Many things have happened.
I think I realized that my life, while not wholly unpleasant, is not complete without people I can socialize with. Additionally, I realized it's hard to socialize if you don't speak to anyone, and that it's hard to speak to anyone if you're constantly afraid of their judging you for something or other.
I've had a pretty promising, seeming-upswing the last several days. First, I went to the birthday party of a guy I met a few weeks ago, and had a lot of fun talking to and hanging out with him and his friends. I met him for a Coke the next day and had a good conversation, and when I wandered leisurely back to my house I came across a fair, which is where the ferris wheel photo comes from. I like it because I took it with my cell phone. Despite my lens having been repaired, I didn't think I'd come across such cool things when I left the house on this particular journey, so you are just going to have to wait for good photos of these things.
After the fair, I found Jardin Publique, which did wonders for lightening my mood. I got to walk on grass and under trees. There were ducks, and several kinds of beetle and a centipede. And there were birds that were not pigeons, and a couple of butterflies. I don't think I realized until I was there how much I missed seeing living things around me. The trees were mostly changing colors, and that was another thing I'd missed.
The passage of time is so awkward here, I think, both because the weather functions differently and because I have so much more free time on my hands. I have four-day weekends in which, a lot of the time, I don't leave the house until it's dark outside. Sometimes my schedule flips and I'm sort of nocturnal. I think this is largely influenced by my internet habits. Since I'm talking to people who live in the US during their afternoons, I end up going to bed later and later.
This week I decided to put more effort into talking to the people around me in classes or in general. I met two British guys in one of my linguistics classes that I've since run into a couple of times, and several Californians in class and on the tram. The French kids in my Italian class are largely very friendly, so that's been nice. Tonight, there's a party at Café des Sports hosted by BABAOC that we're going to go to. Hopefully it'll be fun. I think most of the people there will be foreign like us.
As a bonus, my copy of the new Wheel of Time book arrived in the mail today. I haven't started it yet, and I'm kind of afraid of the disappointment it's sure to bring me. However, just the ritual of buying the new Wheel of Time book and setting aside the time to read it is a rather familiar exercise by now, and kind of comforting.
This post may have sounded kind of melancholy, but really I'm feeling pretty optimistic today.
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