Still got the mojo

Yes that's right, I've still got it! And by "it" I mean I can still write. I'm taking a fiction writing workshop and it's pretty much the coolest class ever, but until Friday we haven't had to write an actual story. We've just been writing short exercises that aren't really supposed to go anywhere. But for class tomorrow, we're supposed to have an actual, full length story. Of course that length wasn't specified, nor was the topic. And if you know me, you know that unspecified lengths and topics freak me out. There really isn't anything you could tell me that would be worse than "write about whatever you want." I find that very difficult. I need rules, I need guidelines, I need specifications. I don't work well without parameters. But in spite of all this and spending a whole weekend procrastinating because I was scared to actually sit down and write, I just finished a story! I will not be posting it here because it's an extremely rough draft. I'm just so happy that I actually finished something I had to share the good news.

Switching topics now. We had Alain's birthday dinner last night at a pretty swanky Italian restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Alain is our director, if you don't know. The food was good and the ambiance was really nice, but we ended up paying more for the dinner than we all expected. It wasn't anybody's fault, it was just miscommunication, mostly. It was just sort of irritating because I ended up paying almost 18 euros for the dinner, and that was WAY more than I wanted to spend.

Dinner tonight was much cheaper. Leslie and I went to a Chinese place close to my house (you know you missed our town, even after one day) and it was only like 9. And they gave us an aperatif! They have the BEST aperatifs at that place. I don't know what it is, but it's pink and tastes a little fruity and has the most delicious berry in it that I've ever had in my life. Seriously, they just drop a giant berry into the glass, and I have no idea what it is. I think somebody said it was cassis, but I don't know what that is. Anyway, it's amazing and I would highly recommend it.

Today was a pretty lazy day. Other than dinner, I only left the house to check out Leslie's new apartment, which is gorgeous. I hung out there for a while with her and Emily, then came home and procrastinated until dinner. But now everything is done! I think I finished everything on the list I posted yesterday. It wasn't an extremely productive weekend, but I got everything accomplished that had to be done (except the scrapping), so I guess that's what counts. I'm really looking forward to not having class Wednesday or Friday since I'm going to be firm with Alain tomorrow and tell him I'm NOT going back to the Sorbonne, so those will be my days for taking photos and scrapping. I am so pumped for all this free time, it's really gonna rock.

I'm also pretty pumped to go to bed. It's freezing here and I'm tired. Here's a useful French expression, and then I'm gonna go: Il fait froid d'un canard. Translated literally, it means "It's a duck's cold" or "It's the cold of a duck," roughly. It just means, it's pretty frickin' cold.

And there's your phrase of the day.

Night, all.