Squash's apartment (it is the BEST croissant I've ever had...not super convenient for me to grab one and bring it back to my apartment for breakfast, but luckily Squash has a fabulous sitting room where she can serve me one on a fancy little tray).

Time for more food...
Over and out,
Born-Again-Mikey

Monday, October 26, 2009

Will the real "kathrin kumball" please stand up

That's right. The internet peeps definitely thought the correct spelling of my name was "Kathrin Kumball."

Just thought I'd share that little tidbit.

And honestly, I can't decide if it's better than the usual "Kimberly...(no need to bother with the last name on this one, it's fairly obvious Kimberly encompasses both 'nom' et 'prenom.' Also, probably, now that I think about it, even 'sobriquet.')."

kK

Seriously? Did today just start already?

**N.B.: obviously this post was started on 25.10.2009 Monday morning at what should have been 8.30 am...**

Gah. So there's something about not actually sleeping in on that first day of DSL...I feel cheated, of course, but also a bit off...nobody's supposed to FORGET about DSL!  Now I just feel stupid, and also like I've been awake for an extra hour, which is not exactly how this fall-back thing should work. I want to feel like I got to SLEEP for an extra hour, muthafu***! I wuz robbed! God, if I hadn't LITERALLY JUST YESTERDAY installed internet in my apt, I would have gone to my tutoring session an hour early!! That would have been super fun.

Saw my first college american football game in ages last night at a canadian pub overlooking la Seine, although I must admit I was obviously more glued to the tv than the river (river? what river? was that a safety by Penn? why the f*ck aren't they showing THAT game instead of Tenn v Bama!!). Ha, I sound like I'm actually a die-hard fan of Am. Football....mostly I'm quoting Pull The Prick Out (no, I was not clever enough to give her that name...only hashers think up stuff like that!), who IS a sports fiend. It was good fun (even though I mostly kept sneaking glances at the TV showing the Aus v NZ rugby match...).

Now I'm drinking coffee at way-too-early in the morning getting ready to eat my soggy chocolate-quinoa cereal...damn, I was so annoyed I missed DSL I had to BLOG about it before I ATE. This is major news, peeps, major. At least I have some awesome French music videos to keep me company. I mean seriously, thank GOD for the bizarre fabulousness of French music!!

kK

Tutor (also read, in best jim carey voice: leh-hooo-zeh-hehr!)

Since the teaching gig is only 12 hours a week, I gots to earn me some extra cash, and luckily I've gotten a few tutoring requests: The Spanish Family--daughter is about 9, son is about 6 (holy crap that little dude is just too friggin adorable!!!) and they're so well-behaved, both of them! They just smile a lot and very studiously show me their lessons they need help with, and they try really, really hard to follow my corrections in pronunciation. I'm like, you're too young to be so well-organized! Stop speaking three languages and making my lazy American, one-and-a-half-language self all embarrassed, like!

Then there's the 4 year old French girl, also super adorable, but it's pretty much just an hour of 'babysitting'...I point to letters of the alphabet and go over them slowly and clearly in English, she ignores me and draws incomprehensible objects on little pieces of paper with various crayons. Then she tries to get ME to say the alphabet in FRENCH. I just keep repeating things like "YELLOW" until she finally looks at me funny and goes "wewwo" and I'm like PERFECT--NOW DO IT AGAIN YOU LITTLE HO.

Saint-Denis is, thank god, quite a bit older...final year in university (or master's degree, or something...I still can't figure out how this school system works, even when people try to speak slowly and explain it like I'm leotarded), and he's just landed a two-month stint at some job where he needs to speak a lot of English, so he just wants to practice by having a conversation over un cafe (omg he orders DECAF esspresso...I just looked at him and was like, dude, are you even French?) en anglais. He gets so frustrated when he makes little mistakes (saying 'persons' instead of 'people') but really, he does just fine...he's a sweet, serious little perfectionist...his new boss is going to love him (especially seeing as how said boss doesn't even speak English!). So what if he can't understand a word Chandler says in an un-dubbed episode of "Friends"; I'm sure he can hold his own when it comes to discussing agricultural practices of the EU. It's actually fun to talk to him, and by now we're more friends than tutor/client, so I just told him to buy me a beer next time and we'll do both English AND French so I can practice too. Seriously, I gotta start speaking more French...listening to music and TV (omg sometimes I even leave the TV on all night just in case it helps train my brain to dream in French or something. I know, I'm crazy.) only does so much...

