p a p e r d o l l

It’s been tumultuous. Classes started last week. Registration is still going on (last bit now though, thank goodness for that) and it’s a nightmare. You queue and queue in hot stuffy corridors with other students as confused as you and then deal with harrassed administrative people. Not pleasant. Pas du tout. Not at all.

Classes have been okay. I can understand, which surprises me all the time. I looked at my notes on the way home from school yesterday not because I wanted to revise but because I wanted to take in how I wrote fast and furiously IN FRENCH. I find it quite amazing.

I can only take 4 modules this semester, and I’m taking 6 next semester and there are two next semester I really want to take for which there are no more places. For now (I hope eventually I’ll have a place). I’m supposed to check back sometime between now and beginning of next year. With the harrassed administrative people. HAVE A WAITING LIST, ADMINISTRATIVE PEOPLE! Seriously. If I don’t get to take the two I really want to take, it’ll be tant pis. Too bad. (But I WANT I WANT I WANT! I NEED!)

Ok so I visited a vintage store called Mamie, as you have probably seen, or can see if you have not, on my flickr. I found it in a book called Paris Chic and Trendy. It was alright. There, I procured what I believe was the only beautiful and well-preserved piece in the store -a dark blue-purple bag made with fishing line. Very pleased. The shopowners were also friendly and we had a nice conversation. I won’t go back though. Overall, the prices were too high to pay for old bad-quality rags. I need to continue on my quest for a favourite vintage store.

Big event: I was sick! Throat infection hence high fever hence an insistent headache. It was awful. Having a fever in a cold place is the strangest feeling. Anyway, I needed to visit the doctor Saturday morning because I was in really bad shape by then, and the doctor in my town didn’t work on Saturdays. Well, actually, generally, French doctors don’t open their clinics on the weekends. SO! There was a dramatic what-should-we-do hullaballoo at my residence. It was finally decided that a friend would drive me to the hospital in the next town. And so we went. I was tearing from my sharp head pains by that time. Upon arrival, I thrusted all my papers at the receptionist and I was miraculously called in shortly. Inside (outside meaning waiting room), there were several consultation rooms. I was shown into one, where I sat on the bed, holding my head in my hands. A doctor came in to take my temperature, take my blood pressure, ask me what’s wrong, ask me about my allergies, type information into the computer in the room. And left. I waited on the bed for 15 minutes. All this time, I could see him shuffling in and out of an administrative-looking sort of room through the space where the curtain to my room wasn’t pulled across. I finally went to ask him, on his 8th shuffle out, what I was waiting for. I was waiting for my doctor to come see me. Fine. Waited for another 15 minutes. Female doctor comes in and does exactly what the previous male doctor does. Save for the blood pressure thing. And I couldn’t understand one thing she said and she raised her voice at me! Like I was deaf! Or an idiot! Thank goodness that was the only one sentence I couldn’t understand. Or my head would really have split from her raised voice. The best part of the whole ordeal? I didn’t have to pay! And there weren’t annoying forms to fill out at all. I’d anticipated too many forms to fill out and a big bill to foot at the end. I took my prescription when it was presented to me, scurried out to a pharmacy to purchase my medicine and drugged myself well over the next two days.

So I’m all recovered. In a warped way, I’m glad I was so sick and felt like shit. Now, in comparison, everything is nice and shiny. It was like the climax and the end (I hope) of a very trying time settling in and dealing with all the problems that Paris threw my way. I feel much better now in many ways. Settled, you know? Like okay this is what’s happening and it’ll all be okay.

I’m taking the night train to Italy tomorrow! A weekend in Menaggio, which is a town by Lake Como. Be back Monday morning.