I have officially written about 8,000 words since Sunday. I can't tell you the last time that I slept in my actual bed. BUT, the good news is that the hell week is over and I'm going to be on a plane to Istanbul tomorrow!!! :)

I still have to do laundry and pack....but I can't believe that I'm going back. I know that I haven't slept for a while, but I think I might be too excited to sleep.

AND the mysterious Model UN paper that I have been working on since May is now finally finished!!! YAAAAY.

AH. The fire alarm has been going off for the past hour and a half, and it shows no signs of stopping. I just want to write my paper in peace!

In other news, nothing has really happened lately, especially sleep...that definitely hasn't been happening lately. Just paper writing and presentation-giving (I had two presentations last week an I have three papers this week), but the good news is that its all over on Thursday! And then I get to go to Istanbul :)! Trying to keep looking for that silver lining....

A glimpse of Paris and the past week

Nothing really has happened this week, I really have been in the computer lab or some other study haven before and after class. bleh. Yesterday, I did get out for a bit though. I met up with an Assistant Director from the Model UN conference I do. Her name is Viven, and she is a student at LSE (soooo jealous!). We had a LONG lunch; she was really interesting...and a lot different than I expected. Afterwards, Aaron, Charla, and I went to Hyde Park to study. After an hour or so, we all agreed that we were starving, but didn't want to go back to the study center to eat (because we had been cooped up for a week!). We decided the best plan would be to get on the Tube and just get off at a random stop....and we all jumped on the subway and got off at Camden Town. It was different than the parts of London we were used to. It was definitely a younger, less touristy part of town. It was filled with tiny market stalls with shop keeps selling cheap food, clothes, home goods, etc. It was pretty neat to see another facet of London.

In a few minutes, I'm going to go see Hamlet! I'm really excited...to take a break...and because the show is done in a peculiar way: The audience chooses which actor plays which part, and an actor can be chosen to play multiple parts. I'm pretty interested to see how it turns out!

Other than that...OH. I forgot to tell y'all about Paris (Par-eeee)!

Um, well...I'm not really sure what to really say because those four days basically involved a lot of getting lost, riding the metro, attempting to speak bad French to find the RIGHT place to be, and then finally settling on some place completely different.

I did go to Louvre...which was unimpressive to me. I do like to look and admire art, but it was just like any other art museum in the world. But, I went to another museum called: Musee d'Orsay...which was AWESOME. It was a mix of modern art and classical art (because it was the museum that got all of the stuff that didn't belong in the modern art museum OR the Louvre). I also got to see the café were the film, Amélie was shot....pretty cool! And while we were walking around the city, we met a group of young French students. We spoke to them for a while; they were really excited to practice their English and test their knowledge of American pop culture. I also got to see Oscar Wilde's grave (I DID give him a kiss) and Jim Morrison's grave, too! OH, my favorite part of the trip was when a group of us had a picnic of wine, cheese, and crackers below the Eiffel Tower at night. We got watch the beautiful tower "sparkle" while eating REALLY good, cheap cheese. :)

The internet is still AWFUL and deleted my post a few times...so I promise to be patient and post an entry full of pictures SOON.

Countdown to Turkey: 12 days.

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY, GRACIE!!!

"I don’t know how many years on this earth I got left. I’m gonna get real weird with it."

Frank Reynolds, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Back from a fantastic voyage to Paris!

I will write about it later, but I just want to say that it amazed me that I longed for the comfort of London while I was there. I'm hoping that's a good sign and not an indication of my lack of the French language (I learned quite a bit there though).