Dear Universe

I trust, after the events of last week, that all my karmic debts are marked as "paid in full." I fully expect to be reincarnated in my next life as a goddamn movie star. Someone along the lines of Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn would do nicely.

Thanks

Anne

oh god that trip was hard. Monster-layover-in-Chicago hard. Wearing-the-same-clothes-for-three-days hard. Grand-total-of-eight-hours-fitful-sleep-by-the-time-I-arrive-at-my-flat-in-the-middle-of-the-night hard. Spent the flight to London listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue album and missing the Girl. Then promptly coming down with the mother of all chest colds, the kind where you cough so hard you pull a muscle in your neck.
Have been "experiencing culture shock" in the same way a person who's run over by a truck is "involved in an accident." Have managed to lock myself out of my apartment once (because I was so jet-lagged I didn't realize I was turning the key in the wrong direction); have nearly locked myself into the bathroom twice (who puts a deadbolt on the bathroom door??); found myself curled up on my bed sobbing "I can't do this!"; and yesterday was Watch Anne Fail to Catch the Bus Day.
Not that there weren't bright spots. Chocolate mousse Pims have been the only thing keeping me sane. On the plane to Paris I sat next to a drop-dead-gorgeous British Indian girl who literally threw her arms around me and buried her head in my shoulder because she's afraid of flying (she must have been real terrified, because I reeked by that point). Went to a movie Saturday, Ma vie en l'air, which was good, because it mostly kept my mind off the previous Saturday night that I had spent with the Girl. My contact person, an English teacher at one of the schools I'm working at, took me out to dinner with her husband and daughter. Juliette is probably no more than four and kept singing "I like to move it move it!" in adorable four year old manner. Also went to a flea market type thing in the country, very picturesque, but it convinced me that there is some universal law requiring junk sales to circulate used copies of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Not Without My Daughter. And today was a good day; nothing bad/humiliating/frustrating happened. I managed to catch the bus--twice! I was not made fun of by adolescent boys in the park (Verdun is not a college town, but there are two lycees, which means the streets are roamed by packs of feral teenagers). I met the principal of my school and got some paperwork done. Go me!