It has been an insane few weeks. I was ill to the point that I was rendered a barely-functional-human-being when I flew back to Paris. A friend I have known since freshman year of college was also arriving around the same time. Since my disease-addled brain got in a brawl with jetlag, my reaction to her arrival at my apartment was mostly, “Huhhh? WHO YOU? WHY YOU IN PARIS?” …even though I had been planning for/awaiting her arrival for months.

Since I was trying not to die and also had things to do that consumed what little energy I had, my hostess skills consisted of, “Well, you have a map. You know where I live. See you tonight.”

I also had this whole crisis moment surrounding my courses for this semester and only 3 out of my 4 courses are the same ones I was enrolled in last Friday. I still haven’t finished the various projects I tasked myself with for the first two weeks back in Paris, even though those two weeks are rapidly coming to a close. Oh, and I’m starting an exciting new work study job this week.

In short, things have been manic and stressful in a way I didn’t see coming. Part of the problem is that there are just so damn many things to do, I keep losing track of all those things. I keep adding to this problem by insisting that I have heaps of time because the semester has just gotten started, so I have nearly nothing to do in the way of coursework right now. This last part of that is true, but somehow I have acquired a life here. I don’t really know when that happened, to be honest.

Right now I should be getting dressed for a theme party that has my name written all over it because it is a rare moment where my pink feathered eyelashes are appropriate to the situation, hosted by the glorious Erin of The Post-Modern Talko. All I want to do is curl into bed with some coffee or tea and maybe finish just enough productive work to justify reading until I pass out. And when I say, “All I want to do,” I mean, “This is what I am going to do.” (Then I’ll live vicariously through Erin’s pictures, pretending I’m there and out and about and not being a loser who sits in bed to read for fun on a Friday night.)

Last weekend, when I finally did venture out with my friend, I got a little reprieve from the mucus holding my body hostage in this adorable little cafe that proved well worth the trek out into the cold. Sitting there, I kept thinking, “I live in Paris and I am drinking what might just be the world’s greatest hot chocolate in a cozy place whose cups and decor can best be described as What Anthropologie Wishes It Looked Like. Life is good.”

Newly added to my list of Favorite Places In Paris (& probably the rest of the world too)

Other great things this week included winning 20sb’s “Best of the 2011 Featured Bloggers” award and getting feedback on a paper from last semester that was so positive and encouraging that I reread it about a dozen times and I might just have to tape it to my wall so that I can cope with the inevitable moments where graduate school seems to exist only to destroy me.

In spite of this nagging feeling that I have a thousand things to do, I have a lot to be grateful for and excited about this year. 2012 is off to a shit start for several people that I care about, which makes it that much more important for me to appreciate all of the amazing things that are happening right now… even if it does feel impossible to sort through and stay on top of everything.

I keep drafting posts and abandoning them — posts about my new year’s resolution to “Be A Better Person” or the identity crisis that has accompanied living in a place where I don’t know the language, a place where I have suddenly lost my words — because of this whole thing where I can’t keep track of everything that is happening right now.

This is the kind of problem that I will happily accept.

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