"But don't you want to stay here and have fun with us?"
"No. I'm just sick of you guys!"

So the medication I take has about a million possible side effects, like they all do, but now that the strange jaw-trembling one is over with, I only get one: vivid dreaming. Or, more precisely, vivid nightmares. Last night's entry was a blast. I had a dream that I was sleeping (don't you hate those? How do you know when you're really awake?) and having an absolutely horrendous asthma attack. Odds are I actually was having one, since I'd gone to sleep coughing violently into my pillow. This is what experience does - I'm so good at asthma attacks I no longer bother waking up for them. At any rate, I woke in my dream completely unable breathe and barely able to talk. I woke up Mathieu (who was, apparently, in America and had a car) and asked him to drive me home so that I could get my inhaler. I told him I felt like I was going to die. So then he said something to the effect of: "Why did you wake me up? I don't want to drive anywhere. I'm going back to sleep." And I thought, well - who knew he'd let me die? This really sucks.

I never did wake up from loss of oxygen, but the dream went on and on, getting more elaborate as I tried to find a way to get home to my inhaler, until finally I realized it didn't matter anymore because the attack was passing. When I woke up I was hyper-conscious of how freaking amazing awesome air is. I mean really. Breathing is so damn wonderful. It's been more than 12 hours since I woke up and I'm still not quite over it. Breathe in, breathe out. Hot damn, that rocks.

Okay, your turn: what's the weirdest nightmare you've had lately?

[Janey]: Why is those roses in water?
[Me]: So they don't die. Roses need water to live. Everything needs water to live.
[Janey, five minutes later]: Why those flies are dead?
[Me]: Because they are.
[Janey]: Why?
[Me]: Because everything dies. Roses die. Flies die. Cats die.
[Janey]: Cats don't die!
[Me]: They do. Someday. Someday cats die.
[Janey]: But...why those flies is dead? Look - it's a dead mommy fly. She does her head like this [Janey makes dead fly-mommy face]. Why she's dead?
[Repeat conversation seven times]

We'll wait until she's older before we tell her that people die, too.

I won $27 at a casino yesterday, because I'm awesome.

(Okay so technically I lost $13. But even more technically, it wasn't my $40 to start with, so the $27 is pure profit.)

My mom came out 5 cents ahead, or $40.05, depending on whose math you use.

We won't talk about dad, and his $250 jackpot crazy luck.

And so casinos are fun. It was just exactly like Vegas except for the fact that besides the slot machines it was nothing at all like Vegas. But you know, the slot machines are the important thing...

Then I came home and had a five-hour coughing fit (the choking/convulsing/gasping-for-breath kind) until I drugged myself on cough syrup and went to sleep. This was because of the smoke. But a smoke-free casino? Would not work out.

My grandpa must have been turning over in his grave, what with his granddaughter gambling - and before turning 21, no less! We won't tell him about the atheist thing. Or the liberal thing. Or the Harry Potter thing. Especially the Harry Potter thing.

And one other note: if you want to have fucked up dreams, watch the American classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's fantabulously affecting.

Later, y'all.

So this repatriation thing is ridiculous. Do you know what repatriation is? That's okay, neither does anybody else, including the insurance agent who, to all appearances, was supposed to be the one supplying insurance for it. What it means is that if I die in France, I need repatriation insurance to get my remains shipped back. Because evidently getting cremated and tossed in the nearest Dumpster is not an acceptable option.

The problem is this: my insurance company doesn't offer repatriation insurance. My ISIC card does.

However.

The exchange program requires proof that I will be covered under this insurance during the entire duration of the program - August through July. ISIC cards are only valid one year at a time. That means I would have to renew my card in July. But the paperwork is due next week.

This is a problem.

And let me tell you what, if a two-month overlap that I would take care of time permitted anyway prevents me from going to France this summer I'm gonna buy a gun and shoot myself. Because yes, guns are much, much easier to come by than student visas.

[Friendly statutory rape guy]: Do you really believe that theory on your T-shirt?
[Me, sporting my most rockin' Darwin-fish shirt]: What...evolution? Yeah. And you? More of a creationist?
[FSR guy]: More of a...Christian-ist.
[Me]: Ah.
[FSR guy]: So what do you have to base your beliefs on?
[Me]: *blink*
[Me]: ...science.
[FSR guy]: Ah....science.
[Me, trying hard not giggle condescendingly]: Yep. So, you have a good day now.

I think I've got myself too insulated with progressive blogs and science publications. I tend to forget that I live in a state where frightening numbers of people sincerely believe that the world was created by supreme being some 5000 years ago who deliberately altered the carbon properties of the bones of creatures that never co-existed with man just to make it appear that the world is older than it is.

I mean, really.

But the T-shirt? Has totally justified its $20 price tag now.

