Odds and Ends

• A Ring of Endless Light is just as good as I remembered. I may or may not be trying to write a novel myself, and my goal is to have it make other people feel like L'Engle's books make me feel. Her turn of phrase is absolutely wonderful.
• My Churchill class is officially over. The exam was this evening, and it was short and sweet. I wish my other classes were organized this way, because I really don't want to write three long papers in the next month. I know I'll survive, and being a native English speaker will help for two of them, but this semester has not been good for my work ethic. I'm going to have a rude awakening when I get back to UVa.
• I've been short of breath for the past few days and I'm not sure why. Hopefully it's nothing to be concerned about.
• The washing machines are so small here. Ideally this would mean that I would actually wash my clothes once a week and don't let them pile up in my suitcase until I'm out of clean underwear, but what it actually means is that I wear everything I own, and when I have no clothes left, I load it up with as much as it can handle, then wait impatiently in my pajamas for about two-three hours, which is an average wash and dry cycle combined.
• Beautiful weather today. It's supposed to continue into tomorrow, so I will try to wake up early enough to walk to class. It's a sure thing that I'll be walking home, anyway.
• Current flail topics: The Legend of Korra, the first episode of which might be released early online by Nickelodeon next Saturday, The Hunger Games movie, which I am entirely too excited about for someone who was pretty ambivalent about the books, trip-planning, and of course, going to Disneyland next week.
• Even five-hour time differences make interacting with your U.S. friends difficult. I got to Skype with Sarah and IM with Pooja, which was lovely, but I miss hearing from my other friends. And let's not talk about California; my parents and I chat fairly regularly, but eight/nine hours (eight for the moment, since France is not yet on Daylight Savings Time) is no picnic.
• Peanut butter is the best. I don't know how the French survive without it. Nutella is delicious, but it is most definitely not the same thing.
• So I am about halfway through my study abroad semester already. How did that happen?!