Je bois du café...toujours

Je trouve que c'est si difficile pour moi si je ne bois pas le café pour plus qu'un jour...ça, c'est terrible! Je suis une addicte! 

J'ai fini Negrophilia et en lisant je trouve beaucoup d'analoques aux situations de cette epoque et de cette epoque-ci.  Ça me fait penser à les conditions de la société maintenant, et comment la société impose ses idées sur les individuels qui ne le realisent pas. 

Dans d'autres nouvelles, j'essaie trouver un stage à Paris pendant mes études et, au ce moment, je trouve cette cherche être tellement difficile.  En récrivant en français je concevais que le CV français est plus simple que notre CVs, mais j'ai peur de mon français n'est assez bonne pour travailler en France....ugggh. 

I guess we'll see. 

In the gallery...

I'm am, right now, sitting in the art gallery, insidiously aware of the presence of two individuals who, after being told the gallery rules, gave me the "quelle ridicule!" before casually walking throughout the gallery repeatedly.  My response is simple--in my head, of course--"have you ever been to a museum or gallery?"  Oh art majors... we are so unbelievably critical and self-aggrandizing... thank you Pollock for your contribution to the American psyche of the artist. 

On a lighter note, my macbook does work the MIP(has to do with my work, remote access to data and stuff), I just have to use Firefox instead of Safari.  How grand...I still, however, have to work from the library...but at least not on the library computers.  This is most pleasing. 

For my modernism art history class I have to choose a book that has to do with modernism in art, and...although I was interested in a book by Gino(the futurist...what was his full name?  I've forgotten) I remembered another book I bought over the summer that, due to craziness in regard to the UNT post office got sent back, by Petrine Archer-Straw who I read about on the Columbia University Art History department website (they suggest for perspective students to have a specific professor whose work interests them, so I was sifting through all the faculty when I stumbled upon her, who happens to be a visiting professor, if I remember correctly, so that's a slight bust) named Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black culture in the 1920s.  This book is insanely interesting and fits perfectly with the topic of modernism, so I have chosen it for my book review--I'm actually very excited about it and will probably finish it by the end of this week if I have the chance. 

Things are pretty boring....other than needing only to buy my plane ticket and book my housing, everything is smooth and relaxed....plus it's raining outside frequently...very nice. 

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.

Hello denton! Two more days!

J'irai à Denton dans deux jours, et je suis très heureuse.  Puis, j'ai deux semaines après les cours recommencent.  Donc, j'aurai beaucoup de temps pour faire tous les choses pour ma semestre a Paris: payer SAC $100 et voir mon advisor a la fac française.  J'espère que tout ira bien.  

Encroachment

Ok, so the summer is ending soon and I'm more than a little relieved.  Honestly, I don't think I've had any particularly enjoyable summers lately, they're just not that interesting or relaxing...ever. 

Today I finished "The Outsider" and I must say, it was very thought provoking book.  It's made me evaluate so much, the way I go about things, the way I view and accept the world.  I'm very quickly leaning more and more towards existentialism and idea that pursue meaning in life is futile.  I'd come to the conclusion a few months ago that the main reason behind my dissatisfaction with people, life spawned from the fact my wanting so badly for them to have some kind of meaning.  When I find that they don't, it's new destruction for me.  I've never been able to quite understand it until recently... but maybe the reason I can't find meaning in these things is that they are wholly devoid of it to begin with..? What a concept... when I came to this hypothesis I was so relieved, so contented.  It explains so much as to the way I approach everything in such a frenzied manner... however, I've concluded I won't be so anxious as to take this in completely as truth.  What I will do instead, though, is read some more and analyze and experience and live, after which point I'll be able to make some kind of solid decision.  It is nice to finally feel a little more calmed, although my head is swirling with thoughts. 

I've got a few books on my agenda currently, some of them I haven't gotten yet.  I found The Stranger today at B&N for a reasonable price, so I'll be reading that. Something else I found was French Vogue! Isn't that interesting? I can't believe I found French Vogue in Houston, well, I guess it's not so shocking but... still.  I also found another French magazine that I had to buy.  Got to love those fashion magazines. 

I'll be working from home today, so it'll be a lazy day.  I won't have to get up so early and, thus, am free to linger in sleepless wonder for a few hours before falling back to sleep. Yippee!

Here's my current "to read" list:

The Stranger   A. Camus  DONE

Naked Lunch  W.S. Bourroghs 

The Howling and other poems  A. Ginsberg DONE

Anything by Sartre (Nausea) ALMOST

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell W. Blake 

The Doors of Perception  A. Huxley

Death on the Installment Plan L. F. Celine

Macbook

Well, as my good old Compaq Presario slowly, after two years, moves to the point of uselessness, I'd been thinking more and more about getting something that was both not as heavy and not as crash prone--bringing me to dear old apple.  Now, I've been wanting an Apple computer since the days of the orange and white Apple design.  Soo, after much brooding I made the plunge yesterday, buying the white macbook with base configurations.  So far it's really great... except for the sharp edges...sort of hurts when I rest my wrists on the keyboard as I type.  Either way...it's a beautiful machine. Now I have to get use to how things work--is it just or is there no right clicking?  Also...I want a new background..and other things. OH! I want to get a skin for it too...that would be fun. How I love new laptops. 

Chaque fois...

Chaque fois que je suis allée au travail, je suis en colère car...apparemment, je fait le même chose des autres, mais pour moins d'argents. C'est ridicule! Ça me fait penser aux gens qui payent salaire minimum. Moi, j'ai beaucoup d'expérience, plus que tous les personnes qui travaillent avec moi. C'est stupide.

J'en ai marre. J'en viens au fait où la situation me dégoût. Je sens que cette société exploite moi. Si terrible...

In other news, I have someone I need to contact but I've no idea what to say to him. A while ago I would have been so excited, had so many things to say, but now...I don't know--people are too much to deal with most of the time.