Like a mouse in a cage

Running the race like a mouse in a cage
Getting nowhere but I'm trying,
Forging ahead
But I'm stuck in the bed that I made
So I'm lying

But if you keep real close
Yeah, you stay real close
I will reach you
I'm down to a whisper
In a daydream on a hill
Shut down to a whisper
Can you hear me still?

Eager to please,
Trying to be what they need
But I'm so very tired
I've stopped trying to find any peace in my mind
Because it tangles the wires

But if you keep real close
Yeah, you stay real close
I will reach you
I'm down to a whisper
In a daydream on a hill
Shut down to a whisper
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me still?

The sound tires on my lips
To fade away into forgetting
I'm down to a whisper
In a daydream on a hill
Shut down to a whisper
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?

I'm down to a whisper
In a daydream on a hill
Shut down to a whisper
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me still?

Cemetery Observations

If someone were to put a picture on my grave, what would it be? Would it be a notebook, a song, something in French? Would it be me? Would I look happy? Would people walk by my resting place—twenty, fifty, a hundred years later—and say, “She looked like a good person.”?

Walking through this cemetery, looking at all the forgotten faces, I wonder what kind of person I’ll turn out to be. All of these people had wondered the same thing at one time or another, and some of them never got the chance to know the answer.

I wonder what kind of flowers people will lay at their feet for me. Roses?—no, not roses, that’s too formal. Lilies, maybe, because they’re bright and happy. But I’m not bright and happy. Am I? Is there a flower that describes, personifies me? I have no idea.

What will people say about me? What will be written in the stone? “Always in our hearts,” “Our thoughts fly to heaven with you,” or something even more emotional? Or something like “You will be missed,” which seems to be the equivalent to “Have a nice summer,” written in a high school yearbook?

Will people remember me? As I walk through the rows of the dead, I know at least some of these people have no one left. No one is alive to remember them—their families have died off or moved on. They’re alone now, and I find the thought horribly depressing. Obviously, logically, I realize they’re in the ground, six feet under, dead…however you want to put it. But I see some of these graves that have been completely abandoned, or even vandalized, and I want to do something. I find myself wishing I had some flowers to lay, some memory of them, or at least something to say. Instead, all I can do is look at their faces and wonder.

My mind shoots off a thousand questions at once: When was this picture taken? Was he a nice person? Did he live a fulfilling life? How did he die?

From those questions comes the inevitable pondering about my own life. When will my picture be taken? Am I a nice person? Am I leading a fulfilling life? And of course, the morbid fascination of the human race: How, and when, will I die?

I don’t have any of these answers, and I probably never will. I’m okay with that. When my time comes, when I go, I want to be thinking about today, not five years ahead or five years ago. I want to live for now; that way, the last page of my life will be full. I won’t be waiting, idly filling my time. I’ll be filling the page with experiences, people, love. That way the end will never come too early. If every page of my life is full, the time will be just right. I’ll regret nothing, and I’ll be ready. Scared, yes, of course, but ready.

It’ll be time for another big adventure.

classes

So...I got the classes I wanted, even though it's kinda gonna suck, because I'm getting two sciences out of the way, boo hiss.

I'm doing:

FR 429 (when I get blue-slipped in)
ANTH 101
Sign Language II
P SC (color, light and sound)

So those two sciences are gonna kick my ass, but yeah. I'm excited about the sign language II, because I really want to continue with that. I'm okay with my schedule. I don't start until noon, and I'm definitely good with that. I was gonna take the Women and Writing with Rachel, but my sign language was during that time, and I'm way more interested in sign language. I'll just have to take my ENGJ class some other quarter.

a bientot!

me

Your name was written in the sand of the French Riviera

Yay! The title pretty much says it all...I just wanted to send a hello!

idem

I'll be a real writer some day!

So I love my parents. Not just because they're cool and nice, and blah blah blah, but because they support me. Finacially, yes, but otherwise as well. There's this Writer's Conference in New York in July, at the Hyatt Hotel. In New York.

