October 11th

The stars aligned today against my favor. They decided that I needed to miss my doctor's appointment. For those of you with sensitive ears, or in this case eyes, I am sorry for what I am about to say/type. Fuck me! Out of all the nights to run updates it had to be last night. Normally it doesn't matter, but last night it did. My computer Rikki updates itself at three in the morning every so often. The problem with this is that it resets the computer aka logs me out of my session aka the alarm program is not running aka Mary sleeps through her appointment aka fuck my life. In the States, oh well, big deal, you can do it tomorrow. In France, uh oh you're in trouble. This appointment was planned long in advanced since you are one of many students that must acquire the French medical insurance. Shame on you for not being a part of the European Union. I ended up waking at 9:40 am, freaking out, and basically running to the medical center. It normally takes me about forty minutes to an hour to walk there, I arrived in thirty minutes. I explained my situation to the receptionists who explained to me that the situation was not good. No crap. They found an opening the following Friday, the 19th, at 9:30 am and reserved the appointment for me. Then something unexpected happened; they asked if I had eaten breakfast. I told them no, to which they asked if I preferred coffee or hot chocolate. I told them hot chocolate. They then lead me to a small dining room and, with smiles, gave me a small breakfast with a cup of hot cocoa. It was kind, very kind. I relaxed, after thanking them, and enjoyed what had been given to me. I was still miffed that I had missed my appointment, but the hot chocolate helped. After I was finished, I left for class for which I arrived perfectly on time. Funny thing though, my teacher never arrived. Apparently she had canceled class. Some French girls informed Elaina, a Latvian exchange student, and me that we could leave. The two of us figured this due to the fact that the rest of the students were going. I texted Paula, who is always thirty minutes late to this lecture due to her Economics class, asking if she wanted to go shopping with me since class was canceled. And I quote, "uh of course!". I just needed to go out, clear my head of the morning chaos, and shopping is always a good fix. We went to the mall, had some rockin' salads for lunch, and browsed the Monoprix supermarket. I ended up buying some nail polish and snacks. I, like every American, has needs, especially for Goldfish crackers and Cookie Crisp cereal. Paula and I then returned to the library, where the internet was still down, before going to our five thirty French language class. This time I didn't make a fool of myself in class, but something awkward did happen. Now I expected this situation to happen between a French student and me, not professor Ardouin. While we were doing a verb exercise, M. Ardouin said what sounded like, "Mary, I am outraged," to me. Ok? What had I done this time? I asked him why he was mad at me, to which he replied with a confused frown. He then pointed to my file binder, more specifically a sticker that decorates the outside of it. The sticker says, "I'm average," with a blue square underneath. It's a souvenir sticker that I had bought at Big Sky Montana during my snowboarding trip last winter. The joke is relating the phrase, "I'm average", which refers to the level of difficulty of scoring with someone, to the blue square. If you ski then you will understand the blue square. If not, keep reading. At ski resorts they use symbols to define the levels of the slopes; they go, in order of easiest to hardest, as follows, green circle, blue square, black diamond, and double black diamond. This is to make it more simple for people to identify which slope they should do. So the joke, which I've now killed by explaining it this way, is that I'm average to score with; reinforced by the image of the blue square. I had the privilege to explain this to my professor, joy. I did a subpar explanation, I stopped at the part about what being average meant, and I believe that professor Ardouin understood. I finished my explanation by saying, "they had I'm easy, but I tend to ride average slopes." Ah my blue humor, just a lovely detail of my personality. I do think that was a good closer though. Now he knows. The more you know (annoying musical flare).