Here I am, at the library, suppose to be working, instead thinking and staring at the computer screen...I still have the taste of stale coffee on my tongue.

I've been thinking lately of why I feel so detached from my university, the degrees I'm pursuing, the classes I'm taking...I know it's simply that instead of taking classes someone tells me I should take, that give me information that someone tells me I should know, I feel I would be more happy, more benefited if I could decide what it was I wanted to learn, be taught, etc. Ironically, as I'm finding, that's what most graduate schools ask one to do...teach one's self.

But I digress on to other things like the fact that all my study abroad business has been taken care of and the only thing that remains is the dreaded visa! I've pretty much decided on housing through locaflat's student housing offers. The rooms may be small, but for some reason the idea of a tiny space like that sounds cozy to me and tres parisienne(excuse the lack of an accent). Well, not so much parisienne, so to speak, but more so "foreign student living life in paris is a tiny abode" parisienne. I just like the idea...for some reason. Most importantly I like the price. So, I'll book that and my plane ticket and most of my initial expenses beyond tuition will be covered. Fabulous.

I was talking to my French friend a few days ago about her recent loves and it just got me so lonely...which is rather random. I do believe it is the combination of speaking to her here in Texas, with her lovely accent(an accent that she, unfortunately, would like to be rid of), that got be thinking about things that are nothing but I wish were something...as a result, I feel so yearning it's insane. Actually, I just realized what else it is that's got me in the slump. I finally got my copy of "Princess Tamtam" in the mail and, for the many who aren't Josephine Baker fans like I am, it is the third and last movie Baker ever starred in. To my dismay, the film was something of a reworking of the movie that preceeds it "Zouzou"(which, in my opinion, is the better film). Anyway, the general idea or story of both films is that Josephine is playing a savage from "enter some random country being colonized by France in the 1920s/30s that fascinated/disgusted the French for its exotic/uncivilized nature" that is spotted by some random, middled-aged Frenchman for her beauty/talent, whatever. The guy then decides take her home and civilize her, she falls in love with him, but he just sees her as a means to an end, thus she never gets the guy although everyone envies/loves her. "Zouzou" is actually a little more complicated a story than what I described, but the most important part is the "she's exotic/savage beauty, becomes rich, never gets guy." Amazingly, this is the theme in each movie...all three of them. Personally I find this bizarre, because, although in "Zouzou" it actually makes sense why she doesn't get the guy...the fact that who ever directed/wrote/etc. these films decided to use the same general idea is absurd. This gets me thinking about how the very act of doing this speaks volumes about how the French viewed those of African descent and, from places like India, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the 1930s and onward...viewed more as a commodity than a human being that can be desired, loved, wanted. The parallel I feel in my experiences is, obviously, giving me hell...

I'll give it a few days and it will pass...at least temporarily.