I reread the last entry I wrote, or some of it.  My visa, almost sorted out?  HA!  A month later, my visa has only JUST been sorted out!  Pray to God this is not a foreshadowing of all my time in France.

So after quite a bit of hassle, here I am with my visa at last.  A little more trouble, and I have my train tickets ready.  I wish they'd let me print them off the Internet; Malissa said the site had that feature new, but I guess not.

So far in preparation, I feel like I've done nothing, but if I look at it overall, I've done more than I think.  It's kind of crept up on me gradually.  We leave this Friday evening and get to Paris at 9:30 in the morning, their time, a.k.a. 2:30 a.m. our time.  I am going to be SO TIRED.  Then we still have to get to the motel and check in.  I am planning to CRASH afterwards.  My body is not going to be happy with me.  Hopefully I'll be able to sleep for a while on the plane.  I think I'd rather be going in the other direction.

So far, I've been worrying over suitcase troubles--should I take one or two?  I'm leaning heavily toward one right now, and bank on purchasing and shipping to get me everything else I need.  The problem will be getting it all back.

Went to dinner tonight at Grand Cafe for a mini-farewell party with the family, nothing big.  The grandparents, my aunt Vicky, and my uncle Mick came.  I got some nice cards from my grandparents and a little money, which will definitely come in handy.

Other things we've done in preparation (I'm trying to make this fairly comprehensive, as an introduction to all my adventures):  we've been out shopping--went out to get an adapter/converter yesterday, and were told to "buy it at the airport" when I get there.  One problem down, maybe.  Looked into international cell phone deals and finally, after quite a bit of deliberation (drove that poor salesgirl a little nuts, I think) decided against it (she still missed out on a sale that day).  We'll renew when I come back in June and get new phones then.  Tomorrow, I'm going to the mall to try and find a little shoulder-strap purse that is smaller and lighter than my big beaded purse now, where I can just carry around a few things.

I can't believe how soon I'll be leaving.  It's only just starting to sink in, really.  I won't watch my own TV again for four months...won't sit on this couch again for four months...I won't sleep in my comfy waterbed for four months...I'm gonna miss my bed...oh yeah, and I guess my friends and family, too.  ;)

I've been looking around and trying to decide what to pack, now that we've decided to go with one bag.  I need clothes to go from September till the end of December, and I also need enough clothes so I don't have to wash them out every day once I move into the dorms and have to pay FOUR EUROS FOR EVERY LOAD OF LAUNDRY.

Ally and I have been talking a bit and are trying to decide what to go see, but I've been more worried about getting TO Paris first, not what we'll do once we're actually there.  Now that all that's settled, we're talking about what we ought to see, but I just have the normal big tourist traps, and that's about it:  Eiffel Tower (obviously), Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, go down the Champs-Elysées...I wanted to try to get out to Versailles, but I don't know if that will happen.  We've got a few days, but I expect we'll spend most of Saturday sleeping.  We'll just see.  Anyone have any bright suggestions?

-K

D'you know, I kind of had fun playing with this theme today.  Has anyone tried those new Xanga Themes?  This one happened to be pretty ugly when I pulled it up.  It had a pretty flower for a background, but the box around the words was bright orange.  But I've been wanting a solid box around my entries, so I decided to see what I could do with it.  It was really frustrating for a while, because there were still these bright orange lines on the side that wouldn't go away.

I was about to ask why someone would put orange and black together, but then I remembered what high school I went to.

And grade school.  And--what were Parkside's colors?  Do schools just have a thing for the orange-and-black?  Really, they're not attractive together.  I don't even remember what our mascot was in junior high.  I've just about wiped junior high from my memory.  I remember in Mr. Gilbert's class, I'd go in and eighth graders would have scrawled "YO MR. G!" on the board.  I remember Mr. Page--not his class as well as him, because I worked with his wife at the zoo.  Don't remember her name, though, for some reason.  After I had him, I always thought of her as "Mrs. Page," even though we always called the zookeepers by their first names.  I went back into Parkside for something not long ago, and I barely remembered anything.  It was weird.  Like vertigo.  I've been back to Brigham a few times since I left and I got all nostalgic and wished some of my teachers were there to visit, and of course I'd remember West--I've been there to help with the French Club's Christmas party, and that was fun.

I remember my junior high teachers.  I liked them, for the most part.  I just kind of skipped over the building itself.  Wasn't that where you got popcorn on Fridays, or something?

So I finished my cleaning.  I ended up cleaning more than I thought I would, but my rough draft is almost done, so I figured, why not?  The house needs it, ugh.  There was literally, like, a pile of dirt by the door where it keeps blowing in--probably from construction.  Still, though, I have to wonder how long it's been since anyone's cleaned there.

Woke up this morning to hear BANG BANG BANG BANG over my head.  It sounded like someone was adjusting the bed.  I tried to go back to sleep, but for the next three hours, people were banging around up there.  I dozed after a while, but I was grumping at people in my dreams about making too much noise.  Kind of like that time Larissa was knocking on the door and I was mad at her in my dream.  :)

Really should go try to do some work now.  The conference is going to be here before I know it, and my speech still sucks.

-K

Made another discovery about this version of Persuasion.  Sir Walter Elliot is Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Interesting change.  Sir Walter's a big pompous jerk.  Well, not a jerk, but pompous and pretty self-absorbed.

By the way, this was a pretty bad adaptation, despite its rating.  They screwed up the whole ending, which is the best part, and condensed, like, three or four scenes into this really weird running thing, where Anne goes chasing after Wentworth, up and down and up the street again.  And the whole speech that she made that I liked him overhearing was moved to a completely different scene (where he didn't overhear it).  Made me mad.  It was like they were just cramming it all in, like, "Oh, ending time!"  I really hope the 1995 one actually gets the ending right.