Weekend Marathon Post

So, everyone remembers the whiny French girl who thought it unfair that the Americans wouldn’t have the chance to give their speech in my Shakespeare class, right? Well, she must have been complaining non-stop all week since my professor made the announcement this morning that he arranged for a temporary professor to head the class next week so that we will all have the opportunity to give our exposé. Wow, I hope Mary Contrary is happy now. She sacrificed a bona fide cancelled class just so the American girls would have to read their essays to the class rather than just submit them. Because, you know, we should have every opportunity to practice our theatrical English accents, right? Smart move. Personally, I wouldn’t care either way except now I have to wake up early on a Friday unnecessarily. And for that, blood will be shed.

The guy who gave his exposé today was really cute and had a melanged British/French accent. Oh, totally swoon. Eeek.

I decided to go wild-n-crazy for dinner tonight and whipped out one of the frozen burgers and cooked it. I know, I know – where did I get all of this culinary wisdom? Instincts, baby. The only unhappiness was that the burgers were sold in packs of ten and the buns in packs of six. I suppose this means I’ll be doubling up on the meat patties on the last couple. I have the feeling that these burgers are extraordinarily bad for me, though. What is the typical fat content of a burger? These hot mommas are at 15%. It kind of soaked through the bottom bun and made it soggy.

I went even further in my culinary derring-do and put fries in the oven. Not so hard, you say? Well, these fries weren’t supposed to be baked! Oh, yeah! Rebel in the kitchen, I am. What fries can’t be put in the oven? I read all over the package of fries, from Spanish to Italian to freaking Greek and there was only instructions for a pan or a deep-fryer. Too bad I didn’t have one of those lying around. So I didn’t know how hot to set the knob, or how long to leave it in. Good thing I am an expert guesser. The fries tasted fine. I should have had them ‘American-style’ on my burger, but I’ll leave that for the French. I did chop up a mushroom and cook it along with the greasy burger and have it on the side.

I spent literally two hours this afternoon finishing up an essay that had the lamest prompt ever: “Do you think that the civilized people are more ‘evolved’ than those closer to nature? Explain using the dialectic formation”. Ugh ugh ugh. My essay was such a stylized piece of poo that I shall be forced to translate it and post a link once I get it back.

Professor Vuillemin, from Penn State, popped by Montpellier I suppose on a whim to check out our formidable literature classes. Hello, Professor! I had him twice last year, both times very favorable experiences. The first was for that most boring course imaginable, “French Literature from the Middle Ages to 1590”. However, J.-C. V made the impossible possible and I didn’t even want to gouge my eyes out during lectures. I decided that if he could work that magic with medieval literature, what wonders could he produce with normal books? The next semester I didn’t even look to see what he was teaching, I just signed up for it. It turned out to be a lovely French Theater class which I enjoyed quite a lot. I asked him if he’ll be teaching in the fall and got kind of an ambiguous answer about how he’s going to be teaching a graduate class, but perhaps he could make an exception for undergraduates, or some such talk. Whatever. He could be teaching a course on the finer points of basket-weaving and I’d still get there early.

In good employment news (as in, the news was good, not the employment), I talked to the human relations lady from the Shenendoah National Park and was formally offered a job to work as a hostess in the Sky Park restaurant. That job description makes me sound like a flight attendant. That’s my fallback plan right now, in case babysitting a bunch of spazzy adolescent sports campers doesn’t work out.

In more Alaina, Please Stop Talking About Your Groceries news, I am very excited to present an update to my tasty Muesli situation. You see, I went to Leader Price on Wednesday before going to ED, but tragically I forgot to pick up my weekly box of 1.99 euro cereal. I realized this halfway to ED but bravely carried on, vowing that the next week I would pick up two boxes of cereal. Anyway, I was strolling through the ED aisles and thought, well what if they have crunchy chocolate muesli too? And they did! But, alas, it was 2.39 euros, at a 40 centime markup. Oh ED, what happened to your deals? However! As I grabbed the box (believe me, this cereal is practically worth its weight in gold) I noticed that it seemed a little heavier than normal. You know why? Because it was 750 grams worth of muesli, as opposed to the typical 500 gram boxes. Joy! Glee! So now, instead of paying .00398 centimes per gram, I am paying .00318666 repeating. It would have been cool if it was .00pi, but you can’t have it all. But wait! What if this new, strange, wondrous cereal tasted like crap? Believe me, I had that same fear. Don’t worry; it was great. Now it may last me more than three days. Maybe.

I bought the funkiest carry-case the other day at the Euro store. It has a storyboard of sorts on it, featuring a wannabe Little Mister character named Naughty Boy. Here goes…

1. Naughty Boy likes very much to play a tricky. Today too! He is going to be naughty and looks so cheerfully!?

2. He found a big box on his wondering. Well! What’s that big box…? Under the tree!

3. He is imaged what is inside? Looked into inside of a box…? Nothing!! Empty!! It was empty box.

4. Naughty Boy reminded in his mind to be a naughty. How do I play a tricky? Well!! Let me hide inside of box”

5. My friend “Funny Boy” will be passing by the box soon…!? Then, surely he will be found a box and …!?

6. (WA!) Jumping up and make him surprise” when he peep into a box come on hurry” I’m waiting for you”

7. After a while, Funny Boy was coming and found a box under the tree why!? What’s this box! Big box?

8. (Zzz) Funny Boy looked into box and found his sleeping face!! It’s Naughty Boy’s lovely sleeping face!!

The end. Charming tale. I wish they could have continued it on the inside.

Oh! Chinois.