Une matinée stressante!

I don't know if that's really the way you say 'stressful' in French, but boy, am I glad this morning is over. I successfully completed my first midterm in France... by which I mean that the paper didn't blow out the window, my hand didn't fall off, I didn't have a complete mental breakdown halfway through question #2, and there was no cataclysmic natural disaster to prevent me from scribbling down some kind of response to each question. I'm not saying I think I aced it or anything. That remains to be seen.

I'm pretty sure I muddled up the title of at least one of the institutions in the CEE - how are you supposed to keep them all straight when their names are all the same? The Conseil européen and the Commission européenne and the Communauté européenne - and in the end, what's the point of having all of those different groups of Important Political People when all of them just discuss and propose and recommend (talk talk talk) and then only one committee actually votes to DO anything??? But that's just my oversimplified analysis... (Man, if the politicians of the European Union could see things as clearly as I do, how much easier would those debates be about the European Constitution and the entrance of Turkey into the EU? Ha ha, just kidding.)

Anyway, I got... oh... 4 hours of sleep last night because I decided, due to other pressing engagements (i.e. attempting to bake pumpkin bread without baking soda or any other leavening agent, which I don't advise unless you think bread about as dense as a pumpkin itself sounds appetizing), not to start studying until 10 pm or so. Ah, priorities. The good news is, French coffee is adequately strong to sustain me through the rest of the afternoon. Oh, and as for the pumpkin bread, don't worry, it won't go to waste - since my French family is gone on vacation this week and there's nobody to cook for me, I'll probably get hungry enough eventually to eat it. Either that, or I'll save it for Thanksgiving and we can use the loaf to play the traditional game of touch football while the turkey's cooking. (After all, American footballs are hard to come by in France...)

Um, yeah. So... the other interesting event of the morning was my SECOND news interview in French. I'm gonna be a celebrity by the time I leave - "look, it's that American girl trying to speak French on TV again!" At least this time it wasn't about boats playing a symphony with their fog horns... (Vive la Nuit Blanche!) But it was hard nonetheless to talk about the election en français with a camera in my face. It would help if I could express my thoughts about the election coherently in my native tongue - even in my own mind! I'm so confused by now that when I find out who won I'll probably start celebrating and mourning at the same time. It's Bush? Yay for the sake of fetuses everywhere - boo for the demise of international politics. It's Kerry? Yay for hydrogen fuel cell research - boo for a fat new health care bureaucracy. Bush? Yay for the right to bear arms - boo for the proposed gay marriage ban. Kerry? Yay for an end to the ballooning deficit - boo for wanting to keep a Social Security program that doesn't work. Oh, I could go on. At any rate, I hope I managed to say something decent, because French people already have a bad enough opinion of Americans' political awareness without me adding to it.

Still, this reminded me of the intense battle (slash propaganda-sound bite gag fest) going on in the US at the moment as the final day approaches. Filling out my absentee ballot was pretty anticlimactic, really. I'd started to feel like it was already over... Maybe it's nice that I don't have to see the ugly finale in person... But now I'm WAY more nervous to see what happens in the election - now that I've realized how close it is, the suspense is killing me! And unlike people who actually support one candidate over the other, I already know how the result will affect me -whatever happens, I'll be disappointed! Ha ha. But seriously, I predict major drama. Court battles. Scandals. Pregnant hanging chads and undoubtedly a new electronic version - a Mysterious Paper Trail (or lack thereof) and an Election Hacker and new assertions of stolen votes. If you ask me, either candidate that wins has stolen the election. Either that, or bought it. With all the garbage flying around the "news" these days, even the most diligent, honest, devoted voter couldn't dig deep enough to find a shred of truth on which to found an "educated decision." No, this election is going to be determined by whose make-up was better in Debate #3, whose advisors' word choice was better in the final 50 sound bites, whose name looks more presidential on the ballot.

Wow, I'm getting cynical in my old age, aren't I? And this doesn't even have anything to do with France. Well, not a whole lot, anyway. (I'm like the candidates during the debates - give me a topic, any topic, and I'll find a way to start dishing out my latest talking points... Ha ha.) Revenons à nos muttons ("let's get back to our sheep," that is, the matter at hand), if you happen to get local Nantes news, the interview's playing on channel 6 tomorrow at 8:40. Since I know that applies to a lot of you. ;)

Well, next time I write I should have some new travel stories - I'm leaving for Montpelier (yeah, beaches! sun!! sud de France, woohoo!!!) tomorrow morning. Early. So, that said, I think I'm going to go take a nap!