The new Broken Social Scene album is out, and, well, wow. I sometimes absolutely love pop music. They're on the same label, Arts & Crafts, which has done work with Stars, Feist, The Most Serene Republic, and Amy Millan, so it's no surprise that this album is so magical. I love when bands from when I was younger let out new CDs that don't disappoint.
My folk visit was really, really lovely. [There are photos up on my facebook, but apparently you have to be logged in to see them.] We made it to the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, the Rodin museum, Centre Pompidou, Versailles, Notre Dame de Paris, saw the grands magasins, la Tour Eiffel, ate plenty of bread and cheese, and walked, walked, walked a ton. The one time we decided to take a taxi, it was a total failure. We waited at a taxi stand for more than half an hour, then finally decided to hoof it. We managed to hail a cab while we were walking, which was more or less a Sunday morning miracle.
I've been back in Poitiers for a few days now. I ended up not going to Norway, partly for financial reasons, partly for academic reasons, and partly for personal reasons. Next weekend [23-25 April!] we're going to the Dordogne to explore caves and see what all there is to see out there, which is going to be lovely, but exhausting. I know that seeing Daniel would have done me a world of good, but there were too many factors involved that made it difficult for me to leave France.
I still don't have a ticket home [typical]. There are some really reasonable tickets from Copenhagen to Seattle anytime until 16 June, and the train down to Salem is always $30, it seems. However, Monster's graduation is 10 June, and it would be nice to be there for that, but would be cutting it down to 2 weeks of travel in France, a week in Denmark, then straight home. Honestly, there's a lot about graduation time festivities that I wouldn't mind missing out on this year. But, on the other hand, if I am home that early, I could take a couple of [easier] classes at Chemeketa, to finish up requirements and leave myself more time next year to work on things like a thesis and post-graduation plans.
After a lot of talking with Cat, my trusty... well, sort of like my exterior conscience?... I've realized that it's going to be better for me to spend the summer in Oregon. There are a ton of people I miss, and little daily things that I am looking forward to being able to do, like pick blackberries and drink bad, warm beer [okay, okay, never done that legally in the states, but...], and ride my bike and drink American-style coffee. I may miss my bike more than I miss anything or anyone else; the freedom of mobility that comes with it, the complete self-reliance. Also, Stefanie has talked about all "the girls" spending a week together in Eugene. Oh, how I miss those women.
Okay. Time to get over to the library and force myself to work on this paper some more. My brain is so tired of French; I can see myself being able to write out a real philosophy paper in English right now, but it feels like such a stretch to do such synthetic work right now. So many layers of thought that I've been away from for far too long. It's like my brain is getting all mushy from being overworked for so long. Just a few more weeks, though.
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