...my voyage to France has become considerably sooner. My plane ticket now reads the 18th of August and I start my papers next week to get my student visa. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so that seems really, really soon. I have one day of classes left in the semester, and my next semester is in France. And the one after that. Now the only thing that worries me is how I'll survive eleven months without a kitty.

[Me, after leaving my pants on the floor too close to the shower] "It's a good thing I brought extra clothes. My other ones got soaked."
[Janey, with the ultimate well you dumbshit expression on her face] "But Darcy....why did you wear your jeans in the shower?"

The kid always asks good questions.

Oh and also: bonus pics to cheer you up.

Why do hotels deem it absolutely necessary to put a wall of mirror just across from the shower? Really. Not ever a good idea.

Finals approaching. Shoot me now, please. I've been writing in French for so long that I decided I'd better take a blog-break before I forget how to speak my native language. Oh, and if anyone needs a detailed summary of the last 63 pages of Jean de Florette...I have come to know them quite intimately.

Later, gators. That is if I survive this essay.

Quick and dirty update:

• Nephew the Oldest joined the Army. I have a NEPHEW in the goddamn ARMY. He signed up for six years and doesn't think he's going to Iraq. Huh.
• Nephew the 10th ran away from home. 45 minutes of driving and walking and searching and calling and he is safely recovered. For now.
• [Insert generic unending family problem of your choice.]
• [Repeat]
• [Repeat]
• [Repeat]
• I discovered that I am not as bouncy as Janey. I do not recommend kitchen-floor diving as a hobby. FYI.
• Insomnia.
• Bizarre, unending dreams during the nights in which I do fall asleep.
  
• Finals approaching like...like...like finals, yeah.
• One 10 pages paper due. One 20 page paper due. Both in French.
• 10,493 things (approximately) to do before I can get my visa to study in France. Cue panic.
• Taxes
• New job
• Unanticipated hormonal surges that cause me to cry at innocuous movies.
  
• 4,744 miles between me and the person I'd like to hug. Or 7,634 kilometers. Take your pick. The miles sound shorter.
  

And I've been avoiding my blog because I don't feel that I could do justice to the week I spent in France, and it would probably just be disappointing to try. Everyone involved knows how amazing it was because they were there, and everyone on this side of the ocean has seen all the pictures and heard me talk about it nonstop for week anyway.

So, moving on.

I'm back, I'm busy, I'm boring as ever.

And I'm increasingly less sure (or is it decreasing certain?) of exactly which side of the world I belong on.

Pendant le semestre entière je n'ai eu aucune des devoirs, ou presque. Jusqu'à ce weekend. Maintenant bien sûr il faut que je complète le dossier dans La Belle et a bête, écrire un thèse de Tous les matins du monde, écrire deux dissertations pour recevoir une bourse et plusieurs autres choses - la psychologie, la philosophie...et ce serait bien si je pourrais préparer pour mon voyage en France; je voudrais les vêtements propres, par exemple. Et j'oublie vite mon vocabulaire français et la grammaire et toujours une problème donc je voudrais vraiment étudier...et je travaille toujours pas seulement à la bibliothèque mais avec mon père aussi. Et tous ça sans du café.

Voici ma panique.

Note to Applebee's: I am not twelve years old. I am much closer to the age at which you could offer me the wine list than the children's menu.

Note to library guy: I am not a blonde. I do have highlights; I also have a name. And it is in no way related to my hair.

Note to ex-library guy: I am not currently available and/or inclined to date you. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Note to professor: I am not a cheater. I do not cheat. I have never cheated. I never will cheat. And I certainly do not pay $800 to take a class, enjoy the class, do more work than I'm required to do in the class JUST FOR FUN and then cheat on the homework. That is simply not logical.

Thank you. That would be all.

That's one exclamation mark for each remaining day before I leave for France. I need to make a packing list. I need to get euros.  I need to do my homework. I need to do laundry. I'm running out of time!

Oh and also I'm super excited. The waves of excitement hit me between the waves of caffeine-withdrawal headaches. (Yay! Ouch...) I'm going back to France! (Yay! Ouch...ouch...yay!)

Tourist time again.

I AM NOT A CHILD. I DO NOT REQUIRE CRAYONS. I WILL ORDER OFF THE BIG, GROWN-UP MENU.

That would be all. Thank you.

And to think I was planning on doing my logic homework, watching Boondock Saints and reading me some Richard Dawkins tonight. Too bad. Since I'm a woman with a small brain I guess I have to go home, read some chick lit, nurture a child and bake a cake instead. But I better get a cake mix. Doing it from scratch would require too much complicated math and spacial reasoning.

From some random German site:

Because I went dancing. I did! The part that surprised me was that I didn't die. Maybe eventually I'll stop being surprised by that and learn that embarrassment and awkwardness don't actually ever kill.

So I don't dance well. But I do dance. In public. With lots and lots of strangers and a wall of mirror.

Oh and also, it was fun.

Who wants to join me next week?