A Writer's Conference. Like, for writers. To pitch their stuff to agents. To find an agent, to find a publisher. To become a "real" writer. Oh. My. God.

My dad's going with me, and he's paying for it. I'm ecstatic. I might actually get out there, get my stuff out there, get someone to read it. I can't believe it.

I'm not expecting anything, but it's a definite step forward. I'm going to a writer's conference, ThrillerFest, in New York. Friggin' New York. Whoa.

Just wanted to update y'all!

a bientot!

me

That does me good

Talked to both Alan and Rachel today, and my day got like a million times better.

It does my heart good, as Maw-Maw would say. =)

see my parents tomorrow! woo, it's a good week!!!!

"Shades of Grey" = FINISHED!

So i finally finished book #7, "Shades of Grey." (Technically I guess it's book #6, because I never finished the one before this one, haha) It's the one based on the hit-man from the short story "December," for those of you who have read that. It's strange...I'm happy but very sad at the same time, but even moreso with this book than with the others. With the others I was kind of ready to be done, but with this one, I like the characters so much, I really love Harper (the hero/anti-hero) and I love the secondaries, and I love the plots, and I'm kind of...I don't know, not ready to be done with them! I don't want to do a follow-up, but...I don't know. I don't want to be done with Harper just yet. I probably am, but I don't know. I don't wanna be!

On another note, my parents get here in TWO DAYS!! Wow. Craziness. Okay, I'll be back on later to Skype some of you guys.

Bootylicious...Oxford American, baby!

Don't worry about the title...just don't worry about it. =)

I'm just updating everyone one what's going on in France.

I was a little sick for a couple of days, but it's getting better. I'm a lot better today because i'm talking to Rachel, and it's so nice. I was really kind of homesick for the last couple days, so it's really nice to talk to Rachel, because here are a couple extracts from our webcammed skype conversation:

extract one:
me: "Why are you dancing?"
Rachel: "I'm dancing to bootylicious!" (murmurs) "Body's too bootylicious for ya babe...(pause) That's all I know. Wait, isn't there a part that's like, 'I don't think you're ready for this...jelly?' Is that it?"
me, laughing, all the French people thinking I'm crazy: "Yeah. That's it."

extract two:
me: "Don't worry, people can't see you."
Rachel: "It's good that people can't see me. 'Cause I'm in my underwear!"
me: "Well, don't worry, because I can't see your under...see, I can't say things like that in public to my computer, people will think I'm crazy!"
Rachel, laughing: "You should just start saying things like crotch, and boobs, and underwear. Do you think they'd understand?"
me: "They'd probably understand those words, yeah."

extract three:
me, talking about my Lit prof: "He wears a neckerchief, Rachel!"
Rachel: "A neckerchief? Like, an ascot?"
me: "Like an astronaut? What? Why?"
Rachel: "No. An ascot. A-S-C-O-T."
me: "What's that?"
Rachel: "Did you ever watch Scooby Doo?"
me: "No. I hate that show. What the hell does that have to do with neckerchiefs?"
Rachel: "Oh. Well, you're lame. Fred wore an ascot. That was my point."

So, in conclusion, it was a good day.

One Week!

My parents get here in one week...from today...I'm freaking out!

I can't wait to see them, it's gunna be so cool. I get to show them around, show off my French =), and introduce them to my awesome-amazingly-cool host mom.

I don't feel good today, but I can't help being excited. I haven't been sleeping well, but how's that different from normal? haha.

I don't know, just wanted to say...yay! Parents coming!

Update

Okay, I'm over it. I'm not happy with it, but I'm way better now. I realized that I was being emo, but i think it was mostly because I slept roughly three hours last night. My insomnia is rearing it's ugly head, and it's making me kind of a bitch during the day.

My apologies to anyone I was emo with (namely, Rachel). I'm better now. I'm gunna try and go nap, to get rid of this stupid insomnia-induced depression.

love y'all, ttyl

Frustration

Today was one of those days that talking to home did nothing to help my mood.