**kK Tangent 806**
...but wait! I just remembered something TOTALLY awesome! I was in the internet store finalizing my order on Friday, and there was a Brazilian girl being helped by the same lady who was on hold with the phone company for me...anyway, long story short, there was a language barrier and the internet lady looked over at me and was like, um, will you help me? So I got to translate for two complete strangers, telling the Brazilian lady what the internet lady needed from her to get her new blackberry working! It was pretty basic, granted, but still...I was like *puffpuffpuff* ego-getting-bigger. And then, of course, I went to a cafe and ordered une carafe d'eau, and the waiter was like, QUOI?? COMMENT?? oh, UNE CARAFE D'EAU? (yes, goddammit! that's what I just friggin said!) and then: "why yes, I will bring you water right away." in english. le sigh.
**possible end to kK Tangent 806**

Well, it's either time for a shower or another glass of wine...let's make a wild guess as to which one wins out tonight.

kK

Robin Williams would be proud...?

So, teaching. heh heh.

No seriously, that's all I have to say, heh heh. I don't even know if that's a funny 'heh heh' or what, but it's the only way to describe how I feel when I'm all alone, up in front of the class behind my little teacher desk, sometimes turning to WRITE THINGS ON THE BOARD...God, I have no idea how I ended up here! This was definitely never in my 'possibilities' list. A teacher? Granted, just the "assistant," etc., but it feels so real...I have my own classroom, the students come down to see me and sit in little rows at their desks, and my little chair and desk is all slightly elevated in the front of the room...and I WRITE THINGS ON THE BOARD. Have I mentioned I write things on the board? Most of them don't give a shit and don't actually copy anything down, but I do it anyway b/c it helps clarify what the hell I'm saying--pronouncing something and seeing it written are two very different things...I say a phrase, they stare blankly, I make fun of them, then I write it on the board and they're like 'OOOOHH oui oui'...and then they translate it into french for their fellow students who still don't get it.

Most of the kids are pretty cool...they're just totally bored with school and don't want to be there in the first place. They asked me how I felt about high school and I said I was miserable. They asked me why and I said "just because...it's how you're SUPPOSED to be as a teenager!" And then they say, "so it's not like High School Musical?" and I groan and make extremely exaggerated motions of vomiting and say 'NON! Only losers like high school! Whatchoo tryin' to say, you like singing and dancing in class? You wanna sing a song for me right now? That's right, get up and sing me a song! American Music Only, capiche?! You back there staring off into space...that's right, YOU. You bored? In MY CLASS?! Maybe you like to do a little dance, eh? Well then get your butt outta that seat and let the class see what ya got!' Which they don't really understand but they laugh their little French laughs at the theatrics behind the message.

Yes, I'm desperate...I don't want them to hate English classes and b/c I'm so unprepared for teaching I just make loud noises and hope they don't notice I'm not actually saying anything important.

These first few weeks I'm mostly introducing myself, teaching a specific lesson here and there, yada yada yada. Sometimes I get caught off guard with how good (or how awful) the students' english is, and if I just simply can't squeeze any more discussion out of a single cartoon image or text paragraph, I'll just throw down the paper, say "enough of this crap! What are you doing for vacation? Wanna see some pictures of me drinking?" Then I do my goofy dance and make weird noises, and call out the two boys chatting in French to each other and completely ignoring what's going on in the lesson and totally make fun of them in front of everyone...The kids laugh a bit, then start laughing harder, like they didn't expect anything to be funny about English, and what the hell is this crazy American doing up there anyway.

I was meeting one of my classes for the first time the other day...the teacher was still in the room and made them ask me pre-prepared questions so she could take notes on what I said and make an English lesson out of it. One of the students raises his smarmy little hand and goes, "My frien' say you like to drink beaucoup," and after furtively glancing at the remarkably reserved and uptight teacher scribbling notes on the board I realized, HELLO I'M IN FRANCE nobody cares if you drink, and so I doubled over laughing, which made everyone else laugh b/c seriously, who laughs that hard in France, and was like, 'yar, you guys make pretty good wine over here.' And then I laughed really hard at my own sarcasm, b/c I thought it was effing hysterical, and the students kept giggling and looking over at each other trying to figure out if anyone had figured me out, which of course, no one has and no one ever will, but still, it's funny to watch them try.

