p a p e r d o l l

I feel happier. And I know it’s because I’m developing a routine.

I’m attending classes where I write down a copious amount of words, I’m also learning from books, I’m going for my weekly gym (muscle-building, I kid you not) sessions, I’m eating lunch at student restaurants, where it’s reasonably priced and not ridiculously so like everywhere else. Basic university life stuff, you know. At the same time, I’m becoming familiar with how Paris works -the people, the trains, the weather. Between classes, I sit in cafes near school to do a bit of reading or letter-writing, sipping a cup of hot chocolate or coffee, savouring a piece of pastry. I’m soon going to vary that by sitting myself down in the many libraries too. Sometimes, I take a bus to a particular shop I’d read about in a guidebook. Once I’m done with that, if I have the time, I wander around the area. Going home on the RER train (I can take trains BALI, DEBA, DUBA, ELAC, ELBA), I plug in my ipod, hug my bag close to me and look at my fellow train-riders. As the train speeds away from central Paris, I watch them read, solve soduko puzzles (almost a national pastime here), talk on their handphones… it’s interesting to imagine what their lives are like. Other times, I look out of the window at the passing apartments, houses, rivers, fields, factories, cables, bad graffiti. (There are these two hugeass chimneys near the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand that produce smoke that form never-ending clouds in the sky. I really like them shiny cloud machines.) On occasion, I’m totally beat from my day and take a catnap.

In the early evenings, I usually make dinner. Nothing complicated. Just chopping up vegetables, marinating meat, boiling pasta, stirring soups, frying eggs… that sort of thing. It’s nice. After dinner, I go online to read and reply my emails, watch videos on youtube for a while (I’m now re-watching old Charmed episodes), research and make bookings for my upcoming trips within France and Europe. Occasionally, I’d chat with a few friends. Housemates would start coming back from school and work and random rambling conversations would be struck up in the corridors and somtimes continued in rooms. Finally, it’s a nice hot shower, blow-drying of the hair, major moisturizing, bed time.

I do my laundry. I wash the lightweight pieces by hand daily and hang them on the heater rack I smartly procured a few weeks back. About once every fortnight, I put my heavy pieces in the washing machine, one load lights and one load darks. Weekly, I vacuum my room. As and when I feel like it, I wipe surfaces clean with anti-bacterial all-natural liquid soap. I’ve put pretty things here and there… on the walls, on the mirror, on the bed, on the desk. They make the room my room. My room is neat as a pin, but squishedly so, since it’s so small. I like it. It’s cosy. There are a few (9: 2 big, 7 small) glow-in-the-dark stars concentrated on one bit of the ceiling and I like looking at them for a while before I close my eyes and drift off to sleep under my comfortable duvet.

In the morning, my handphone wakes me up. I listen to music (this week, it’s mostly Wild Horses performed by Alicia Keys and Adam Levine) from my laptop, dress up for the day, have breakfast at my desk and am out. I walk to the train station, hurriedly if I might miss the train and have to wait 20 minutes for the next one (I live in the suburbs and the RER trains LARA, SARA and VICK don’t come by as often as the trains in the metro network in central Paris do) and end up being late for class. Leisurely if it’s too cold (early morning) and walking too fast will make my face freeze, if I’m in good time, or if I simply don’t feel like hurrying.

Classes are alright. There are a surprising number of loners in both the cours magistraux (lectures) and travaux diriges (tutorials) and so I don’t feel strange at all being alone. It’s quite nice actually. Parisian students are apparently not very pally with one another. They go to school, they take notes diligently, they go home. That’s it. That’s the undergraduate education at the prestigious Sorbonne, it seems. You’d think students would have at least made a few friends by their third year. Of course, there are groups and pairs of friends, but the number of people disconnected from anyone else is quite remarkable. Maybe the complete absence of group projects has something to do with it. I’m making friends. Casual. I ask classmates questions because I don’t know a thing about how things work, I smile at whoever I’m sitting with and try to make small talk. There are of course other exchange students and they’re usually friendly. My impression of the Parisian university life will change, I’m sure. I’m constantly re-considering it. Oh! I’m the only Asian in all my classes, which amuses me somewhat.

There are always errands to be run. I go to the bank. I do my grocery shopping in supermarkets (Ed’s and Franprix are available in my town), I buy bread from one of the local boulangeries. I treat myself to fresh produce at the weekend markets in my town and several places else in central Paris. I like to take my time looking at the food and choosing what I want to buy. It’s fun.

My weekends, I love. If I’m not vacationing somewhere, or exploring Paris with a friend who’s visiting, I sleep in. When I wake up, I laze in bed for a while longer and see what I feel like doing for the day. It’s Paris after all. There’s always somewhere to go, something to do. A few of us from the Residence are going dancing tonight, and I’m looking forward to that. Of course, there’s the very nice weekly make-me-miss-home call to my family, where I talk to everyone and it’s almost like I’m right there in the living room at home. My ma and I email each other almost everyday though, so we still feel very involved in each other’s lives, which is great. The emails probably keep me sane. And then she passes on information to my pa and brother as well as from them to me. The very regular contact makes being away from home easier.

With the uncertainties out of the way, with most of the paperwork done, with plans made and to make, with a room perfect for down time, I’m now really enjoying myself. In a quiet sort of way. It’s very nice. I’m happy, in a nicely quiet sort of way, to be where I am.