Trying to convince someone to meet you at the airport is harder than you'd think. Especially when it's really important to you, and obviously not at all important for her. I understand that it's not important, but...i don't know. Three months seems like an awfully long time, and i guess one more week won't make any difference, but it does to me. It will to me. Phone's not the same, skype's not the same. My parents have to be there--to pick me up, to see me--but i want someone there who chooses to be there, who wants to be there. But I don't know if that's going to happen or not.

I'm already homesick today...today is not a good day for this. I'm just gonna stop obsessing over it.

I guess I'll be on again tomorrow.

What?!?

Okay, Rachel called this one--

watched Bones, freaked out. Completely.

Booth can't be dead!

For those of you who don't know what that means, forget about it. And I know for a fact that Booth isn't dead, but wow. I about had a heart attack.

I thought when I saw Rachel's blog that it would be a good thing that I would freak out about, but nooooooo...someone had to get shot. Of course.

Nice update

Okay, so just wanted to update y'all a little bit about what's going on in Nice. I love Nice. It's really pretty, and we met up with Justin (a guy from our program who was also in Nice this weekend) to have dinner and walk around last night. So that was really nice.

Yesterday during the day Grace and I walked around some, went to this huge mall (i spent nothing, be proud!) and to the Virgin Superstore (...it's all music and books. No comment). We spend almost an hour in the Virgin Superstore, and we both spent some money on some French music. I checked my receipt afterwards (because my parents always do it, and I just picked up on the habit), and it turns out that they overcharged me by €12 on a book a bought. So i'm going to go back today and say, 'excusez-moi, madame, je l'ai achete hier apres-midi, et le livre est €12. Vous m'avez charger...' blah blah blah. So yeah. That should be interesting. We'll see if my French is good enough to get me a refund. I mean, i still want the book, so technicially it won't be a refund, but a...partial refund? I don't know, they overcharged me, so what's it called when I get my money back? Dunno, another thing to ponder...

Today we're going to go to the beach again, but I don't know if I'll be able to get in. It's kind of windy today, and I'm guessing the water's gunna be uber-cold. I'm glad I went in when i did, because now i can officially say I've swam in the Riviera without freezing my buttocks off. (I almost said a** but i know Maw-Maw reads the blog now, so I'm trying to be more careful) =)

Then we're going to go to the Virgin Superstore to get my money back, then I don't know what we're going to do. We're here until tomorrow at 14h30, so it's pretty great. We can just take our time doing what we want.

Like i said, it's like a vacation from a vacation.

okay, I'm gunna go now. I'll skype some of you on Tuesday!

143 me

Nice

So....i love Nice. So much.

I'm so glad we (Grace and I) decided to come to Nice instead of Paris. In Paris i would feel like i'd have to be doing things every second, seeing all the sights and so on. But in Nice i don't feel guilty at all just lying on the beach and staring at the ocean.

Which, by the way, i did for almost three hours today. I'm already sunburned and it's fantastic.

Tomorrow we're going shopping to give my sunburn a day to chill off (haha, i'm so funny), and then we're back to beach and chilling out on Saturday.

This is like a vacation from a vacation. We're living in France, which is already like a vacation (despite the classes), and now we're on the French Riveria. Wow.

Just wanted to update all of you, and tell y'all that i got to Nice safe and sound. I'll be here until Sunday.

**Oh! To Rachel--I almost forgot to put this on here. I won't be able to skype you on Monday because we don't have classes. I told you Monday when I talked to you last, but I wasn't thinking about classes. So i'll definitely be able to skype you on Tuesday, hopefully more toward four than six. But lemme know if you'll be around!

so, i'll talk to y'all later!

143 me

Scheduling

This is stressful.

Trying to pick classes is usually stressful, but picking them when you only have the internet for so long is crazy stressful. I picked out a schedule i relatively like, but it's 21 hours, so it looks like i'm gunna end up dropping something. I don't know, i might schedule all of them and then drop the one i like the least.

I'm taking "20th Century French Literature," which is FR 529. Isn't that crazy? I'll be a junior in college and I'll be taking a graduate french class. craziness.

Okay, I'll be on later (5-ish my time, 11-ish yours), and I'll be skyping and IM-ing!

ttyl