Now it's obviously not all fun and games...I've had a fairly relaxed, surfer-dude-attitude first month, but from now on I can't fly so much by the seat of my pants, I actually have to engage them with activities instead of flailing in the waters of my inexperience and randomly pulling out pictures of my Parisian New Year's with Ageless or my ACL purple margaritas with Hoonie and Simms. They've all now heard the funny stories of me being a jackass, and now I need to figure out how to have some fun but still teach them something useful. My brain is having a hard time engaging, though...when I think about trying to organize a potential lesson I get all foggy and vaguely wave my mental hand in the air as if to say, 'tomorrow is another day, I'll figure out something later.' It is apparent that I must take early retirement. Like next year.

kK

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Reason to laugh #624-it takes the French 3 hours to buy soup and toothpaste


**N.B.: I sent this out as a mass email a while back, and decided it would serve just as well as a blog entry. I'm sure you'll agree.**

So first off—I had a very cynical, bitter New York friend who lived in Paris for a year and hated it. He never tried learning French, didn’t like wine b/c it wasn’t as manly as beer, made friends of mostly the ex-pat persuasion…well you can probably see where this is going. Anyway, when I got to Paris he was excited to share with me his “reason # [whatever] to hate the French” list with me. I was having none of it and changed it to “reason # [whatever] to laugh [insert annoying French habit here].” Yes, it took me over an hour of standing in line to buy 6 grocery items (and that was in the fast lane…) with less than 10 people in front of me, but hey, it’s funny! Most of these reasons aren’t actually super amusant, but if you don’t laugh you just go insane, is what I always say.


**kK Tangent 2,000,206** 
I’m pretty sure Dr. Bob Kelso is doing his own French voice over. I could be wrong…it’s almost 2 am and I’ve just spent about 4 hours trying to converse en francais at a surprise dinner party at Squash's house. Yes, I have NO internet connection but I DO have several free channels of awesomely awful French tv. Every so often I get lucky and catch a dubbed version of True Lies or Rambo 800,001, but most of the time I get stuck with reruns of Bones or NCIS (heh heh stuck, dude, those shows are AWESOME) and now, as you can see, I’m stumbled upon a Scrubs marathon. Apparently the French can’t think up good crap shows on their own so they dub over ours and pass them off as their main selections. You should see what the fuck they actually DO produce and pass for on-air-ing…my favorite was the one about a girl in a dance troupe who was having an affair with her dance instructor and…*drumroll* someone was trying to KILL HER. I didn’t actually stick around to see if they did her in or not…I was distracted by the fanfrickintastic French MUSIC videos on the next channel over. OMG YOU MUST check out L’Assassaphonie from Mozart L’Opera Rock. It’s gotta be on YouTube somewhere. Maybe I’ll find the link myself and send it to you, if you’re really good little boys and girls. Anyway, back to my original tangent—Bob’s French voice sounds an awful lot like his English voice. I’m just sayin’.
**possible end of kK Tangent 2,000,206**


So I’ve moved into my teeny-ass apartment…when I say teeny, I mean I have to put the bed back in couch position in order to move around the room. And yes, there’s only one room, although I guess the bathroom could count as a separate room since it has a door (which I can’t close when I’m sitting on the toilet…I know, TMI, but I’m just sayin’…) but we’re just stickin’ with the one-room cabin image here. In the mornings I like to squeeze out onto my petit balcon and sip on my hot instant coffee and sneak in bites of my croissant buerre (if you don’t specify ‘buerre’ you get some crap waxy substance masquerading as croissant) as the fat ass pigeons swoop over to the roof of my building and schloop their heads over to stare at me in a very disturbing “Birds” rendition as they wait for me to share my breakfast. Fuck you, fat ass pigeons.


Anyway, so location: I can walk 10 minutes to the Eiffel Tower, 15 to Musee D’Orsay. I hear more English than I do French around here, but luckily I have the aforementioned tv with lots of French-speaking crazies chatting or dubbing or singing, whatever. And my friend Stephanie has two French roommates, and I get to try practicing with them. I’m paying in rent more than I actually make (bye bye, savings in pitiful dollars…) but I’ve posted for English lessons so hopefully I get a few 15 Euro-an-hour-paying clients soon. Plus we supposedly get reimbursed for part of our monthly metro pass, and I am hoping and praying the French government agrees I made such a pittance in 2007 (200-friggin-7?? Why do they need to know my salary in 2007!) that they’ll help me pay some of my rent. Who the fuck knows, but it doesn’t hurt to ask I guess. So much paper work it makes my eyes cross.


Did I mention it’s on the 5th floor…sans elevator? Yup, my calves are going to be auditioning for calf-modeling by the end of this school year, you just wait and see.


OK, school: I’ve only had one week of observation and training so far, and haven’t actually taught my own class yet. That starts next week. I’m already shakin’ in my boots. Actually, I think some of it will be really awesome…a couple of classes are really well behaved AND like to try their hand at speaking English, so WHEW. Other classes are like der…no words at all, English or French. Hmmm, that should be interesting…I mean, they didn’t even laugh at my goofy dance! Whatevs. I’ll break ‘em. I don’t really know how all this is going to go…I’ve never seen myself doing the teaching thing (you all know how much I heart me some kiddies…) but since it’s what got me to france I’m gonna give it a chance.


