Looking on the sunny side (up)

I’m currently eating what might be the most delicious omelette in the history of Ever (note: every omelette seems this way to me) and pondering the wonder of eggs. It's like God said "here, students, I'll give you a cheap, individually-packaged, single-serving of protein that lasts for weeks with or without refrigeration, is easy to cook and somehow still tastes delicious." In the last month, I’ve used eggs to make fried egg baguette sandwiches with Dijon, fried rice and stir fried noodles with egg, quiche, and savory crepes. Moral of the menu: eggs rule. And right now, so does life. The train strikes are finally finished, so I can once again look forward to a predictable commute. Our heat and hot water are back—Hallelujah! I’m caught up on sleep, for once. The weather is still grey, but it has at least been clear enough to allow for a quick jog the last two days. This afternoon’s Middle Ages class is cancelled to accommodate a field trip to the Bibliothèque Nationale’s King Arthur exhibit. Basically, an all-around "woohoo!"

On the academic front: after a bad midterm and a retake that I didn’t feel went much better, I found out yesterday that I actually did ok the second time around and will therefore not be failing out of grad school (yet). The other lit students and I celebrated with a lovely late afternoon beer and pastry picnic on some stairs near Passy, where we could gaze upon the Eiffel tower without being hassled by tourists and trinket-sellers (although we did get hassled by a few old ladies who mistook us for hooligans, who told us not to litter when we were done…Passy’s a rich, old, and stuck-up neighborhood). Also, after two months of stagnation and seemingly backward progress (as in, at times, I couldn’t even form sentences in English) my spoken French is finally getting noticeably better. As is my written French, particularly from a grammar/stylistics standpoint. I’m getting better at self-correcting when I make mistakes, and at catching errors when I edit my own papers. I still have a long way to go before I’m where I want to be, but it’s encouraging.