As the relentless little bitch known as “being halfway done” gets closer and closer, threatening to beat me down with a blunt instrument (like emotion?) I have been forced to think about what I have learned and more importantly, what I have noticed.
If you smile and speak with an accent you can get almost anything you want.
If you want to perfect the look of death, spend a few months in Paris. You cannot go outside of your apartment without using the death glare at least once.
Bangs are the hot new now. Get thick blunt bangs immediately.
My mother knows me very well, she seems have to predicted almost everything that has come to pass in my brief time here. This means my mom is clairvoyant or I am extremely predictable.
French classrooms, or at least classrooms at Grandes Ecoles are deliberately uncomfortable. They force you in a plain room for two hours, with very few windows, insufferable heat, no Internet and hard wooden chairs that make your ass fall asleep after about ten minutes.
Do not say anything bad about Descartes, ever. If you do, prepare to be hated, stoned to death, or met with shock.
I have discovered the secret to a Parisian accent:
- One must use the word “mec” as often as possible. Sometimes just saying it for no reason.
- One must end practically every sentence with “quoi” and use it in the most accusatory manner as possible.
- One must mumble the vast majority of their words (except, of course, “mec” and “quoi”).
- “Je m’en fou” is perhaps the most common phrase among the Parisian youth. When you have nothing to say, just say, “je m’en fou” and you will fit in just fine.
- Bah must be said in an exasperated manner, even if there is nothing that is exasperating or annoying about the situation you are in.
I do not know if I can say enough how much I love Paris, but I am getting homesick. Studying at Science Po has made me even more fiercely American—no matter how much my International Relations professor likes saying what an awful country we are. I miss being funny and sarcastic and being thought of as intelligent when I speak, not as cute. I have worked very hard to create a life for myself in Paris, and as the finish of my trip starts becoming a little bit more of a reality I have to wonder to myself if that was a good idea. Though I know I will be leaving with a phenomenal experience under my belt, I also will be wrecked. My goal coming here was to make the sort of relationships that my parents made when they were in school, the kind of friends that will last me a lifetime and that I will always be able to come back to. I think I am in the process of doing this, but my knee jerk instinct to protect myself from pain is telling me that this is a bad idea. Is it better to have a whimsical trip and live with surface and fleeting relationships—but not feel any pain when I leave or to create deeper, meaningful relationships and be a giant blubbering wreck when I leave? Then again, I can take the timeless wisdom of the classic film Risky Business and just say, “what the fuck.”