Never mind, Kelso’s voice is done by a frenchie. Damn, I was really impressed for like two seconds.


Heart you all…I’ll write more soon. Tomorrow I’m going to a store to try and order internet installation…If I can get a good price and agree to their service terms, THEN they will start the paperwork for the technician to come FIFTEEN DAYS LATER. MuthaFU---


heart,
KK
OK I decided to do the work for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9XtyuUlV0c
ENJOY!!! I know I do... heh heh

Introduction: Paris

So here I am, yet another American in Paris.

And here I am, yet another newbie blogger who thinks she has sooooo many important things to say that people will take time out of their days just to check and see if I've posted anything new.

heh heh

But yar, anyway, since my handwriting totally sucks and even the act of writing cramps up my hand so f* it, I'm starting a blog.

So I don't know who started the whole 'giving everyone nicknames' thing, but I totally love it and I'm going to continue tradition. Or maybe it's actually a law and people could sue me if I used their real names. Really? My friends sue me? Well now, they really wouldn't be much of a friend now, eh? And other people I gossip about here I won't care enough about to even tell them about this little diary. My nicknames will be mostly pretty obvious to those who actually know me, but some of you have such good ones I can't give them up and try to come up with something else. Whatevs, no be suings me.
(heh heh, no worries McMolo, I won't do lol-speak all the time!)

As far as further introduction goes, and introductions are usually way too boring so I'll keep this basic and short: I started my French obsession in 8th grade, when I met a tall, greasy, thin hottie homme from France, the exchange student at the local college where I was taking classes and playing in an orchestra. I still have no idea how we met, or how I got set up with one of his friends, an American student studying French at said college, for private lessons. But however it happened, it was fabulous: the girl taught me my basics and then some, most of which (even the more advanced turns of phrases and grammatical rules) I still remember to this day when I scramble to understand the rapid-fire flow of words coming from real-life French people.

High school and most of college passed in a bit of a blur...yes of course I learned lots of good French in all my classes but it's just not the same as actually trying out your skills with native speakers in the native land. So I hopped a plane to Aix-en-Provence, where I stayed for a semester and despite all my efforts to the contrary (hey, I was shy and only hung around fellow Americans from school, plus I didn't have TV, which I'm convinced is the KEY to learning a foreign language. LOL), managed to learn how to do a bit of speaking and lots of listening.

Years pass...
Enter Ageless, life in ruins and ready to run from the mess and head to gai Paris for New Year's 2009. Would I come and keep her company? Um, does the pope have wings? No, but I still hesitated not even point-two seconds before I shouted YES, not even really letting Ageless finish her sentence. Maybe she was going to say 'would you come over and water my plants while I'm gone' but she was stuck with me from then on. Pass two of the best weeks in the history of passing weeks in one of the greatest cities of the world, and then I was left wondering why the hell I wasn't actually living here. Went back to New York, to my own miserable hell-hole (mostly involving certain people at work), and began wondering idly (if obsessedly) about how I would move to Paris, IF I actually could...

One English Assistant application later (with help--ok they did it all--from fellow winos Killer, The PEK, and Funky Buddha), I waited anxiously for the results: would I be accepted, and if so, would I even go...maybe I could just stick it out at work, ignore the two devils making my life hell, and move up the publishing ladder...

The acceptance came, and I quietly sat in front of my computer, reading and re-reading the congratulatory email, going from completely frozen calm to hot and then cold and then I started tingling from the inside out...omg this is possible...omg I could leave behind this unhappiness for gai Paris...omg it doesn't pay very much, I'd have to find a second job...omg it's so expensive to move...omg am I crazy...omg I want to go...

You get the idea.

I knew all along I was going to go, but that didn't stop me from having serious doubts periodically throughout the process of "deciding." I went through the whole gamut: was I crazy? (well, duh.) Was this just another dash-out away from my real life I was so unhappy with? (erm, yes. I tend to up and leave about every two years.) Would it be worth it? (um....how is that even a question!) What the hell was I DOING with my life!!! (sorry, still can't answer that one...)

But then the plane ticket was purchased, my stuff was packed, I actually had my visa pasted into my passport, I had tried to un-tearfully say goodbye to the people I love best, then I was being driven to the airport, then I was boarding the plane, then I was walking through customs...my god, I was in Paris! Here I am, it feels "right," like all I've done up until this point in my life has been to lead me here. And I know how that sounds, (super fucking cheesy, is how it sounds) and I'm always so paranoid about jinxing things but I'm not afraid of that anymore...It's ok to say when things are good. And it's ok to say when things are bad...it's just ok.

Well, to make a short story long...heh heh.

--KK