I've always heard it was possible to study...I've just never been any good at it.

Okay so there's not tons of interesting things happening in my life to report.

So the school has this rule, where we all have to take a test in each class before the 16th of March. That seems fine and dandy right? well, when you have 5 classes, and each of them pic a dif day..you also think, "sweet, I don't need to study for more than one a night"..that is until you realize they are all spread apart to be very inconvenient. I had two tests last week in Langue; oral and written (oral=we had to perform a skit...some things never change, written=two articles, answer questions about them) 2moro, I have a test over the poets we've discussed so far in litterature, and honestly when we asked her what to study, she gave us nothing, NOTHING to go off of, so Im re-reading notes, and wishing I had a highlighter, and praying for the best. (hence why I am home on the night of Mardi Gras)
Thursday I have a test in phonetics, that I am hoping will be the easiest of all the tests to come. We have to count syllables in words (which the french do this by vowels, and weirdly. ex: bien is one syllable here) and do other phonetically inclined things...
My next test isn't until Monday, but low and behold it is in History, which is going to be the one I panick about the most, because we have taken about 6 pages of notes for one chapter, and this lady means business with dates, names, places, the more specific knowledge the better.
Tuesday I will have a test in traduction, and honestly I don't think it'll be that bad, but who knows.
Thursday and Friday are two more langue tests; oral and written again (oral this time will be a listening exercise followed by us responding...and will take place in the language lab, the written I'm guessing will be similiar to before, but idk.

now I know this is all complaining, but deal with it. it's my blog and i'll complain if I want to ;)

So for the good things:
-Liana and I will be hopping a train (as long as we buy tickets soon..) on Friday late morning/early afternoon to Paris, where we will meet up with Leah, and her friend Anna. Friday will be spent exploring and being touristy, Saturday we plan on waking up early, and heading off on the RER to Versailles. =) Sunday we plan to head back fairly early to get in enough time to rest and study for history.
-the weather for the past few days has been Ah-Mazing. and by that I mean blue skies, and barely cloudy, cold at night, but it got probably close to 60*F today. This makes being in class kind of hard, but I'll manage.
-I've actually been able to sleep at night now. I think it's because I am dead tired by the time I lie down that it just happens, but I'm still averaging about 6 hours a night, which I am perfectly happy with for the time being.
-Getting a 16 on my written test in langue. =)
-Leah is engaged! Zach (her bf from home) flew to france for his spring break, and surprised her with the question on Saturday, and of course she said yes. The ring is beautiful, and they couldn't ask for a better place to spend the first week of their engagement together. Good luck to you both. =)

the weird:
-I wore zebra tights today with a black skirt and as I was walking home with Liana a random french guy passes us n goes "zebra" (except with french creeper accent it sounds more like zeh-brah..not zee-bra)
-my traduction prof wore a shirt that said "buzzkill" on it. and I couldn't help but thinking, yes, your class is. ;)

The sort of bad:
-French grading. Okay, it's not bad, but it's CONFUSING, and gives you a heart attack. I am starting to obsess over it, and have emailed my french adviser at home asking wut everything transfers back as, but to calm my nerves til I hear from him, Liana has sent me this:    http://www.consulfrance-miami.org/spip.php?article1171
-I hardly ever drink water here, mainly because I don't have a reusable water bottle, and there are 0 water fountains in France.
-I drink beer now, yes you read that right; now I'm not saying I will ever prefer it to the stuff I was used to before, but I can now tolerate it.(and I still very much prefer drinks like the pina colada I had the other night to celebrate Leah's engagement!)
-macaroons, Okay, I was told these these are the most delicious thing you'll ever taste, and maybe it's cuz I had no idea what to expect, but I tried one, and just...idk it wasn't my thing. maybe it's cuz I don't like sweets as much as the french seem to, but I'll stick to pain au chocolat thanks.

As always, I miss everyone at home, and this week I've been in a particular funk I'd rather get out of. I can't explain it very well, and won't bother boring you all with the details, but I promise to try looking on the bright side of everything, and when that fails, I promise to use the advice forever burned in my skull from cheerleading camp freshman year of high school "fake it til u make it" as in. pretend it's true, and eventually it will be....if only that worked on all marks of life.

a few deservable congratulations are in order:
-Leah and Zach, congrats on the new engagement, I am soooooo happy for you. Zach, it was nice meeting you this week, and Leah I can't wait to girl talk this topic up over drinks in paris. =)
-Jenelle, I'm very proud of you for not letting the job you are at affect you in a bad way, and now you will be starting a new (and hopefully better) one in just a matter of weeks. Congrats. I wish I were there to celebrate in a more official way with you.  Just stay out of ypsi ;)

one last thing; I haven't heard from a few of you lately, and would VERY much appreciate getting emails, constantly updating me. be mundane and boring, be exciting and elaborate. I don't care which one you are, just do it, type it out, and send it to me =)

Now it's back to studying (maybe)
Night.