Virtually Home

I spent most of today reading my history textbook, trying to study for an exam that probably has very little to do with anything that the book has to say. We'll be given a text and asked to make a detailed outline of it, making a few points on no particular theme. This doesn't strike me as a very useful learning tool, and I'm kind of wondering what I'm going to say in the couple of hours we'll be given. Then I realized that studying won't really do much, since I'll be given a work to analyze, and Amy and I went looking for piercing jewelry on Rue Ste. Catherine. We got dinner at a Thai restaurant, whose tom kha gai was lacking a certain amount of flavorfulness but which was, at least, better than the utter void of Thai food I've been living in. We headed over to the fair so Amy could experience pineapple-flavored cotton candy. I had a crepe with Grand Marnier, because it sounded good and because I was incredulous at the idea. It turned out to be a pret...

Sometime after regaining consciousness and before opening my eyes this morning, I remembered (sort of gleefully) that I'd fallen asleep reading the Wheel of Time, and thought of sleepily carrying the book and a blanket downstairs to sit by the fireplace and read all morning. I thought probably if I sat there, someone would come build a fire on the hearth. Then I opened my eyes and realized I was both in France, and no longer 14 years old. Also, that the house is gone, and that particular morning will probably not happen again. It was really disorienting, but not altogether unpleasant. Friday afternoon. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with my Friday. The photo is of a cotton-candy setup at the fair from a few days ago. Here they call it "Barbe à Papa" -- "Papa's Beard". Those bins of different colored things are your flavor options. There are a lot more decisions to make than just "pink" or "blue", here. I think it...

I think the latest washing machine atrocity witnessed the bottom of my I-miss-everything-and-have-no-friends spiral. 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 hous...